The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-05-05


one occasion he declined to go to wedding
with her, and when she got other company, lay
in wait for the couple by the road, intending to
make them go back or kill the escort After
spending sleepless nights over his ruling de-
sire for fulfyea he at last attempted its ex-
ecution-that is, attempted to disfgure the
young woman. It was success. 1t was per-
manent. In trying to SMOOTHER cheek las she
sat at the supper table with her parents ana
brother and sisters) in such manner as to mar
its comeliness, one of his bullets wandered
little out of the course, and she dropped dead:
To the very last moment of his life he bewailed
the i'll luck that made her move her face just
at the critical moment. And so he died appa-
rentlv half persuaded that somehow 1t was
chiefly her own fault that she got killed. This
idiot was hanged. The plea OF insanity was
not offered.
The recent case of Lady Mordaunt, in Eng
land, had proved beyond cavil that the thing
we call common prostitution in America is only
insanity in Great Britain. Her husband want
ed divorce, but as her cheerful peculiarities
were the offspring of lunacy, and consequently
she could not be held responsible for them, he
had to take her to his bosom again. 1t is sad
to think of dozen or two of great English
lords taking advantage of poor crazy woman.
In this country, if history be worth anything
to Judge by, the husband would have rented a
graveyard and stocked it, and then brought the
divorce suit afterward. In which case the jury
would have brought him in insane. and not his
wife.
Insanity certainly is on the increase in the
world, and crime is dying out. There are no
longer any murders-none worth mentioning,
at any rate. Formerly, if you killed man, il
was possible that you were insane-but now II
you kill man it is evidence that you are lu-
natic. In these days, too, if person OF good
family and high social standing steals anything
they call it kleptonaania and send him to the
lunatic asylum. If person of high standing
squanders his fortune in dissipation and closes
his career with strychnine or bullet, Tempo
rary Alteration" is what was the matter with
him. And, finally, as before noted, the list is
CAPPED with a new and curious madness In the
shape of wholesale adultery.
Is not this insanity plea becoming rather
common? Is it not so common that the reader
confidently expects to see it offered in every
criminal case that comes before the courts
And is it not SO cheap, and so common, and
often so trivial, that the reader smiles in'd de.
rision when the. newspaper mentions it? And
is it not curious to note how very often it wins
acquittal for the prisoner? Lately it does. not
seem possible for man to so conduct himself
before killing another man, as not to be mani
festly insane. If he talks about the stars, he is
insane If he appears nervous and uneasy an
hour before the killing, he is insane. II ne
weeps over great grief, his friends shake theil
heads and fear that he is mot right" If, an
hour after the murder, he seems ill at ease
preoccupied and excited, he is unquestionably
insane
Really, what We want now is not laws agains:t
crime, but law against insanity. There is
where the true evil lies.
And the penalty attached should be impriAs,-
onment, not hanging. Then it might be worth
the trouble and expense Of trying the General
Coleses and the General Sickleses, because ju'
ries might lock them up for brief terms, in
Difference to the majesty of the law /; but it is
not likely that any of us will ever live to see
the murderer of seduccr hanged. Perhaps, il
the truth were confessed, few of us wish to live
that long.
If seem to have wandered from my subject
and thrown in some surplusage, what do care:
With these evidences of a wandering mind
present to the reader, am l to be debarred from
offering the customary plea of insanity?
MARK TWAIN.