great extent disregarded the natural rights of individual persons. For example, it is certainly unjust to the individual to punish him for the violation of a law the very existence of which is unknown to him. Society does not care for this; safety for the property and lives of the majority is of paramount importance, and therefore the offender is fined, incarcerated, or put to death, according to the extent of his crime, notwithstanding the fact of his ignorance. And this it does not so much for the purpose of avenging the violation of the law as to act upon others by the force of example and to prevent the escape of criminals by a plea which it would be difficult in many cases to disprove.

The laws which formerly prevailed extensively, relative to attainder of blood for certain crimes, and which still exist in a more or less modified form in some countries, were likewise unjust to individuals. For acts of high treason, not only were the offenders themselves put to death, but all their kindred within certain degrees were killed or banished, with forfeiture of estates; and even now, in the most enlightened nations of the earth-except our own-the heirs of a traitor who is punished with death are deprived of the property which in the natural course of events would have descended to them. Individuals are thus punished for a relation wholly beyond their control, in order that treason may be "made odious " and society protected.

Looking at the matter, therefore, from a similar point of view, no valid argument can be adduced against the punishment of the insane, even though they be morally irresponsible for their acts by reason of delirium, dementia, or morbid impulse. It is reported of an English judge that he once addressed a criminal in these words:

"You have been convicted of the crime of murder. It has been alleged in your defence that you were actuated by an irresistible impulse. This may be true, but the law has an irresistible impulse to punish you, and it therefore becomes my duty to sentence you to be hanged."

In reference to such lunatics, a distinguished French magistrate observed to Marc, an eminent alienist," These men are madmen; but it is necessary to cure their mad acts in the Place de Grève."

These judicial opinions are adduced not as meriting full approval, but merely to show how selfishly society protects itself even against insane violators of its laws.

The existence of a delusion is regarded in law as evidence of insanity, and the fact that an individual accused of crime has such a false conception of his mind, is considered a valid defence. This is doubtless correct practice in many cases, but it should be understood that an act may be the direct and logical consequence of a delusion, and still be criminal. For instance, if I entertain the delusion that a certain person has injured me, I may be insane, but even if I am, I ought to be punished if I kill the individual who I imagine has done me a wrong.

A case illustrative of the view here expressed occurred a couple of years ago. The following outline of the circumstances was published at the time in the London Lancet.

The prisoner, Charles Anderson, was convicted of deliberately taking the life of James Marchin, one of the crew of the ship Raby Castle, on her homeward voyage from Penang. The circumstances of the case were of an extraordinary character. The prisoner, on the 28th of September, 1866, shipped in the vessel as an able seaman and carpenter. It ap peared that during the voyage he gave many indications of an eccentric though weak intellect, of a perfectly harmless character. The deceased was a mulatto. The prisoner regarded him with apprehension, and was said to be under the delusion that Marchin was a Russian Finn. It appears that there is some extraordinary superstition among sailors, that the presence of a Russian Finn on board a vessel is likely to lead to the destruction of that vessel, together with the loss of the crew. The prisoner believed this. He was frequently heard to mutter to himself some incoherent expressions, to the effect that he could not

go on in this way, and that he must kill the Russian Finn, or they would never get to London. On no occasion had any personal quarrel arisen, or ill-feeling been manifested between the prisoner and the deceased. Matters continued to go on in the same manner, the delusion of the prisoner being well known to, and regarded in a good-humored spirit by, his shipmates. No one anticipated the terrible result. During the night of the 24th of November the prisoner had to watch on deck, and when free to act and unobserved, he seems to have gone to the bunk where the unfortunate deceased man was sleeping, and attacked him with a carpenter's axe, inflicting five desperate wounds upon his neck and shoulders, the effect of the former injuries being nearly to sever the head from the body. The prisoner was immediately suspected as the murderer. He was seen to be washing blood from his hands, and to throw an axe overboard. He was at once seized and asked how he had come to murder his comrade. The reply he made was, that "if he had not done so, the ship would have gone on the rocks, and they would all have been lost." There had been a heavy gale of wind blowing at the time, and there appeared to be no doubt that he had committed the act under the impression that if he did not kill the deceased, both his own safety and that of the crew would be endangered. Under these facts, notwithstanding the charge of the learned judge, the Baron Channell, the jury found the accused guilty of wilful murder, ignoring the suggestion of any unsoundness of mind, and therefore withholding from the verdict any recommendation to mercy.

The learned judge accompanied the sentence of death with such observations as leave little doubt relative to the impression on his own mind, even though he condemned the prisoner according to law. He observed, "that the jury had found themselves compelled to convict the prisoner of wilful murder; and as to the act itself, there was no doubt he had committed it. The defence set up was, that all the time he was laboring under a delusion which compelled him to commit

the crime, and that, therefore, he was not responsible. It was not contended that he did not on ordinary occasions fully appreciate the difference between right and wrong, but it was said that he was laboring under a delusion, and that the effect of this delusion was to compel him to commit the act. The jury have carefully considered the matter, and they have arrived at the conclusion that they are not justified, under the circumstances, in acquitting him on the ground of insanity, and it therefore became his duty to pass upon him the sentence of the law for the crime of murder." The prisoner bowed to the judge, and was then removed.

