The Express.
London, England, 1862-07-10 00:00:00

BRITANNIA,

TRH Imam THE 'Kau NCR OP A POOR YOUNG MAN
Mum J. R.ynoldi, M. Lratdord, Bliwood Yarnold.
Atin7 XEdYdnal and fa raGearin—Titi KSCHANTIESB
lt/JLES.I.—And AMHILICAN ISLA VICKY.

ABIZZYB.
THIS &Wu, MAZSPPA.—After which SCENES IN THE
CIRCLE. )IdUe. Meseta—To conclude with a Comic Ballet.
Mimes Chun& and the whole of the Conn de Ballet.—Com.
mace at 7.

HIGH WATKII AT EA/MOS BAIDGIL
THIS DAT —llornhee. Oh 10 Afternoon, Olt 45m.
To-nontow—Moratng. In. tne Aftornoon, lit 45us.

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 10.

Tim plea of " insanity" in criminal cases is par-
ticularly liable to abuse, and has sometimes been
abused, to the defeat of justice and the danger of
society. Between the degree of excitement in the
perpetrator which any act of violence, sudden or
premeditated, suggests, and the degree of excite-
ment which indicates brain disease, the line is
neither broad nor clear, and it is to be feared that
some guilty lives have been spared and some inno-
cent lives sacrificed on this debateable ground of
law and physic. No cases demand a nicer discre-
tion, a more searching scrutiny, or a steadier ba•
lance on the part of a jury. According to a trite
and true saying, no act of violence is an act of
sanity, and the more cool and calculated the crime,
the less compatible should it seem with rational
responsibility. Yet to argue from the as-
sumption that all human beings are in
some corner of their brains unsound, or, under
some conditions of the mental organ, incapable of
self-control, and nothing better than wild beasts
at large, to the remission of wholesale murders in
cold blood, and of inexplicable attempts at assassi-
nation, would be to sustain the monstrous doctrine
that the greater the crime the less the criminal.
Such is the obvious risk to be guarded against
when insanity is pleaded as an apology for crimes
irreconcilable with the ordinary motives of hatred,
cupidity, or revenge. Of late, however, "in-
"sanity" has not been the defence moat likely to
mislead a jury in a case of murder. A salutary
reaction against acquittals on so loose and mysti-
fying a plea set in a few years since, and the
spectacle of contradictory medical evidence,
swearing and oounterswearing with the versatility
of horse doctors, may have contributed not a little
to the disgust which intelligent juries feel when
they are invited to decide between opposing views
of a murderer's st►te of mind. Another and
stronger objection to the plea of insanity is the
mysterious contagion of a certain clam of crimes,
and the horrible plague of imitators which an un-
natural murder is apt to create.

The heartbreaking home-tragedy on Ludgate-
„„., •
_me
01 before the Central Criminal
Court yesterday, awl resulted is a verdict
finding the prisoner " Not guilty," has sug-
gested these remarks, but as a striking and
signal exception to their purport. No one, we
are persuaded, who considers attentively the pro-
ceedings in this most distressing trial will hesitate
to accept the prisoner's defence as the only true,

