Sidelights on Criminal Matters

By John Cuthbert Goodwin.

“There is good—much good—in every man, and in every woman. Even in cases where it seems non-existent it is but shyly waiting to be coaxed up to the surface. Some there may be, others there will be, who will see in this volume, as in the daily newspapers, the stage, the kinema, and in parts of the Old Testament itself, a veiled incentive towards wrongdoing. With the sensitive, the apprehensive, and all who, speaking perhaps with authority, and not as the scribes, see a healthy purpose in nothing and a sinister motive in everything, I do not attempt to argue. Crime is a difficult subject to handle in such a manner that its presentation satisfies all, offends none, and withholds secrets which prudence demands should remain secrets, but I have endeavoured to incorporate in my mosaic of deeds and misdeeds nothing that is not already known to the criminal but unknown to the majority of the public. I would, however, assure my readers that they need not expect a tedious pageant of ancient exposures masquerading as palate-tickling novelties.”

London: Hutchinson & Co., 1923. 336p.