The Express.
London, England, 1858-12-22 00:00:00

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LONDON. WEDNESDAY, DEC. 22.

Tux trial of JAMES ATKINSON, at York, for the
murder of MART JANE &ARK, has ended in his
acquittal, on the ground of insanity. Notwithstand-
ing the strenuous exertions made by the defence to
establish this plea, we must confer that we are sur
prised at the result. So far as we can discover, there
le nothing in the evidence to justify such a verdict.
The testimony of his friends and relatives proved
that Ant INSOX was weak and passionate, but nothing
more. Now we need scarcely say that the maxim,
sea furor brerio est, though allowable enough u
a poetical description of passion, cannot for
a moment be accepted as • principle of
criminal jurisprudence. Violent anger, no doubt,
often leads to acts as reckless and terrible
as thus of actual madness ; but there is en essential
distinction between them which ought to be steadily
kept in view, and guarded with jealous care. The
passionate man is responsible, while the madman is
not. On this distinction the whole of oar Criminal
Law rests, sad any attempt to confuse it is fraught
with the gravest evils. If passion is to be an excuse
for crime, the greatest criminals will go unpunished.
Half the crimes, and amongst them many of the
worst, that are committed spring from the unchecked
working of passion in its fiercer and more vindic-
tive forms of lost, jealousy, and revenge. In such
eases, so extreme of anger, even though it Tisch the
Juror beetle pitch, can be pleaded as a justification.
To identify passion with madness, and make
the very atrocity of the crime that springs
from it the proof of both, is in fact to obliterate all
moral distinctions, and destroy the administration of

justice. On this principle the Flaunt criminals are
nicesearily the least culpable. In his summing ap
Baron WATSON moat righteously protested against
this doctrine, which had been propounded by ono of
the medical witnesses dazing the trial. According
to this witness none but a madman could have com-
mitted the crime, =order being in itself a proof of
mental alienates. Such a doctrine directly =cos-
rages the worst excesses of passion, by implicitly
asserting that the greater the crises the more 'erten'
the iNESSIPSO, of its perpetrator. We should scarcely
hare thseight it worth while to refer to this extrava-
gant pignut at all, mach less tormally to protest
against it, if the trial had not furn'ahed something
like a practical illustration of the dangerous precept.
The mere fast of the murder was certainly the
strangest prestafferded in support of the plea that
the man wits sannittesi it was iambs.

What are the fasts of the ease as brought out at
the trial? JANIS ATKINSON, the murderer, wee
the boa et a flax spinner at Harley. Aa a boy he
was mailer mite and headstrong, and, not being toad
of his book, made bat little progress at schooL He
could read and write decently, however, and bad
advanced is arithmetic as far se Proportion. Os
leaving school he had sufficient intelligence to be
employed is his father's mill both as a workmaa and
overseer. As " mechanical overlooker," it wee his
business to look after the machinery, aad see that
everything wee right. He mingled with companions
of his own age and station on good terms, except
that they sometimes laughed at him for his vanity
or ill-nature. So far were those who knew him beet
from hawing the least suspicion of his sanity that
his father had made him one of the executors of
his will. For the last four or five years he
had " courted," or " kept company with," MART
JANI Saba, the daughter of a firmer in the neigh-
bourhood, and during the last year or two was net
only an accepted but a too favoured lover. Form=
weeks before the murder a coolness had existed be-
tween them, produced, as the girl affirmed, by the
opposition of her mother to the match ; but m

