The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-01-27 00:00:00

LATENT INSANITY.

14joio,

"A Barrister," who has " no personal knowledge of
either Mr. Watson or Miss Edmunds," and who thinks
that "the verdict in Mr. Watson's case was the one
which should have followed the evidence," writing to
the Times on the subject of "Latent Insanity," says :
" I cannot think that the finding in the case of Miss
Edmunds was at all so satisfactory. I am not "a mad
doctor," or a doctor at all, and therefore I am free from
professional prejudices in this matter; but, having paid a
good deal of attention to the subject of insanity, I venture
to assert that if there be any one fact positively
ascertained in connexion with mental disease, it is
that of its hereditary transmission. No attempt
was mado,,to show the existence of insanity in Mr. Watson's
family, but no room whatever was left for speculation on I
this point in the case of the woman Edmunds. Not
only was proof given of mental disease in her
maternal grandfather and her own father, but there
was evidence of its transmission, in the saddest and
most hopeless form, to her own generation. Her
brother had lived and died an idiot. The wonder
is that the woman herself had not manifested
symptoms of madness long before she began par.
chasing large doses of poison, and obtaining in still greater
quantities, and In a much more open manner, the sweet-
stuffs in which she conveyed it to her intended victims.
If she be not insane she is a monster with whom nobody
can feel the least sympathy; but if she is not in such full
possession of her senses as to be legally and morally guilty
of murder, is there not one element in her case which ought

to tell strongly in favour of Mr. Watson? The perfect co-
herency and rational tone of the letters written by him
after the murder and immediately before his attempt at
suicide were relied on, and, as I thought at the
me
,litstly relied en, by Mr. Denman as show-
fig hat the prieoner was in full possession of
his senses; and when referring to one of the
letters, Mr. Justice li)les remarked to the jury,. "When he
wrote that letter, gentlemen, he seems to have had his wits
about him, but that was not at the moment of the murder."
But were those letters in any sense more coherent or more
rational than those sent by the convict Edmunds to the
father of the boy she had poisoned? Its person of unsound
mind could have written these, it would be hard to say that
Mr. Watson's letters exclude the theory of his insanity.
" The truth is, Mr. Bruce has to perform a most difficult
and painful task in deciding on both cases, No doubt he
will call to his assistance medical authority; but when he
Is considering the circumstances under which Mr. Wat-
son killed his wile he might, perhaps, with advantage,
refer to another case, the records of which he will find
in the Home Office. It is that of a gentleman named
Smith, who, like Mr. Watson, was a man of vast
erudition, a tine classical scholar, and a person of
singularly gentle manners is his ordinary converse
with those around him. Like Mr. Watson, he too
kllled his wife. Some three or four years ago I first met
Mr. Smith in literary society. I was in his company on ninny
occasions subsequently, and conversed with him on all the
ordinary topics of conversation. His reading had been enor-
mous and varied, and his memory was marvellous. I had'
been in the habit of meeting him now and then for upwards
of.a year before I heard that he had shot his wife, and had
spent 14 years in Bethlehem and liroadmoor as a erindnal
lunatic. Great was my surprise, for he was about the
last man in the world that I should have suspected of
even a tendency to insanity. On several occasions,
after J had heard so much of his history, I carefully
observed his manner. It was invariably that of an amiable
and accomplished gentleman. But, in May last, Mr. Smith
entered a refreshment house, called for a cup of tea and
some bread and butter, and shot himself. After the tea and
bread and butter had been served, the waiter entered the
room, and Mr. Smith told him, in a calm voice, that he had
not quite finished what he was taking. The waiter left the
room, but had scarcely done so when he heard the report of a
pistol. Ile returned instantly and found the unfortunate gen-
tleman a corpse, with a bullet in his skull On the trial for
the murder of his wife, Mr. Smith was acquitted as insane,
and ordered to be detained in custody during Her Majeety's
pleasure. Year after year, for several years before his dis-
charge, the officials of the asylum in which he was confined
reported him sane. Sir Cornewall Lewis refused to dis-
charge him, notwithstanding the importunities of influen-
tial friends, but a subsequent Home Secretary set
him at large. Shortly before his death he completed
a ttatiatical work, which has since been published, and
at the time he shot himself an eminent firm had
commissioned him to edit a new edition of the Political
Economy of Adam Smith; but this employmgnt came too
late. Mr. Smith had but a few pounds in Band, and for
some time before he committed suicide he had been brood-
ing over the apprehension that destitution was staring him
in the face. (If his history previous to his killing his wife I
know nothing ; but as the rest of his case is in several
respects very like that of Mr. Watson, it might be well if
Mr. Bruce looked into the evidence given on Mr. Smith's
trial.

Noticing the above, "G. B. F.G ." writes to The
Times :

"I am compelled to reply to one portion of the able letter
of "A Barrister," in your columns of to-day, as I believe I
am well qualified to impart the required Information
respecting Mr. Smith's history prior to the murder
of his wife, he having been several months under
my care and my husband's under certificates of insanity.
I may, consequently, assert that there is no analogy
between the case of klr. Watson and Mr. Smith.
When first placed under our care Mr. Smith was depressed
and full of delusions, with a strong suicidal tendency. We
never left him unwatched day or night, and for some time
he was not allowed either knife or fork. After a time
he became more composed, and would talk and argue
with all the intelligence and acumen of a highly'
educated man, but never for one moment did we suppose
him sane or relax our watchfulness. ITis cunning was exces-
sive, beyond anything I ever encountered in my experience,
although from my childhood accustomed to the insane of
both sexes. After some months his wife thought him well
enough to return to her, but Or. John Conolly, his medi-
cal attendant, urged.her not to remove him, at any rate
I entirely from control. In an interview I had with
her a few days before he left us, I told her that hi my
opinion, although at that time exercising immense control
over himself, he was a dangerous lunatic, and that his
was a suicidal, and, I believed, a homicidal case, and that
any excitement might suddenly develope it. She then
promised she would engage a young medical friend
In reside with them for a thus. I do not think
she carried out this plan. On my return home I felt
so uneasy at the small importance Mrs. Smith seemed
to attach to my words (she was a very self-willed woman,
her husband had frequently said), that I wrote her a note,
warning her not to live with him, and reiterating my
reasons. My husband was one of the witnesses at his trial,
and upon his evidence mainly he was acquitted, on the
ground of insanity. When I heard of his being at large I ex-
pressed a fear that, before long, there would be another
tragedy.
could supply much more information respecting Mr.
Smith's case, but think I have stated sufficient for ray pur-
pose."