Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1867-10-21
THE EVENING STAR.
MURDER AND INSANITY.
An Interesting Case in England.

An Interesting Ease in England.
The Loudon News remarks that .stne trial O!
a Frepchman named Louis Border, in Lon
don, for the murder OF a woman, has renewed
very old controversy between two learned
professions. The legal and medical view OF
insanity are at open variance The crime was
premedtated; 1t was not dictated by malice or
passion, in the ordinary sense Of the terms nor
does 1T seem to have been followed by any
sense of repentance, or the slightest prlckings
of conscience. Border had suffered long un-
der a depressing physical disease; he had I'M
dergons painful surgical operation; he seems
10 have been involved in pecuniary distress,
and TO have had only darkened prospects be-
fore HIM. He resolved to destroy himself. and
partly from jealousy, and partly from apprs-
paramour ana children after his death, he de-
termned 10 destroy them also.
/" il have taken the resolution he wrote to
his brother, less than two days before the MUIR
der. of taking away my lie as well as that of
the woman with " no have lived for thirteen
years, as also those OF my children. X y
i is with the greatest regret that am about to
commit this crime, If at all events l have
strength TO carry me on to the end, for have
daughter close on TO twelve years OF age
another nine, and the last nineteen months
At any rate l shall try to accomplish 1t, and If
there is Goo, as many of those Jesuits who
live By The sweat of us workmen wish to make
us believe, would have permission. believe
10 have an INT view with Him, in spite OF nv
not having confessed myself to them, and that
he Will pardon me the sin am going to COM
NIT, II al any rate 1t can be so called, to save
myself, as we'll as my family from misery
ION the morning Of the Sd of September he
waited till his wife was asleep, kissed her
shook her hand, and then cut her throat AS
me oylng woman started up, he prevented her
entering the room her children slept in. Pass
ing IN himself he placed his hand on the head
OF the eldest child, and told her TO lie still
'One hand 1--WE quote her evidence) was behind
him. and she saw the handle of something in
1t Alter holding her head about a minute he
left the ROOM The sight OF bood-he does not
seem 10 have pictured 1t to himself in the
images which must have been before him
during the fortnight in which he contemplated
his crime-appears TO have disabled HIM from
self-destruction- 1T stood up he said, like
ipillar or barrier between his throat and the
razor. In the presence of the surgeon, who
was at once summoned to the bedside OF tue
murdered woman, he confessed what he had
done, kissing the dead body of his wife and
one OF his children who was brought to him
chamber in which it was perpetrated coolIy
smoking the while. He justified the murder
1t was necessity, he said. and a duty. He
made no pretenee that he acted under any ir-
resistable impulse overpoW ering his will
He seems to have deliberately Judged that the
destruction OF his wife. his children and him.
self was, under the circumstances, the most
expedient course to take. Skeptical abo a 1.-THE
existence of God and the future world, yisW-
ing religion as an Invention of the Jesuits who
trade on the weakness Of men and plumber the
poor, seeing nothing before or behind him but
misery, and actuated by sort OF selfish affac-
ton which could not bear the idea of separa.
lion from his wife and children, he deliberately
resolved on the series of crimes which he
partially psrpetrated. That the determin alton
was miscnievously false inference from per-
verse assumptions does not render it ms ane in
any other sense than thai in which all moral
and intellectual obliq ulty is insane
'tBordier's desire that his mother might not
be disturbed Oy hearing of his crime aud his
intention TO Kill his daughters that they might
not be reproached the children OF muir.
derer. shows that he was deliberately viola.
ting what he knew to be the la W Of the land
and the Judgment OF society. He was acting
under the influence of benighted Judgment
But there Is not the slightest reason 10 think
mat ne was the victim OF any halluclnatien, or
that the viii was in allegiance. 1t was simpIv
misdlrected by false theories. He was salts
NED with what he had done thinking as he did
ABOUT the future. But he knew that society
snd the law condemned and punished as
wrong what he had corrupted himself into
thinking right; and in violating their iniupc-
lions be Justly incurred the penalties tcov as
sign. 1t is the object OF laws TO prevent every
man from doing any and every wickeduess
which false view Of life may make right in
his eyes. He who sets them and the common
cow cuons and feelings of human nature at
naugbt- courts the punishment of Which they
have tOrewarped them''