National Republican., 1881-09-08
Concerning Insane. Assassins.

voted to the interests of the legal profess
sion, edited by William II. Smith, and
published at 122 East Capitol street,
Washington, d. c." The editor compares
the case of Guiteau with that of oxford,
who in 1910 attempted the assassination
of Queen Victoria. His reproduction of
the testimony of the medical experts
upon the trial of Oxford, the argument Of
counsel, and the charge of the judge gives
foretaste Of much that we are to hear
when Guiteau shall be tried for his
oflense. Judge Smith refrains from
avowing his own convictions upon
the subject of insanity in Guiteau's case,
but the emphasis with which he
defines what he understands moral in
sanity to bo indicates, perhaps, the bent
of his mind. In the case cited as analo-
gous to Guiteaus, Edward Oxford, n lad Of
nineteen, awaited the carriage of the
Queen as she and the Prince Consort
were driving up hill, and as it APP
preached turned around, nodded, drew
pistol, and fired. lie drew a second
pistol and fred again, at q distance of but
six or seven yards. A person who
snatched the pistols from the culprit was
mistaken at first for the man who had
fred them, whereupon Oxford exclaimed ::
" 1t was me-I did i'll give myself up.
| will 60 quietly" He had bought the
weapons and the ammunition few days
before, and had practiced firing at a
target. When one Of those who seized
him said, al dare say he has some
friends" he replied, "You are right;
have"
The features OF this crime are very like
those of the crime of Guiteau. He too
laid in wait; he shot twice in a most pub
lie place; he avowed his crime Though
notuntilapprehended) and he had bought
his murderous weapon days before and
practiced for the deadly scene.
In Oxford's case the-defense was in
sanity. His father had been violent
man, and it was claimed that his treat
ment of his wife had caused idiocy in one
son, and that the prisoner was a victim to
the terror with which his mother had
been inspired prior to his birth, a gun
having at one time been pointed at heI
head by her brutal husband. The pris.
onerwas proven to have been headstrong
wayward, mischievous, and eccentric.
He was absurdly vain, boastful, and am
bilious" These elements all enter into
the character of Guiteau, while in his case
there is no hereditary defect. Oxford
like Guiteau, had never been treated al
mad up to the time it became important
for his welfare so to do. The doctors
who testified were five in number, The
lily. They were all determined TO find
the young assassin insane at all hazards
No. | swore that any man who would
commit such an ohense as Oxford's sc
openly, and so apparently without mo-
tive, would thereby establish his insan.
of insanity known as "lesion of the
will" being loss of control over con.
duct. No. 3 swore that the prisoner was
insane upon various grounds-among
others, shape of his head, deficient under
standing, insensibility to his situation
&c. NO. also testitled concerning lesion
of the will, or moral insanity. The fam
lily doctor was mainly convinced by thu
prisoners involuntary laughing. Upor
such stuff as this an English jury ac
quilted the young reprobate who hat
fired twice at the lovely young Queer
of their realm, then only twenty on,
years of age, and naturally the object o
great admiration as well as of respect
In vain had the counsel for the Crown
dwelt upon the fact that Oxford's mother
who knew him best, had trusted him in
the unrcstrained use of firearms, ant
that too in the same house with his sis
ter. In his charge the judge had sale
that the boldness of crime was NJ
proof ofthe innocence of its perpetrator
and that moral insanity and its symp
toms was not a medical question. The
jury preferred the doctors opinion tC
that of the lawyers.
Says Judge Smith, "The true rule i,
this The capacity to distinguish between
right and wrong should be considered il
connection with the pO,CsT Of the WW tC
choose the right from the wrong" Ifthi.
is really good law, and if weakness o
will is insanity, then whoever has {
stronger propensity to commita crime thar
he has inclination and will to resist it is
not morally responsible. Who, then, is
everguilty ofcrime? The wiHto choose be-
tween recognized good and evil cannot be
tested except by the inclination. What
evidence can there be that there erer was an
unsuccessful effort of the will to resist q
criminal propensity? We had supposed
that men transgressed the moral law be-
cause of greater inclination to crafty
an evil propensity than to obey the op-
posing moral instinct. II Is inconceivable
that crime is to be excused on the ground
that the tendency to it when unresisted
is proof that the will was not
able to choose the right path
Guiteau's rage at not getting the
place he wanted and his despair of longer
swindling the world out of living were
stronger than the restraint of fear or of
moral obligation, and 50 his will was too
weak to choose between the right and
the wrong, which he clearly discerned
lie had " lesion of the will" That is, he
wanted to kill the President more than
he wanted TO desist from it. If this be
moral insanity, then the world is one
vast insane asylum, for "there are none
that are good-no, not one"
The taking Of human life with malice
aforethought is murder, not insanity,
The knowledge that to kill man is