ception of the horrible guilt there would be in murder; the power of knowing that we are doing that which will destroy life and your soul, and cause sorrow and terror and every kind of frightful consequence; the power of thinking about this which every sane man possesses. That is the law, as I understand it, which by guilt implies the power of discriminating between right and wrong. That is the test of responsibility."

It was an application, in brief, of the same doctrine that led Mr. Justice Cave to say, on the trial of a man named Brocklesfield at Cheshire,some years ago: "The question is, whether he was insane at the time." This ruling, it will be observed, throws the " 'knowledge of right and wrong" test overboard, and reverts to Chief-Justice Kenyon's language on the trial of Hadfield. another case Queen v. Waretried at Shrewsbury in 1885, Sir Henry Hawkins told the grand jury that, while the prisoner knew what he was doing in committing the crime charged against him, he was assuredly not responsible for the act. In yet another case, Lord Blackburn told a jury that there were "exceptions" to the law laid down after the acquittal of Macnaghten, and that the case before them was one of these. The jury promptly acted on the hint. Only a few years ago, in a murder case at Cardiff, Mr. Justice Lawrence expressly put to the jury as law the proposed statement of Sir James Stephen above quoted.

In

the

Medical men have often been challenged by lawyers to produce a single typical case of moral insanity. A locus classicus of this kind has recently been laid before the British Medico-Psychological Association by Dr. Hack Tuke, one of the most eminent alienists of the century, who has just passed from us by death. We are enabled to conclude this paper by a citation of it. It is without

exception the most extraordinary case on record and may prove of interest-and possibly service - to American lawyers and medical men in their professional conflicts:

ers.

"W. B. was born at Swansea, Wales, on June 26, 1843. In his tenth year he migrated to Canada with his father, stepmother and brothHe was not known to his stepmother until about a fortnight before leaving for Canada, as he had been away at school. His stepmother states that he has been of a sullen disposition ever since she has known him; uncommunicative, idle, sly and treacherous; that at an early age he evinced a disposition to torture domestic animals, and to cruelly treat the younger members of the family.

"On one occasion he took with him his young brother, a lad five or six years of age, ostensibly to pick berries, which grew wild not far away. On arriving at a secluded spot, he removed the clothes from the child, and proceeded to whip him with long, lithe willows, and, not satisfied with this, he bit and scratched the lad terribly about the arms and upper part of the body, threatening that if he made an outcry he would kill him with a table knife, which he had secretly brought with him. The cries of the boy attracted the attention

of a laborer, who promptly came to the rescue and in all probability saved the little fellow's life. Shortly after this act of cruelty to his brother, B. was apprehended for cutting the throat of a valuable horse belonging to a neighbor. For some little time prior to this act considerable anxiety had been felt by people in the neighborhood where B. lived for their livestock. Horses were unsafe at night in the pastures, as several had been found in the mornings with wounded throats. In the stables they were equally unsafe, as a valuable beast was killed in its stall in broad daylight. About this time also, people in the neighborhood observed

an

unaccountable decrease in the number of their fowls. When B. was apprehended for cutting the horse's throat, he confessed that he not only did this vile act, but also that he had maimed the other animals to which reference had been made, and that he had killed the fowls, twisted their necks, and then concealed them in woodpiles, etc. For these offenses he was sentenced to twelve months in gaol. When he re

to the United States and enlisted in a cavalry regiment. In consequence of the horse assigned to him not being a good one he was obliged to fall behind on a march, and, taking advantage of this, a favorable opportunity offering, he drove this animal into a deep morass and belabored the poor beast until it was fast in the mire; there he left it to its fate, and it was found dead the next morning. B. now deserted, and after undergoing some hardships again returned home, where he was, as before, carefully watched.

turned home, after serving out his sentence, his family were more suspicious of him, owing to past experience, and he was more carefully looked after. He was watched during the day, and locked in a separate room at night. These measures were necessary to protect the family, as he had made an effort to strangle a younger brother while occupying a dormitory with him.

"One day, soon after his discharge from gaol, B.'s stepmother left a little child asleep upstairs, while she proceeded with her household duties, not knowing that B. was in the house. In a short time she was informed by one of the other children that the baby was crying, and on going to the room where she had left the sleeping baby she

"His next escapade was the result of an accident. B. and his father were at a neighbor's one evening, and while paring apples the old man accidentally cut his hand so severely as to cause the blood to flow profusely. B. was observed to become restless, nervous, pale, and to have undergone a peculiar change in demeanor. Taking advantage of the distraction produced by the accident, B. escaped from the house and proceeded to a neighboring farmyard, where he cut the throat of a horse, killing it.

"Recognizing the gravity of his offense, he escaped to the woods, where he remained in concealment until circumstances enabled him to commit another and still graver crime. Observing a young girl approaching the wood, he waited until she came near to his hiding-place, when he rushed out, seized her, and committed a criminal assault on her; for this last crime he was condemned to be hanged, but the sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. While serving sentence he was again transferred to the prisonasylum. After serving about ten years of his sentence he was pardoned; why he was pardoned remains a mystery. On his way home from prison, and when within a short distance of his father's house, he went into a pasture, caught a horse, tied it to a telegraph pole, and mutilated it in a shocking manner, cutting a terrible gash in its neck, another in its abdomen, and a piece off the end of its tongue. For this act of atrocity he was tried, and though there was no doubt of his guilt, he was acquitted on the ground of insanity and, by warrant of

the lieutenant-governor, transferred to Kingston Asylum. He was received at the asylum on the 29th of September, 1879, and placed under careful supervision.