Arkinsost himself asserted and believed, by the per
sense of a rival in the geld, who had been preferred
to himself. This, on his own showing, se well se by
the testimony of other witnesses, produced a feeling
of jealousy, which, on the failure of his attempts to
regain his mistress, r►pidly grew into an over-
mastering pension. He was not accustomed to have
his will opposed, his family having from the first
foolishly given way to his bursts of passion at home.
The continued opposition on the part of the girl
made him desperate, and he formed his resolve, na-
tural enough under the circumstances to a man of
his temper, that if he could not have her no one
else should—that if she still refused to marry
him ho would murder her. Oa that Sunday
evening in Angnst when they took their
last walk together, he told her of has re-
solves in a clear but determined manner as the
shadow, deepened in the quiet lane where the dreadful
murder was committed. It is absurd to say, then'
fore, that he had no motive for the crime, and did not
know what he was doing in perpetrating it. He had I
not only an intelligible, bat a most powerful motive,'
one that has been fruitful in the production of
similar crimes. lie knew very well what be did,
and why he dud it. Dose his conduct after the

murder betray any trace of ihaanity, any *widow*
that he was ignorant of what be had done ? None
that we son discover. He wandered about the fields
conscience stricken, a prey to genuine lemons, of
which his thoughts of gape to tell his parents, and

his wish to raters to the fatal spot end look oa his
murdered mistrals again, are the touching but suffi-
cient proofs. No mere imbecile or neiaiman walla
have cherished such thoughts or Itsms remembered'
and related them so diaductly &Renter&

When the first wild exam of reams had pawm
he took the ordinary precautions for ooncealment

which the

suggested, such as hiding

the knife, and wanking elf the marks of blood ; but
the feeling of remorse coming back with tenfold
power some hours afterwards, destroyed all desire
for concealment, and at dawn he rushed into his
heather's bedroom, exclaiming, " I have murdered
Nmy sweetheart Loan, have mercy upon me."
How it can be truthfully asserted, in the face of
each evidence, that he was ignorant of the crime he
had committed, we really cannot conceive. His
after conduct bears as trace of confusion or igno-
rance. Having given op all thought of concealment,
he tells the Alen what he had done, and that only he
did it ; takes him to the spot where he had hid the
knife, and clearly recalls everything connected with
the terrible event. His statement, indeed, so far from
containing any 'vides.s of an imbecile or wander-
ing ; sad, was not only remarkably clear, consecutive
and minute, bur, so for as it weld be tented, perfectly
accurate. It contained sufficient proof of average
intelligence, and showed that AM NEION was clearly
conscious of the nature of his crime both before and
after its 001311:11111i00. The evidence of sanity, which
all the facts connected with the murder thus tend to
establish, was farther confirmed by the medical officer
of York Gaol, who had visited him in his professional
capacity during the period of his imprisonment.
Mr. ANDELsom says that in his opinion " the pri-
" soon is sane, and answered the questions put to
" him like a sane man of his class of life."

Now, in reply to this, what is offered on the other
side in support of the plea of insanity ? The evi-
dence of ATKINSON'S relatives to show that insanity
is in the family, and the testimony of four medical
men professionally engaged to prove that the pri-
soner was imbecile. The first, is the Judge
stated, proves nothing directly to the point, but can
only be accepted in support of other evidence.
The only other evidence is that of the physicians pro-
fessionally engaged, which is fairly open to some
suspicion. They had no opportunity of fairly testing
the prisoner's general ability, as they had not seen
1 him before his imprisonment. It wee evidently the
prisoner's interest to strengthen, es far as he possibly
could, the plea which was to be set twin his defence-
In. his interview with the medical witnesses much

of his stupidity au probably amused. This WM

_ .
evident from the fact that Dr. Foams Wittai.ow
was aatooielicd at the lettere written by hid is pri:

sou, and predated in the court. "They exhibited
" more power of mind than he should have supposed
"the prisoner posseesed ;" and Dr. WINSLOW sug-
gests that he might have been misted in their com-
position. It should be remembered, however, that

his confession vras hie own act, perfectly sponta.

