, 1870-05-03
INSANITY AND HOMICIDE.

LII L1o Aosp4NA JAIL Nv oa4Au1oIe LIES
woman upon whom deep trouble has brought
that most fearful and horrible of all diseases
insanity. Without an instant of warning
to enable her victims to escape, she turned
upon her mother, and attempted and nearly
succeeded in killing her Then she rushed
had been invariably fond and affectionate,
and cut their throats from ear to ear as'fast
as tieudish energy could carry her from one
to the other. Removed by force from the
awful scene then presented in her home to
the jail, after few hours Of restless WIZ
dering, hebegan to inquire querulously why
the mother, and the children she had just
slnin, remnined absent from her Somanifest
wns it to every one that she still conceived
of them as living, and: that the
horrible effects Of her delirium
had left no trace upon her memory, that her
attendants forbore to inform her of the
facts. She is conscious that she has been
brought to the hospital for insanity; that
she is being treated Us patient, and that
the treatment is proper. She has great
pain at intervals in her head, and supposes
that to be the evidence Of her rnnlady.
Hourly she recu1s to her mother and chill
d1en-always In the same terms of anxiety
and reproach because she cannot see them.
The doctors feel assured that to reveal to
her Mt present what her own henzied hand
hns done would render her d confirmed
maniac. .
This is the type of cases in which
the fact of insanity impresses every mind
with q conviction that the most hor-
rible Of all homicides may be free
from criminal OF moral guilt Very dif-
ferent from this are all cases in which the
homicide follows as the result of rage,
,nalioe, Or revenge, whether the provoca-
ton be great or small. Indeed, once estab-
lsh connection of provocation and con-
sequence, of cause and effect, between the
mind of the slayer which led to the hon.
icide, md the act is placed clearly within
the domain Of sanity. The provocation
may be SO sight as to render the killing a
wanton murder, or SO great as to range the
act among justi6able OF e1cusable homi-
cides s.Dut if the relation of cause and
effect erists between the acts Of the de-
ceased, as prorocation, and the homicide,
as punishment or revenge, the act is sane,
however foolish or unreasonable it nny be.
The counsel for Mcfarland, In relying
upon insanity Is their chief hope Of. sue
cess, logically exclude from tho case the
hypothesis that the killing Of Richardson
] EaI &c fha ,1yf
| of sane men only to act upon provocation
of any kind, sufficient or insufficient. The
essence Of insanity is that it nets without
provocation. and without any sequence or
relation to real causes or inducements. It
is rs likely to strike friend IS foe
There is hypothesis upon which McFar-
lands counsel might have plead that the
homicide WIS justified In the Sickles case
I rather more was made of the justification
than Of the insanity. It hos always been
principle Of the common law that the
husband who, coming suddenly into the
presence of his wife and her seducer,
sees the positive proof that their rela-
tons are criminal, and who, then and there,
kills the seducer, has committed, not emctly
a justihab1e, but an excusable, homicide.
Whether such q course of judicial decisions
and ve1aicts may meet with q reversal here
after or not, it is certain that the ancient
common law of England and Of this coun-
try would have supplied a stronger theory
for Mcfarland, than the plea of insanity, if
it could be made to appear to the jury that
4 the relations of Richardson to Mrs. McFar.