Donald Campbell's article "The English Criminal" in the The Freewoman was not exactly what I expected. While there are a lot of politically, spiritually, and socially progressive articles in the journal, as I began to read "The English Criminal," I expected a bit of humorous levity. It starts innocently enough taking a jab at English intellectualism; "The cleverest of those who dabble in the 'ologies are liable to lose their sense of proportion" (369). This seemed to me to be a light-hearted criticism of English academics and intellectuals to remind them that no matter the depth of their research in their specialties that there are very obvious and problematic social issues to be seen on any street corner in London. It continues, "Each nation has its own type of criminal, part of its local colour, as an artist might say, and there are certain fundamental truths which apply to thieves of all countries" (369). At this point, I expected there to be less humor and more of the progressive agenda propagating a message along the lines of, "equality for us all, even among our faults, we're not perfect either, we must clean up our streets." However, I was wrong again.

Campbell continues on to say that the English thieves are in fact less violent and more refined than their counterparts in rival nations. He says, "This little fact shows the whole difference between the English thief and his colleagues from Russia, Germany, or Italy....A good thief in this island never kills. Here is where he differs from the Latin or Slav" (370). My immediate thought was, what the hell is a "good" thief? Morally good? No. Mannerly? Well, it's not polite to steal someone's wallet, so that can't be it. Perhaps, successful in that he makes a living and isn't caught? Well, maybe, but Campbell quickly explains that even the best pickpockets get turned in by older, less talented grifters (370). So what is "good" about English thieves, other than that they don't kill (which is obvious because then they'd be called "murderers")?

It seems that Campbell likes "proportion," just as he alluded to in his opening. A "good" thief, to Campbell, is one that is first and foremost English (xenophobe, anyone?) and one that is proportional, or not egregiously violent or greedy. He explains that "English thieves" are not even, in fact, mainly responsible for the rising criminal problem in England! He writes, "England is the happy hunting-ground of the 'fence,' or receiver of stolen goods, and the 'fence' always like to dominate those who serve him....If the Criminal Investigation Department would give more attention to the receivers of stolen property there would not be as much crime in English cities as there is to-day" (370). A "receiver" is certainly not one born a thief--as Campbell states that "[a] thief born a thief lacks foresight and imagination" (370) , or a blue-collar Englishman. One begins to wonder, who is this mysterious "receiver?" Is he even English at all? It seems that his ties to Europe imply a certain knowledge of the continent at large and having liaisons with people outside of England who are anything but proper English gentleman. So, Mr. Campbell points his finger at the government bureaucracy that is in charge of suppressing crime and tells them to leave the English thief alone and focus on the (very likely) non-English "receiver" who at the very least associates illegally with non-English.

Campbell makes one more sly implication that the criminal problem in London does not lie in an Englishman's hands, but, instead, in the poverty stricken hands, homes, and shops of London's immigrants who largely populate its slums, meat-packing districts, and red-light districts. He writes, "Reducing one idea of a possible remedy of the criminal problem to its shortest possible expression, it might be a formula of two words--the simple life--that the vice and ignorance bred between the diseased walls of city slums and in the curtained houses of tenderloins and red-light districts might be cured by a reversion to the simple life" (372). Surely, this is the answer. Have every (English)man return to the "simpl[y English] life." This seems a few rhetorically sly steps short of arguing in favor of ethnic cleansing (though, that's not to say that the Irish nationalists didn't argue for this exact remedy in the early 20th century). On the other hand, perhaps the problem and solution might lie elsewhere. Perhaps the problem lies with "any and all" the people of a country, including Mr. Campbell, who neglect to properly diagnose the social ills indiscriminately infecting the country by pointing their "clean" hands at the outsiders in the social margins as the unclean carriers of the criminal disease.

To be somewhat fairer, Campbell intends to argue that the government is insufficiently remedying the criminal problem in London, and he notes that the country's judges (i.e. the "learned gentleman in wig and gown" [372]) are also not helpful enough. He closes by saying that "medical specialists" are needed in dealing with criminals. I'm not exactly sure what "medical specialists" have to do with eliminating "fences" or those that can violate and betray the security of English borders with illicit goods; however, I don't think Mr. Campbell is entirely aware of his biases either.