neous, and we, too, in which he could derive no
assistance from others. And it certainly shows •'
power of mind, a faculty of contiouous thought,
quits egad to the composition of an ordinary letter.
The only impartial medical witnesses examined—
the family doctor and gaol surgeon—agree in stating
that they have &hooted no evidence of insanity in
the prisoner. The former, while stating that he was
passionate, frivolous, and vain, emphatically asserts
that "he never knew him insane." The latter, as,
we have seen, is equally decided on this point. go
far as medical testimony is concerned, therefore, the
fair conclusion would appear to be that the evi-
dence of the two gentlemen who had the best oppor-
tunities of knowing the prisoner's actual state, must
outweigh that given by the four others specially em-
ployed to support a predetermined conclusion; and
the medical evidence is the only direct evidence
showing unsoundness of mind. All the ordinary
tests of sanity apply to the act. The prisoner had
a powerful motive to the murder, and displayed a
clear consciousness of the nature of his crime both
before and after he committed it. Under these cir-

montane,' ere owlet but feel that the acquittal
of JANIA Amitsou on the ground of insanity con-
stitutes an nnfortnnate and dangerous precedent.

YESTERDAY the Cana DE MORTALLY/MET ap-
peared in the Court of Correctional Appeals to
reclaim against the manna of the petty Police Court
by which he was condemned on the 24th of Novem-
ber. He was thee, it will be remembered, found
guilty of three misdemeanors—vis., of exciting to
hatred and contempt of the Government, of an
attack upon the principles of anivertal suffrage end
the rights which the EMPEROR held of the State,
aad fluidly, of violating the respect due to the laws
sad the 'accedes.' of the rights sanctioned by
them, for which offences he was sentenced to sir
months' imprisonment and a tine of 3,000 francs.
The result of the appeal has justified the opinion
which some of the greatest Lawyers in France gave
to the illustrious appellant, and shows that the judg-
ment of the lower Court, and the pardon by which,
with such indecent haste, it was sealed, could not
be maintained. The Judges of the Court of Cann-
tional Appeal have decided that the attack on the
principle of universal suffrage and on the rights which
the EMPEROR holds under the oonstitution, which
the inferior court discovered in M. DE MORTALLY-
BERT'S writings, was not really there. Up-
holding, however, the original judgment on the
two remaining counts of the indictment, they reduce
the personal penalty from six months' to three
months' imprisonment, and maintain the fine at the
sum tint fixed.

The constitution of the French Courts of Law is too
well understood in England to make this result a mat-
ter of surprise, aid when M. DE MONTALEMBIERT—

sensed of failing in the respect due to the kw—chose
to appeal to the kw, revolutionary as was its origin,
and servile as was its administration, rather than I've
the Tic= of oaprios, he must have been aware of the
risk he Mourred. Nevertheless, he would have
failed in his duty to himself and to his
amatry, width needs examples of self-Omega-
ika, if he had been deterred from standing lamb,
upon such law as remains to France by these ap-
proaches which it was easy to foresee the ignoble
would be ready to heap on him. M. us biONE-
ALEIFEERT appealed against a pardon which would
rivet, not remove, his conviction, and he did so
because he know he was innocent. He went to the
Superior Court to seek—not u his adversaries and
renegade supporters say, the petty martyrdom of a
prison--but that liberty which the " pardon^
aimed at him would have destroyed even more than
the judgment of U. Bursaum. Let those
who will, say that corporeal freedom is well pm'-
chased at the price of hoooar and imam ; for our
parts we should have regarded it as among the
- France his hitherto encountered,
mark had

a man of M. DI
ended a contest nobly begun by a tacit compromise
with beeeneso—a pretest u favour et liberty by
complioity with the essuties of freedom.

PHAILMACZIITICAL SOCTIFIT ON GREAT BRITAIN.—
Mums of assilielles alio dr am* issoirriga
(Doe. 211 as elioniolo:—Naltool Mitchell
Chow, W ; Joia Clark. Goosuroo; JAW Wein.
GnOltin, London; Earls Pali% arilliinj ri/e. amide
William, WdshisoL