London, and So On: Low Company! 131
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between the criminal and the honest classes, or who imagines that even
a notorious breaker of the law is devoid of all good qualities, or per contra that
he who is known as a good man and a law-abiding citizen has no criminal
tendencies whatsoever. Just as we all carry millions of germs waiting
for their opportunity in our moments of physical weakness, so do
criminal tendencies lurk in the best of men. I have discovered from my
own experience (and I am a more or less normal type) that nothing short
of constant vigilance will keep a man from succumbing to temptations of
one kind or another. Unchecked passions, the gradual and almost
unperceived acquisition of expensive habits or tastes, the desire to
shine or to go one better than one's neighbour, any of those factors
may bring an otherwise well-intentioned man into conflict with the law
and so to social ruin. Half the impulses of mankind are honest and
law-abiding; that is why we have police. But half are concerned with
short cuts to getting what one wants; that is why we need police.
There
occurs to me the case of I. B. (the initials are misleading). He was a
mild-mannered, quiet-living teacher in an elementary school whose only
diversion was the study of the classics and who denied himself the
smallest luxury in order to assist those poorer than himself. He had
come to the notice of a diamond merchant who took him into his
employ. Eventually he set up in business on his own account, and his
industry, marked ability and reputation for straightforwardness gained
him unlimited credit in the trade.
Then after twenty years of unremitting labour he one
