The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-18

its constabulary-who are O law unto thenn-
selves-over million square miles Of terri
tory at an enormous expense, that the Re
public may visit its small vengeance upon the
few miserable nomads who are scattered
there; and all this it does with a vast profit
gacy that beggars statistics but accompanies
no end.
Those exceptional wise men who have
brought mercy with intelligence 10 bear upon
this subject of our Indian wards have more
than once pointed out that a safe, economi-
cal, and lenient remedy for all this expense
and brutality lay in gathering the entire family
of red men, now broken into predatory bands
that skulk impoverished and embittered, like
the prairie wolves on the track of the emil
grant, into one geographical focus, where,
under strict military surveillance, the softer
influences of humanity-or at least Of civil
lied justice-might have q fair chance of
trial. 0ne-half the money and strength which
the country is expending on this unending
and fruitless hunt of human beings would
suffice to sweep all the red men in America
together into one ample reservation under
the eve of authority. And whatever difficult
ties beset the undertaking, they are trivial
indeed by the side of those which will forever
rise in the path of an administration bent
only on exacting an eye for an eye and q
tooth for tooth from pitiable and broken
race, and that only for the enrichment of an
army of spectators and the qualification of
border men, who seem to have learnt nothing
from the savage but his cruelty.
OUGHT MCFARLAND TO HAVE BEEN
SENT TO A LUNATIC ASYLUMP
From the NJ y. Times.
The Egening Post and the Citizen answer
this question in the affirmative, and are dis
posed to censure the Recorder for letting
the prisoner loose upon society. With every
respect for the authority of the Citizen on a
question of law, we think there can be little
doubt that in this instance it has mist AIKEN
the grounds on which the accused was re-
leased rHmt
The statute providing for the confinement
of prisoner on the ground of insanity can
only be put in force when the verdict of the
jury distinctly authorizes it. In the case of
Mcfarland there was no such verdict. The
jury simply found him ''not guilty, saying
nothing whatever about insa nity-which was
equivalent to declaration of their opinion
that the prisoner was justified in taking Rich
ardson's life. As to the morality of such a
verdict, we have nothing to say at this mo-
ment. We must simply regard it as fact,
with which alone the Recorder could deal.
He had no power to order the detention of
the prisoner after the jury returned verdict
of ''not guilty"
The law in England with reference to crimi-
mails in whose behalf the plea of insanity is
set up and maintained is different from our
own. The theory of the English law is that
if the individual had not a sense of right and
wrong, of good and evil, he could not be re-
garded as sane; but in practice this is de-
parted from very widely Proof is always
demanded that insanity existed at the time
the criminal act was committed. The modern
practice is thus defined:-"Where the general
conduct of the prisoner has been such as to
indicate unsoundness of mind, even though
considerable contrivance has accompanied the
act or where there is evidence of his having
been the subject of an irresistible impulse to
kill, the jury generally find verdict of ac-
qulttal, in opposition to the older authorities,
who confined the exemption from RESPONSE
bility within very narrow limits.
| But when prisoner is acquitted on the
| ground of insanity in England, he by no
means escapes scot free. The Judge orders
him to be confined during Her Majestys
| pleasure" that is, during the term of his
natural life. The prisoner is sent to luna
| tic asylum to spend the remainder of his
days. Thus it happened in the case of Ok
| ford, who shot at the Queen many years age,
and also in that of woman who had nursed
| the Prince of Wales, and who murdered all
her children at Esher. There can be very
| little question that this is the proper method
of dealing with criminal lunatics. Our statute
for shutting up prisoner acquitted on the
ground of insanity works simply during the
pleasure of. the medical men of the asylum,
who may as they sometimes do, refuse to re-
ceive him, alleging that he is not insane,
although the jury have declared by their ver-
dict that he is. When Oxford was sent to
BedlaIn, several of the doctors are said to
have been of opinion that he was no more in
sane than any one of themselves. But he
| xnoa chJ1t ny, fhara iuet the eara and the doe.
tors had, of course, no power to interfere.
The great point, however, in the McFar-
land case is that the jury did not consider the
| question of insanity in rendering their YER
dict. They simply found the prisoner not
| guilty The Recorder did his duty in dis
charging Mcfarland, and, indeed, he could
have done nothing else under the circum
| stances.
LAY DELEGATION IN THE METHODIST
CHURCH.
| Ryoxn he N Y Ttrib4lnI