"On the 19th of August, 1884, he made his escape while attending a patients' picnic. He had only been absent from the asylum about an hour, and while almost in sight of pursuing attendants, overtook a young girl whom he attempted to outrage. Her cries, however, brought help, and his designs were frustrated. For this offense he was handed over to the civil authorities, tried, convicted, and sentenced to six months in gaol. He is now serving out this sentence, and on its expiration will, no doubt,

the circumstances were, the asylum authorities have not yet discovered, but we may expect very interesting developments at the end of six months. We should not blame a foreigner if he asked the question, "You have a Criminal Asylum-why do you punish criminals who are insane?''

"His grave offenses have been enumerated in the preceding statement, but, besides these, B. was guilty of very many minor offenses, both while at home and while in the prison and asylum. While in the Criminal Asylum he attempted to castrate a poor imbecile inmate with an old shoe knife,

which he had obtained in some unknown way. Another helpless imbecile he punctured in the abdomen with a table fork until the omentum protruded; not satisfied with this, he bit the poor fellow, who had not even sense enough to cry out, in many places over the abdomen and chest.

"He killed many small animals and birds, such as dogs, cats, doves, fowls, etc. He taught many innocent patients to masturbate, and introduced even more vicious habits.

"He is a great coward, and was never known to attack any person or thing that would be likely to offer resistance.

"Young girls, children, helpless lunatics,

animals, and birds were selected for his operations.

"The very sight of blood, as we have seen, had a strange effect on this man, and worked a wonderful transformation. His countenance assumed a pallid hue, he became nervous and restless and, unless he was where he could be watched, he, so he stated, lost control of himself, and indulged in the proclivities for which he was notorious.

"If so situated that he could not indulge his evil propensities, he was

a quiet and useful man, but he could never be trusted. He had a fair education, and enjoyed reading newspapers, letters, etc., sent to him.

"It is very doubtful if he entertained much affection for anyone. He seemed to like his stepmother better than anyone else, but even she, who had been a mother to him since . early boyhood, he, according to his own confession, planned to outrage."

A summary of the American decisions on the subject of this preceding paper may be of use to our readers. The dicta of the English judges in

Texas Ct. of App. 87; Coyle v. Com., 100 Pa. 573; Roberts v. State, 3 Ga. 310; Com. v. Rogers, 7 Metc. (Mass.) 500; People v. Daly, 7 Med. Leg. Jour.; and above all, Parsons . The State, per Somerville, J. (Ala.), (ib.).

Moral insanity, as recognized by the American courts, appears to mean discase of the brain affecting the moral faculties, and so impairing the volition as to prevent an intelligent discrimination between right and wrong. Compare Com. V. Moster, 4 Pa. St. 266, per Gibson, C. J; Forman's will, 54 Bar, 274; Boswell v. Alabama State, 63 Ala. 307; St. Louis, etc., Insurance Co. v. Graus, 6 Bush, 268; Anderson v. State, 43 Conn. 515.

Reg. . Macnaghten were at first followed in some of the States, notably Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Michigan, Alabama and Ohio. They were, however, soon repudiated in the following cases: State v. Pike, per ChiefJustice Doe, 49 N. H. 399, 50 N. H. 369; Kried v. Com., 5 Bush (Ky.), 362; Smith v. Com., I Duv. (Ky.) 224; Oljarnette v. Com., 75 Va. 576; Cunningham v. State, 56 Miss. 269; State v. Johnson, 40 Conn. 136; State v. McWhorter, 46 Iowa, 88; Hopp v. People, 31 Ill. 385; Bradley v. State, 31 Ind. 492; Harris v. State, 18

CRIMINAL LUNATICS

We shall in this paper complete our account of the relations of lunacy to the English criminal law by a sketch of the provision made in England for the custody. of criminal lunatics, and of some of the most notorious specimens of this class.

It should be observed at the outset that the term "criminal lunatic" is used to include classes of persons very different from one another. It is now defined in the Criminal Lunatics Act, 1884, as including (1) any person for whose safe custody during Her Majesty's pleasure, Her Majesty or the Admiralty is authorized to give order, and (2) any prisoner whom a secretary of state or the Admiralty has, in pursuance of any

Act of Parliament, directed to be removed to an asylum or other place for the reception of lunatics. In point of practice, however, the words "criminal lunatic" are applied to three classes of persons:

First, those who, put upon their trial on some criminal charge, are found guilty, but insane at the time of the offense; secondly, those who are found insane upon arraignment. These persons cannot, of course, be assumed to be criminals, but as they are liable to be tried on recovering their sanity, their detention differs in character from that of ordinary lunatics.

In connection with these may be mentioned persons apparently insane under remand and awaiting trial. Thirdly, convicts and other persons undergoing sentences who have become insane in prison. These are strictly criminals, but it is only while they are criminals, i.e. during the currency of their sentence, that

of their sentences have ceased to be criminals, and, therefore, as we have already seen cannot any longer be called criminal lunatics. So, also, persons who have at some period of life been either convicted of crime, or in prison under a criminal charge, and who have left prison in a state of sanity, but who afterwards became insane, neither are, nor ever have been criminal lunatics. It will be

seen, therefore, that the distinction between persons who are, and those who are not criminal lunatics, is that the former are in custody by virtue of the order of a court of law or of a secretary of state. It should be added that no criminal lunatic can be discharged without a signed by a secretary of state.

warrant

Historical sketch of the law as to criminal lunatics. Prior to the attempt made by Hadfield, in 1800, on the life of George III, the mode of procedure in regard to the treatment of crim

inal lunatics was varying and uncertain. But when Hadfield was tried and found insane, and the question arose what was to be done with him, the law on the subject was found to be in so unsatisfactory a condition that no further time was lost in amending it. The trial of Hadfield took place on the 26th of June, 1800, and an Act "for the safe custody of insane persons charged with offenses" was passed on the 28th of July in the same year. This is the oldest of the statutes, relating to criminal lunatics, of which any part is still in