In this category of criminals must be inscribed those clever swindlers, who set the whole world talking of their exploits: Madame Humbert, Lemoine, and the cobbler-captain of Köpenick.
Sometimes, especially in political or commercial criminals, we find cases of an auto-illusion, of which the author of the crime is as much a victim as the public. Sometimes it is some device or mechanism which an inventor is convinced he has invented or is about to invent, an enterprise, in which the promoter imagines he will gain enormous wealth. Sometimes it is a trick in which the cupidity of the victims and their readiness to swallow promises of large and immediate profits play as important a part as the ability of the swindler. Sometimes it is a gigantic hoax, in which the deviser himself becomes keenly interested and for the carrying out of which he spends as much talent and energy as would suffice, if employed honestly, to acquire considerable wealth; but the swindler delights in his ingenious fraud as though he were taking part in some thrilling drama.
A typical instance is that of a certain C... who was imprisoned about twenty years ago for defrauding a woman. My father undertook to cure him while in prison and was able to follow him in his subsequent career. This C... was a young man of good family, intelligent, honest, and a good linguist. His countenance was pleasing and bore no trace of precocious criminality. At the age of twenty he developed an unrestrained love of gambling and in order to indulge this vice, promised to marry a rich woman considerably older than himself, from whom he borrowed large sums, on the understanding that they should be paid back. However, shortly afterwards, he fell in love with a young girl and married her. His ex-fiancée brought legal action against him and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. During this time he shrank from seeing anybody and refused to exercise in order to avoid all contact with his fellow-prisoners. He showed great affection for his wife and declared his intention of turning over a new leaf. The offence he had committed, however seemed to cause him little or no regret, because, as he said, he would never have continued the deception had not his victim shown such willingness to be gulled. From prison he went to London, where lack of funds caused him to perpetrate another swindle, but this time he was able to escape to Naples. Here for twelve years, he worked honestly in a large hotel, but once again a pressing need of money made him engage in a third fraud of considerable importance, for which he is still undergoing imprisonment.