The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-01-14 00:00:00

Legal.

Tax Wrivnrust eask.—We ltain that the direc-
tors of the Eastern Counties Railway, with a view of
ascertaining the truth of the statements as set forth
in the evidence given by Ford, one of their late
guards, and others, in the Windham ease, summoned
up to their Board-room, at Bishopgate-street station,
• large number of the station masters and officials
from various parts on the line, and made a most
minute and searching investigation as to Windham's
conduct while proceeding with trains. It appears
from these parties that the evidence given by Ford
and the others, called to prove the insanity of
Windham, bee been greatly exaggerated, and a large
number of officials and employe6s have consequently
been subpcened on the part of the defence, to bear
this out. Mr. Bugg, solicitor, of Norwich, has also
been collecting information on the subject,and strong
hopes are entertained that a favourable impression
will be produced by the evidence about to be ad
dm-ed. Major-General Windham is to be examined
in the couraeof the inquiry, as well as Mr. Windham
himself. The proceedings are watched with the
liveliest interest in Norfolk. On Monday Mr.
Hancock was called, and gave most important evi-
dence, showing that the peculiar construction of
Windham's mouth was attributed the various pecu-
liarities of voice, and noises in eating and sleeping,
which had been attributed to insanity. The Daily
Telegraph of Tuesday, in alluding to this case, says:
—The heterogeneous throng of wiimeeses, learned and
illiterate, who have babbled, or maundered, or dogma-
tised, or lied through this interminable Windham ease,
donbtleseto the profound disgust of the accomplished Mr.
S. Warren, have mostly, though perhaps unconsciously,
endorsed the Stoical paradox we touched upon, MUG
St 1440 i insanire : that all fools were mad, although some
were madder than others. Here is a police inspector,
who gravely opines that Mr. Windham must be out of
his mind because he sneaks about the Haymarket at
night, gives prostitutes in charge, and pulls out ten-
pound notes at unseasonable hours, Another police-
man mamas him to be mad because he does not behave
"like the other young men in the Hayniarket." To
our mindit is a far greater proof of Meth"' consistency
to indulge to the fullest extent in the howling orgies
of an abominable Eleusis, than to prowl in vicious
sobriety about detestable stews and night houses, and
imperficially contemplate systematic debauchery over
the social barrier of a white cravat, 'like the other
young. men in the Haymarket;" it is a quicker and
perchance an honester way of arriving at the inevitable
rags and ruin, to the chat and busks of swine-herding—
to Diastase and Death. Then comes a crafty lodging-
house keeper, who thinks Windham mad became he
asked people to (Unmet and they never came, because he
loses his breast-pins and squanders his money, and calls
him ',Old Bob Ridley." Again, • bootmaker thinks he
mnet be off his head for ordering two sets of boot-trees.
Then it host of witnesses come forward, all, from the
mad doctor to the railway guard, arguing that Windham
mast be insane, because he sold his timber too cheaply
and bought his jewellery too dearly; because lie drove
engines and overdrove ponies; because he ate voraciously
and was fond of low eompany; beeause he kept tacit
hours and:came back with disordered apparel; because
he wouldn't go abroad with • tutor he hated, and was
boastfal, and vainglorious, and a liar. But, If
profligacy, and folly, and recklessness are to be
set down as prised facie evidence of lunacy, we
should very much like to know whether
there was ever a commission Is lunatic° held upon the
late Marquis of Waterford, Who had a cask of gin
opened in the middle of the Haymarket for the cab-
men and harlots to make merry over; who wanted to
Wog his horse into a police court as a witness; who
was supposed to be "Spring-heeled Jack ;" who had a
frog chained up beneath the dog-cart which be drove
through the public streets who set the fashion for
wrenching off knockers, purloining door-plates,
mating bell-pulls, and daubing out trades-
isee'sl signs? Did a Master in Chancery ever
inquire in the state of mind of the late Lord Wild.-
grave and the late Captain Duff, who were im-
prisoned in the Queen's Bench for an "assault," which
consisted in deliberately hiring a cab at one end of a
street for the purpose of driving over a policeman at the
other ; and who had previously distinguished themselves
by tying • constable hand and foot and lowering him
inte an area ; by driving to the Derby in a hearse, and
fishing for hats or human chins, whichever came
handiest, by means of salmon hooks attached to their
whips; by taking five-barred gates off their binges, and
half suffocating: old women with treacle? As to the
madness of engine driving, we should wish to know the
differenoe between conducting a locomotive and
working • stake coach, as a living baronet once
did for a livelihood, and a living duke for amuse-
ment. That Mr. Windham is a vicious fool
we are perfectly willing to admit on the evidence, all
as it mu to be. We grant him to be idle,
stupid,—AMring, eoarse, and profligate ; a dull, savage,
silly young cub of quality; but none of these
characteristics make him, necessarily, either a madman
or an idiot. It is a very perilous thing, it is a terribly
dangerous precedent, to declare a man to be insane
because he is wicked, or debauched, or • spendthrift.
The greatest of our legal authorities have warned us
against such • worse. lii. laid down by Blackstone
that an idiot is a person without naderstanding from
his nativity, or who has lost it by the wisdom of God.;
but even now a dictum still more important is on
record, and has been aptly quoted by • shrewd
jurist in the columns of • weakly contemporary:
God forbid,' said the illustrious Lord Hand-
wicks, in the case of Barnsley, 'that weakness of
mind should be a sufficient reason for granting the
cestodyof persons and their estates, for that would take
in violent people, drunkards, careless, and silly.'
When time sage words cease to be borne, in mind
Hhaven help all the skiles• people, the drunken, and
the careless, and the silly young men who are born to
great estates and have been brought up as badly and
tempted as sorely as this wretched young Windham."