The sentence of Anderson was subsequently, on the recommendation of several medical gentlemen, commuted to imprisonment for life.

In regard to the propriety of Anderson's punishment there can be no reasonable doubt. Delusions such as his do not justify homicide, and were a few like him severely punished, there would be less superstition and fewer delusions. While death is the penalty for murder, such lunatics as Anderson should be made to suffer it. His crime was deliberate and premeditated, and the fact that it originated in ignorance and false intellectual processes, though it may lessen his criminality, does not make it any safer for society to remit the punishment.

Again, some of the insane are such monsters of depravity that they should be slain, upon the same principle that we slay wild and ferocious beasts. Such a one was the Alton murderer. On a fine afternoon a clerk in a lawyer's office took a walk out of town. He saw some little girls playing in a field near the road. One of them, a bright and lively child, he persuaded to go with him into an adjoining hop-garden, and sent the others home by giving them some half-pence. Shortly afterward he was seen alone, and he returned to his office and made an entry in his diary. The little girl was missed; her parents became alarmed. Upon inquiry, it was ascertained that she was last seen going toward the hop-gar

den, and on searching there, her body was found cut up into small pieces. What she underwent before the butchery could not be ascertained, because parts of her body could not be found at all. Suspicion fell on the lawyer's clerk, and he was arrested. His desk was searched, and a diary found, in which was this newlymade entry "Killed a little girl; it was fine and hot."

The evidence at the trial showed that a near relative of his father was in confinement, suffering from homicidal mania, and that his father had also been insane. It was likewise proved by many witnesses that the prisoner was unlike other people; that he was subject to attacks of melancholy, during which he would weep without evident cause; that his conduct had been capricious, and that it had been necessary to watch him, for fear that he would commit suicide. Taking these circumstances into consideration, there is more than a reasonable probability that this wretch was insane. But the jury disregarded them; a verdict of guilty was rendered, and he was executed.

All psychologists recognize the force of example. A man commits suicide in some unusual manner, and straightway this becomes the prevailing mode of accomplishing self-destruction.

All are likewise familiar with the principle called the "force of suggestion." An individual becomes melancholic from an exaggeration of his selfish instincts. His emotion might carry him no farther, till suddenly he hears that a terrible murder has been committed. He eagerly reads the details; he broods over all the minutiæ, till they are assimilated to his own morbid thoughts. He perhaps learns that the perpetrator is insane, and will, thus, probably escape punishment. Nothing is therefore more in consonance with his ideas than to go and do likewise, and the suggestion soon ripens into a frightful reality. Let it be understood that such murderers will be punished, and they will the better control their morbid impulses.

That many of the insane possess great powers of self-control is well known to all those who have studied the various

The in

phases of mental aberration. fluence of rewards and punishments is by no means nugatory, and a discipline very healthful to their disordered intellects or emotions can be thus brought to bear upon them. Every superintendent of a lunatic asylum knows that many of his worst patients can be improved in their conduct, mind, and character, by being rewarded when they deserve commendation, and punished when they have incurred censure. These rewards and punishments not only influence the patients directly concerned, but are understood and commented upon by many of the others.

Now the same is true of the insane outside of asylums-and there are many such who pass through life scarcely suspected of being the subjects of mental aberration, but who simply wait for the exciting cause which is to bring their latent susceptibilities into action. Let them understand that insanity does not license an individual to do what he pleases without punishment, and a power is brought to the aid of their wavering intellects which may turn the scale definitely in their favor. It is not only for the safety of society, therefore, that insane criminals should be punished.

Of course, the punishments should be adapted to the nature of the crime and the character of the insanity. Without pretending at this time to go into details, it may be stated as the opinion of the writer that an insane person who commits murder should never again be allowed to go at large. He should be incarcerated for the term of his natural life in a penitentiary asylum, both as a means of protecting society and as providing opportunities for his cure.

One word in regard to the duties of medical experts.

They have nothing to do with the law. It is their business to expound the science of the subject regardless of the consequences either to the prisoner or society. They do this by answering questions that are put to them on the witnessstand, and after they have studied the facts or alleged facts of the case. So far, therefore, as regards their opinions

in the matter at issue, they are based upon testimony, or what they are told by counsel is testimony. It thus frequently happens that experts called on the two sides of a case give answers that apparently are diametrically opposite, and this not because there is any essential difference in their views, but because the same hypothetical questions are not put to each. The way to avoid this great difficulty is for the hypothetical questions which are supposed to embrace the facts to be put by the court, and not by the lawyers; or for the judge rigidly to exclude statements that are not in evidence.

Again, an expert gives his opinions after having devoted time and labor to the study of the science and circumstances on which they are based. His appearance on the witness-stand is therefore but a small part of his labor.