discerning, and humane interpretation of a crime
otherwise unaccountable, and the verdict as the
only possible conclusion. Oar readers will re-
member that two cases of child murder by a
parent's hand happened within the space of a very
few days at Manchester and in London. The
manner and, so to speak, the accessories of these
murders were so similar, that the one looked like
a ghastly reflection of the other. But on a closer
examination, it is only in the outward circum-
stances that the resemblance appears. In the
Manchester murder desperation and revenge made
instruments and victims of the dearest and moat
precious objects of natural affection ; the murder
of Mrs. VYBE'II children was a sacrifice absolutely
without motive. In the Manchester case only a
motive so unnatural as almost to defy imagination
could be discovered ; in Mrs. VYSZNS case there was
simply none at all. It was proved by the defence
that the mother bad been always most tenderly
affectionate to her children, that the joy and pride
of her heart and life were hound up with the
beauty and happiness of the little girls ; that on
the death of a child in 1860, accelerated as ahe be-
lieved by the negligence of • nurse, she had suffered
extreme despondency, and had ever since been
subject to fits of passion. In all other respects
the unfortunate lady's domestic relations were—
for aught that appeared in evidence to the con-
trary—perfectly tranquil and contented.
Atthis point, then, the state of the mother'shealth
was a fit subject for inquiry. In crimes of violence,
and of violence against the most sacred and deeply-
rooted natural instincts, nature itself is often the
sum+ fhw mystery. Nature warn. na
to pity and pardon the tne man would
be condemned. In the present instance it was
stated that Mrs. Vies "had nursed her infant for
" upwards of fifteen months, and it was only in
" April last that she discontinued to do so, and
" in May she again found herself in the family
" way." The effect of such a critical condition
upon the brain of a woman already dis-
organized by long nursing, shaken by the
loss of a child two years before, and, as it was
abundantly proved, hereditarily predisposed to
mental disease, could hardly be exaggerated. It
is only too probable that the account of the murder
of three children by their father, at Manche.-
ter, lit up the smouldering madness in the
poor woman's brain. Two of her cousins had been
lunatics, her brother had committed suicide ; her
grandfather was afflicted with paroxysms of in-
sanity, her grandmother bad attempted to strangle
herself in consequence of the loss of a child.
Other witnesses came forward to prove that the
prisoner's manner and conduct had been strange,
violent, and disturbed for some weeks before the
murder of her children. Her regular medical
attendant had observed an "irrationality in her
" impulses," an extreme excitability and depression
in her manner, an abruptness in her conversation.
Dr. Foams Winnow, who listened to the whole
evidence, considered all the symptoms he had heard
described as consistent with a form of insanity
" in which • person might commit murder or
" homicide and not be aware of it at the time,
" and afterwards become rational and sane." It is
known that one of the commonest forms of in-
sanity in women is what is called "melancholic
" monomania," attended with hallucinations and
illusions varying in kind and degree, according to
the temperament and the actual condition of the
patient at the time when the disease declared itself.
What were the hallucinations or illusions attendant
upon the peculiar condition of Mrs. Vitae t
The evidence on her trial does not precisely indi-
cate. Perhaps the belief that the death of her
child in 1860 had been hastened by the negligence
of the nurse, had something of the intensity and
tenacity of a morbid hallucination. Undoubtedly
the prolonged nursing of her last child had in-
creased the habitual depression, and her actual
state of health at the time of the murder was of
• nature to exasperate the dangerous symptoms.
Enough and more than enough was brought before
the jury to justify their conclusion that the
mother's crime was, in fact, • fatality beyond the
cognizance of human jurisdiction.
It is a miserable satisfaction to the public
to 'be assured that such a tragedy as this
raises no indictment against the civilization
which it saddens and appals. Something, in-
deed, was said on the trial about the culpable
imprudence of selling notorious poison' to the
first corner. The cause of public safety, we are
disposed to think, will gain little by confounding
preventible imprudence with impossible pre-
vention. As often as a chemist sells • packet
of Barrts's vermin-killer, or an embrocation
for rheumatism, to • chance or • regular cus-
tomer, though the packet or the phial be marked
" poison" the result in any case may be murder
or suicide ; and how is the chemist to prevent a
catastrophe instead of a curet No law can put
society on its guard against all the possibilities of
criminal aberration. Law brings detection home
to the delinquent, and prevents by punishing cul-
pable imprudence, but how can it prevent a
mother, stricken with madness by tho visitation of
Gon, from murdering her children with a powder
prepared and sold for the killing of rats

Of course we are not unaware that there was
one deposition on the trial, and one only, which
to readers in search of dramatic " complies-
" lions" might suggest a secret key to the wife's
distraction more terrible by far than ary cause
assigned for the mother's madness. There was a
letter addressed and handed to a sister on the
day of the murder, and this letter had been
destroyed before the inquest, and the sister could
not remember what was in it. On • less sub-
stantial mystery than this what fictions and dramas
might not be founded ! The affection of the
sisters for each other, and the love of the one for
the other's children, would heighten the interest of
the situation. And yet we believe the Jury were
right in seeing nothing in the afflicted sister's
story but the record of a sister's honest love.

THE House of Commons, on the motion of Sir
LAWRENCE PALE, given late on Tuesday night,
yesterday threw out Mr. BOVVERIEN Clergy Belief
Bill on its third reading. That Bill proposed to
exempt any clergyman declaring his conscientious
dissent from the doctrine or discipline of the
Church of England from all eoclesiast;cal penal-
ties to which ho would now be liable if, after
having resigned his benefice, he tried to earn his
bread in some other calling.

As the law now stands—and this was well said
by Mr. Bouvcars in a speech which did great
credit both to his understanding and to his libe-
rality—u the law now stands, the Hon. and
Rev. Barmy NOISL himself might be pro-
' seeded against by any person doing what in
church slang is called " promoting the office
of the Liahop ;" Z•ina warning, be
silenced; or, if not silenced, punished rith six
months' imprisonment. The keeper of a Hay-
market casino, indignant at Mr. Barret Nocc's
humane interference on a question of which all
men think and few are bold enough to speak,
might, if he so pleased, wreak his vengeance
by promoting the office of a Bishop against that
excellent and useful man. And really, after the

division of yesterday, one is tempted to wish that
some crucial instance, ouch as this would be,
might prove the iniquity of the law as it stands,
for we can hardly believe that such a result would
gratify even the stolid bigotry of Sir Law-
RiNCX PALL.

Of course, to starve a poor curate who has
mistaken his profession is a proceeding very
grateful to the rurklecanal conspiracies which get
up petitions by the moors against any useful
measure of church reform that may happen to
irritate their animosity ; but that a man of rare
influence, noble gifts, and holy life should be
liable to be dragged to gaol for preaching the
Gospel, is a result in which even the Bishop of
Ernes would scarcely rejoice.
It is evident the matter cannot stay where it is.
Even in this do-nothing Parliament Mr. Borrraatets
Bill would have been easily carried, except for a trick
which is well enough in a sharp country attorsey
who wants to throw out a turnpike bill, but is
hardly consistent with the solemn virtue of a knot
of county members. The House was taken by
surprise ; but another Session, or another Parlia-
ment, will, we trust, wipe out this blot in the
Statute-book, and without touching the tinder
question of Orders—which the High Church party

look upon u indelible as vaccination—set at rest
for ever a question which wise men of all 'ladies,
Mr. GLAnsvoirz not less than Mr. Borvanns,wish,
and show by their votes that they wish, to lee
settled.

