The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1870-04-25

Aarszs EsFasnonf ssbe Newa GKanse ~
Exfraerdinesy IacreaseIIof Hfsnnity
hraofax che Dshkerousa 10 u a.is,se s.
Crime Dying Ont-. r em Pc raFy
Aberration = Quite Fashionable.
/ ss.t From the Buffalo Express. 8 n
forty years has produced some Of the most
remarkable cases Of insanity OF which there
Us any mention In history. For instance,
there was the Baldwin case, in Ohio, TWEEN
ity-two years ago. Baldwin, from his boy
hood up had been OF o yindictiye,r malig-
1iant, nature. he put boys eye out once,
and never was heard upon any occasionto
| utter q regret for it. he did many such
things. But at last he did something that
was serious. He called at house just after
dark one evening, knocked, and when the
dead, and then tried TO escape, but
was captured. Two days before he
had wantonly insulted a helpless Grip
pie, and the man he afterwards took
swift vengeance upon with an assassin
bullet knocked him down. Such was the
Baldwin case. The trial was long and ex-.
citing; the community was fearfully
wrought up. Men said this spiteful, bad
hearted villain had caused grief enough in
his time, and now he should satisfy the law.
But they were mistaken. Baldwin was In
sane when be did the deed; they had not
thought of that. By the arguments of
counsel it was shown that, at 80 in the
morning Oh the day Of the murder, Bald
1 win became insane, and remained 80 for
eleven hours and half exnctly. This just
covered the case comfortably, and he was
acquitted. Thus, if an unthinkng and eX-
cited community had been listened to in
stead Of the arguments Of counsel, o poor,
crazy creature would have been held to q
| fearful responsibility for q mere freak of
madness. Baldwin went clear, and, al
though his relatives and friends were natu-
rally incensed against the community for
| their injurious suspicious and remarks, they
said let it 60 for this time, and did not prose-
cute. The Baldwins were very wealthy. This
same Baldwin had momentary fits of insan-
| ity twice afterwards, and on both occasions
killed people he had grudges against. And
on both these occasions the circumstances
Of the killing were so aggravated, and the
murders 80 Seemingly heartless and treache-
rous, that if Baldwin had not been insane
he would have been hanged without the
/ shadow Of q doubt. AS it was, 1t required
all his political and family influence to get
him clear in one of the cases, and cost him
not less than 10,000 to get clear in the
other. One of these men he had VIGOROUSLY
! been been threatening to kill for twelve years.
The poor creature Happened, By By the -merest
piece of ill-fortune, to come along dark al
ley at the very moment that BaldWin's insan-
ity came upon him, and SO he was shot in
the back with gun loaded with slugs. It
l was exceedingly Fortunate for Baldwin that
| his insanity came on him just when it did.
Take the case of Lynch Hackett, Of Penn
sylyania. Twice in public he attacked a
| Gprroon hnfrhar NV tho IF Ranoic
Feldner with cane, and both times Field
ner whipped him with his fists. Hackett
was vain, wealthy, violent gentleman,
who held his blood and family in high
lesteem, and believed that reverent respect
was due his great riches. He brooded over
the shame Of his chastisement for two
weeks, and then, in momentary fit Of in
sanity, armed himself to the teeth, rode
into town, waited couple Of hours until
he saw Feldner coming down the street
with his wife on his arm, and then, as the
partially concealed himself, he drove a knife
into Feldner's neck, killing him instantly.
The widow caught the limp form and essed
it to the earth. Both were drenched with
blood. Hackett loosely remarked to her
that as professional butchers recent wife
she could appreciate the artistic neat
ness Of the job that left her in a
condition to marry again, in case
she wanted to. This remark, and an
other which he made to friend, that his
position in society made the killing Of an
obscure citizen Simply an eecentricity 7"
instead of crime, were shown to be eyi-
| punishment. The jury were hardly in
clined to accept these as proofs at first, in
| asmuch rs the prisoner had never been in
sane before the murder, and under the tran
| fulfilling effect Of the butchering had inn
mediately regained his right mind; bu.
when the defence came to show that third
cousin Of Hackett's wife's stepfather was
insane, and not only insane, but had nose
the very counterpart Of Hackett's, it was
| plain chat insanity was hereditary i'll the
family, and Hackett had come by 1t by lea
| then acquitted him. But it was merciful
Providence that Mrs. Hackett's people had
been afflicted as shown, else Hackett would
certainly have been banged.
However, it is not possible to accotlht for
all the marvellous cases of insanity that have
come under the public notice in the last
thirty or forty years. There was the Dur
gin case in New jersey three years ago. The
Servant girl, Bridget DursanJ at dead of
night invaded her mistress S bedroom and
carved the lady literally to pieces with q
knife. Then she dragged the body TO Che
middle of the floor and beat and banged it
with chairs and such things. Next she
opened the feather beds and strewed the
contents around, saturated everything with
kerosene and set fire to the general wreck.
She now took up the young child Of the
murdered woman in her blo0d-smearing
hands and walked off through the snow with
no shoes OH, to neighbor s house quarter
of mile off, and told a string of wild, inco-
herent stories about some men coming and
setting fire to the house and then she cried
piteously, and without seeming to think
there was anything suggestive about the
blood upon her hands, her clothing, and the
baby, volunteered the remark that she was
afraid these met had murdered her mistress
Afterward, BY her own confession and other
TESTIMONY, it was proved that the mistress
had always been kind to the girl, conse-
| quently there was no revenge in the MUIR
der; and it was also shown that the girl
took nothing away from the burning house,
not even her own shoes, and consequently
robbery was not the motive. Now, the
reader says, "Here comes that same old
plea of insanity again." But the reader has
deceived himself this time. No such plea
was offered in her defence. The judge sem
fenced her, nobody prosecuted the Cover
nor with petitions for her pardon, and she
was promptly hanged. e
| There Was that youth in Pennsylvania,