Blackmail
| Author | R. I. McDonald |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3801100305 |
| Published date | 01 July 1938 |
| Date | 01 July 1938 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Blackmail
By
DET.
INSPECTOR
R.
I.
McDONALD
Instructor,
Metropolitan
Police Detective School
THE word ' blackmail ' is an adopted one as far as our law
is concerned. We find no mention of it in the statutes
or common law. Actually it is a derivative of the old Scottish
word mail, meaning a tax or rent. During the days of strife
on the Scottish border, farmers and small-holders were con-
stantly harassed by roaming gangs of freebooters who de-
manded this mail, usually in the form of cattle, as the price of
immunity from molestation. Hence such payments became
known as the black taxes or black mails. Blackmail, therefore,
seems a fitting name for the present-day crime of extortion
or demanding with menaces.
In its nature blackmail is probably the worst of our crimes.
It
has been variously described by our judges as
"moral
murder,"
"murder
of the
soul"
and
"a
soul-destroying
crime." Only those who have been the victims of the black-
mailer and those who have investigated the sordid details of
the blackmailer's activities can realise how very aptly these
expressions fit the crime.
It
is common knowledge that
victims of the blackmailer are frequently not only financially
ruined,
but
ruined in health and sometimes even brought to
suicide by the blackmailer's demands and threats of exposure.
Without doubt immorality of some kind forms the basis
of most crimes of extortion. Either the victim has been guilty
of some immoral act or has been indiscreet enough to make
associations which have exposed him to accusation of such
conduct. Hence we find that most professional blackmailers
are either prostitutes, male or female (and the former pre-
dominate), or those who live upon the proceeds of prostitution,
directly or indirectly.
The
male prostitute is the worst offender. In almost
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