PARLIAMENTARY DIVISION.

HOUSE OF 00IIIIONS.—Jou 9.
CLERGY RELIEF BILL.

Order for third reeding read ; motion made, and quoit=
proposed, " That the bill be now read the third time."
Amendment proposed, to leave out the word " now," sad
at the and of the question to add the words " upon this
day three menthe—Sir Lawrence Palk. Question put,
" That the word ' now' stand part of the question." The
house divided :—Ayes 88, DOSS 98.

AYES.

Agar-Elils, L 0. Forteac.ne,C.. O'Ferrall, R. H.
Moe.,rl . Osaka; J. IL Sir
A.
French, Col. O'Reilly. M. W.
Padmore, B.
AyrtonliA. S. Gladstone, W. Peel, Sir K
=rel J. Ginnie& C. P. Portman, W. H.
Gr y, Sir G.
Beaumont, S. A. llaedtield, G. Potter, IL
Roebuck, J. A.
&cacaos, J. G. Hanbury, R. Russell. A.
Sourer* P. P. Hardman'. J. A. St. Aubyn, J.
Brady, Dr. Raiford, H. Seely, C.
Brand, H. Henley Lord Seymour, H. D.
Bruce, H. A. Bibbed, J. Sidney, T.
Buller, J. W. Hatt. WW. Smollett, P. B.
Buller. Sir A. W. Jervotse, Sir J. C. Sµ ones, K
Calculi, F. JUN. Kershaw, J. Btandeld, J.
Clifford, C. C. Hine, J. L. Stuart, Uest.-CoL
Clifford, Col Leos; 84 E. Taylor, P. A.
Clifton, Sir &J. =I :W. H. Tollemache, F. J.
Clive, 0 J. Villiers. C. P.
Cobbett; J. H. Lawson, W. Warner, E.
Goiebrooke, Sir T. =.ot. H. Western, 8.
Con, W. Mr B. Whalley, G. H.
Dalai& & Ysirdre, J. F. White, L.
Davey, B. Mart* J. Wickham, H. W.
Davis, Sir H. R. Matheson, A. William; W.
Dunbar, Sir W. 11111; T. Wood. W.
Dundee. F. Mllla, J. IL
Enfield, Vinci. Moose& W. TILLIMS.
Evans, T. W. Monson, W.J. Batmen., E. P.
Punter, C. North, F. Paget, C.
Forster, W. E. O'Conor Don, The

NOLL
Adderley, C. B. Goddard, A. L Merritt, W. J.
Antell, J. H. Gore, J. R. )(midway, J. li..
Barrow, W. H. Graham, Lad W. Mundy, W.
Barttelot, Col. °rental!, G. Newdegate, C. N.
Bathurst, E. H. Greenwood, J. North, Col.
Beach, W. B. Gray*
, Capt. Pa*lionaig.
Latina, C. G. Ger C. D. Parker.
Benyon, R. Hallburtou, T. C. PoMa, G.
Bereaford, W. HAY. Sir J. C. Powys, P. 1..
Bridges. B. W. Henley, .1. W. Ldiey, flir Y. W.
Bruce Sir H. H. Henniker, Iced Rowley, B. T.
Bruen, H. Besketh, Sir T. G. Salt, T.
Burrell, sir P. Ileygate, W. 11. Lister-Booth, G.
Butier•Juhnstate,H. Hodgmil:. Selwyn, C. J.
Cave, 8. Hopes J. T. Repine., H. K.
Clive, cape. Hamby, .H. Btracey, Mr H.
Cole, H. Holm. L !Hurt, H. 0.
Coles, H. B. litunberstai, P. & Lonna, Lord H.
Collins, T. Ingestre, Vise. Torrens, B.
Cuhitt, 0. Jertuyn, Fort Trends, C. H.
Dickson, Col. g ekewich, & T. Trollops, Si. J.
Duocombe, W. I. Kendall, N. Turner. C.
'guides, Sir D. Kennard, B. W. Yam*, J.
Du Pre. C. 0. King, J. K. Vaimitiart, W.
East, Sir J. It KnatchbulL W. F. Walcott, Admiral
Edwutis, Major Liddell, H. G. WalWe, 8. H.
Egerton, W. Lindsay, G. Waigton, J. W.
Vane, Col. 4all, b. Z 1 tilby. W. k
Vellum es, K. macanlay, K.
lerrnsson, Sir J. Mainwaiing, T. Yorke, IL T.
Fitzgerald, W. 8.. Miller, T. J.
Ford., CoL Mills, A. TB,l [aB.
Gard, K. S. Mitford, W. T. Palk, Si' L
Garnett, W. J. Montagu, Lord Z. l.ygon, F.