Note 454 — Chapter II
Henry P. (Henry Pomeroy) Horton translation
As Professor Manouvrier remarks, the case would be entirely different if such criminals killed without plausible motives, if they committed murder without anything but the act in view. The facts show that this is not so. Note the opinion of Flynt. “The taking of life is … [a] deed that he [the professional criminal] regrets more than he has been given credit for. One thinks of the criminal as the man who has no respect for life, as one who takes it without any twitchings of conscience; but this is not the general rule. The business criminal never takes a life, if he can help it.”454