Morning journal and courier., 1883-12-14
NEW HAVEN CONN., FRIDAY MORNING, DECEMBER l4,
SINGLE COPIES THREE CENTS
Friday, December IA, 1888.
EXPERT TEsTIMONY,


 Our esteemed contemporary the Register ''e1pert'' testimony in murder cases, and from what we have seen we are inclined to think that the Register Is justified in it's doubt There are experts and experts, but the best of them usually fail to add anything to the clear l ness of case. The bills they send in, how ever, add very materially to the cost of the proceedings.
 fine illustration of some of the beauties of expert testimony has just been given in 6 New York court, where policeman is on trial for killing man.s The policeman was In bsrroom drinking, and took 8 notion that his victim had not treated him we'll. In order to teach him better manners he shot him and then dragged him to the station house, stepping on the way to club him on his dsfenssless head. The poor man died, and the policeman's counsel are now trying to prove that their client was insane when he shot and clubbed him. One of the doctors was put upon the stand, and long 'thypo- thetical question" was put to him. To this question the doctor gave the desired answer The form of insanity under which ths pris- F. der was, in the doctors opinion, acute alco- holio mania. The witness, in response to further questions, stated that insane people frequently have moments of sanity and that cunning and reasoning often displayed by the insane. He thought the prisoner might have been sane at the time he asked permission for leave of absence at the station house after the shooting that he might get cup of coffee. He thought the immediate ex- citing cause of the pelicemans insanity at the time of the shooting was ths sherry he had drunk, but he was not prepared to express an opinion as to whether he was inswae or not immediately before he drank the liquor.
 This doctor then stepped down and another with foreign name stepped up. He also thought that the sherry drank by the police man was the immediate exciting cause of his insanity on the evening of the shooting, and he also declined to give an opinion as to whether he was sane immediately before drinking. Counsel for the defense read verses Is, 19 and 20, chapter Ii, book of Kings, from the Old Testament, to show the effects of sunstroke, as instanced in tho case of the Shuna1nmibe womaa's son, and asked the wit ness if one of the immediate offspring of Adam and Eve had been insane. No heredi- tsry insanity being then in existence, might net the descendants of that insane person. in the second generation, become insane from hereditary causes? The witness answered yes. Subsequently the assistant district at torney asked tho witness if hs considered Cain insane. The learned doctor answered that he could not give an opinion on that ubjeot ualsss he knew the exact condition Of Gains brain, but admitted that assuming Adam and Eve to have been the first created beings, and sane, the insanity, if any existed could not have been hereditary.
 And so forth and so on. IT, after hearing such expert testimony as this the jury fails to acquit ths murderer, other murderers will be disappointed. Our readers will have mo- siced that according to these experts sherry wine was the exciting causa of the sudden insanity which resulted in the death of an unoffending man. All who have suspicion that they might under certain circumstances become insane enou gh to murder somebody should keep away from the maddsning sherry.