The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1878-02-17

debased currency, imitation and Reputation.
Legal Aspects of Insanity.
Scarcely any person will dispute the
justice OF the various provisions of our
State laws in regard to insane persons, the
general principle Of which is that their
acts are without validity in the eye of the
low. Courts are not to respect their civil
acts nor punish their criminal ones. They
are to be deprived Of the custody of their
property they cannot dispose of it by will
or otherwise, and that highest possession,
life, is treated like property in this
respect, that its forfeiture cannot re-
suit from their violations of the law.
All this is just and humane, and
constitutes an indisputably proper protec-
ton for the insane. But a great practical
difficulty is experienced in the application
Of these provisions Of the law; in the deter
mination who is insane; in the designation
by the authorities of the persons who shall
be protected by an official recognition Of
their civil incapacity. Through the
channel opened for abuses by the
uncertainties in establishing the fact
of insanity these humane provisions
Of the law have proved infinitely
mischievous by the defeat Of justice and by
the personal expressions to which they have
given rise. In particular, trials for murder
have become generally judicial farces under
the influence Of the provision of law which
makes murder absolutely free for any per-
son whom jury can be made to believe
insane. mo act done by person in O
state of insanity can be punished as an
offence, and no insane person can be tried,
sentenced to any punishment, or punished
for any crime or offence while he remains in
that state" Such are the words Of the
statute, and it is obvious what occasion it
presents to counsel, who, of course, have no
scruples whatever as to abstract obligations
to justice, but are prepared to save their
clients by all the devices OF the law, though
the heavens fall. Prove that,a man is of
unsound mind, or raise SO much
dust on that point as will bewilder
and obscure the vision of a jury,
and the man is safe. This is much
worse than the legitimate abolition OF the
death penalty. But if the effort to prevent
the hanging of ]unatics has resulted in es-
tablishing that every man who murders is
insane, and has taken away from human
life even the little safety that was afforded
by the apprehension of severe penalty, the
endeavor to prevent the insane rich from
becoming the victims of designing persons
has resulted in making insecure the property
and the liberty of every rich person, no
matter what his or her state of mind, and
bids fair to deprive such persons of the
right to make wills. On these points the
Vanderbilt will case, the Merrill will case
and the cases of Mr.. Lord and Miss Dickie
are recent and very striking illustrations.
Commodore Vanderbilt was a sane man if
one ever lived in this city; and his sanity
has been brought in question on ac-
count of that part Of his conduct
which should more than any other nc.
establish and prove the soundness of
his mind-his care, namely, to prevent the
squandering of his great property and his
very effort to protect son from the i'll ope-
rations of his own none too well balanced
mind. 1t is urged that Mr.. Lord is insane
because he did not change his mind, and
that Mrs. Merrill was insane because she
did change her mind, and that Miss
Dickie should be kept under restraint
because she yields to the impulses
of nm irregular temper and slams
the doors and perhaps is sometimes
dangerous to the teacups. These are all
shallow pretexts by which the lawyers hope
to use the statutes in order to get the prop
erty of other people into the hands of their
clients. They are extensive confidence
games to which the courts are requested
to give legal force. Morally they are
not defcnsible. But the bad feature Of the
case is that projects like these are not
necessarily desperate because of the abb
sence of any reliable standard for sound
ness of mind and OF the readiness OF all
men to judge the sanity of Others by
standards of their own. There are no legal
definitions of insanity that are worth pin
and, though there is a general agreement be-
tween doctors who have given particular
attention to the subject, if we so aside from
these we get into wilderness of vague ideas
that are much worse than plain ignorance.
Altogether the subject is full of difficulty
and presents great and growing evil for
which the remedy is not evident.
Pulpit Topics To-day.
He'll has not grown colder or less impor-