Courts in England, in California, and in Illinois, have distinctly recognized the right of experts to compensation far greater than ordinary witness-fees, and have ordered the payment of satisfactory sums. Medical experts regard it as their duty to testify to all facts within their knowledge when called on so to do. But their opinions are their capital, just as opinions are a lawyer's or judge's capital, and neither society nor individuals have a right to take them by force. A great deal of unwarrantable criticism on this point has recently been indulged in by a portion of the newspaper press. However, when a prominent case comes into court-one which involves much popular feeling, it will generally be found that the losing side spares neither judge, jury, counsel, nor experts in their unjust attempts to manufacture public opinion.

THE VAMPYRE OF EUROPE.

Of course, there is but one question for comment this month, and that is the infamous war which the French Mephistopheles has managed to stir up between the two leading Christian nations of Europe. A more needless, causeless, heartless, unprincipled war was never precipitated by human ambition and wickedness upon innocent nations. It is absolutely without a decent pretext; the nominal justification of it put forth by the principal instigator, the choice of a Hohenzollern for the Spanish throne,-has no more substance in it than the complaint of the wolf against the lamb for muddling the water below him. Even if Prussia bad directly countenanced and promoted that solution of the Spanish difficulty, with the consent of the Spanish people, it was no business of France, whose ruler has so loudly proclaimed the autonomy of each people. But Prussia disclaimed all pretension of mixing in Spanish affairs as soon as it was signalled that her act would give offence. Yet the war was none the less proclaimed

and prosecuted. Napoleon was bent on war, and he made war for no other reason than his own will. Knowing that the French people were jealous of the growth and consolidation of Prussia, and knowing that a successful war would facilitate the establishment of his dynasty, he took advantage of that popular jealousy in order to compass his own ends. He has called hundreds of thousands of soldiers to the field; he has excited the bad passions of Europe; he has imperilled the prosperity and peace of the world, that he might snatch, from success, the imperial crown for his son. No considerations of the awful interests involved, no regards for the lives of men, no Christian principles, no humanities, withhold him for a moment from the desperate game which he has determined to play. A gambler from the outset, a perjurer and a murderer, he carries the motives and the methods of his original coup d'état into the politics of the world. Let us hope, as a recompense, that the world will at length discover the magnitude of his meanness and malignity. The disclosures made as

to the secret treaties ought to open the eyes of all mankind to the real character of this imperial Jack Sheppard. Eng. land, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, -all ought to see that in him they have their worst enemy,-an enemy ready for any foul scheme to be accomplished by any execrable means. That gallant and noble nation, upon whose liberties he has sat like an incubus for twenty years, ought to shake herself free of the gigantic oppression. The United States, which he would have throttled to death if he had been able, in the great struggle for union and liberty, should regard him only with loathing and hate. The most stupendous of public criminals-the shabbiest of private intriguers-the most monstrous of egotists,-the whole race of man should vomit him forth as its greatest opprobrium and pest. What is to come of the war, no man as yet knows; but if it shall have the effect of destroying the prestige of the treacherous and blood-thirsty Bonapartes, it will perhaps be worth the temporary miseries it will cost.

A PLAGUE OF FROGS.

Miss Cobbe, in her "Ethical and Social Studies," complains of the freedom with which the biographers of eminent persons often detail the most secret actions of life. She argues that while the cause of truth may be subserved by this minuteness of inquiry, another far more important cause, that of reverence for the privacy of the human soul,-is outraged. "The man's most secret life," she says, "his most private memoranda, his letters written in the haste of passion or remorse to his closest intimates, are violated and thrown open to the world. The public have got the truth; but they have lost something almost equally precious,-the sense of the sanctity of the heart's and soul's secrets. Or, rather, we may say that a special and individual truth has been insured by the sacrifice of the universal principle of truthfulness and confidence between man and man, whereby we trust each other with things sacred." But if there is ground for a complaint

of this kind, how shall we measure the injury inflicted upon a community by the habit, now becoming more and more prevalent, of turning every thing of private life into food for the newspapers? It would seem as if no privacy were possible any more, either to individuals or families. Let any event occur to bring a person in any degree before the public, and instantly he is converted into a sort of public property or show. Whatever concerns him, his past life, his domestic relations, his interior thoughts, are made the subjects of curiosity and of exposition. The reporters swarm about him as the flies in summer about a piece of carrion. They are more numerous, persecuting, and pestiferous than the tax-gatherers of the later days of the Roman Empire. They insist not only upon entering his house, questioning his servants, looking into his closets, rifling his drawers, and feeling his pockets, but they put him through a series of cross-examinations, as if he were a criminal upon the stand, or a victim of the inquisition. If he refuses to respond, he has the pleasure of seeing himself caricatured or vilified in the next day's edition of a morning print; and if he is placable and communicative, he finds his confessions tricked out with all manner of exaggeration and embellishment. The frogs in the kneading-troughs of the Egyptians could scarcely have been a greater nuisance than these Bohemians are getting to be; but sometimes they are more than a mere annoyance,-they become defamers and assassins of character. They do not scruple to insinuate or to proclaim openly charges that unjustly blast the reputations of innocent men and women, or which, when they are not wholly unfounded, inflict a vast amount of needless anguish. Surely, the editors of our journals ought to have self-respect enough to prevent this abuse from going any further.

THE OLDEN TIMES.

No doubt our Right-Reverend correspondent, who writes so interesting an account of the ancient ways of New