The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1896-11-26

she regards the executioners chalr Is sui
on her face, yet otherwise her face shows
the improvements of the education of her
moral nature.
The facts brought out on the present
trial, briefly told, are that after an at
tempt and failure to drown herself, she
procured razor hid it in her sleeve,
and went to bar room where she knew
Cataldo was playing cards or idling. she
approached him and asked him to marry
her. He pushed her aside and answered
coarsely: mo, only hogs marry she
then encircled his head in her strong
peasant arms, drew it back and slashed
the razor across his throat, making
mortal wound. Her lawyer begun his
address in the present trial by making
a strong appeal to the jury by recital
of the girls wrongs at the hands OF her
betraycr. A report of the case says:
He depicted her misery after she was
betrayed by the bootblack, her passion
ate appeals to him to right the wrong
by making her his wife, his brutal meth
cd of repeling her and his boasts of other
refused to marry. 1t was pathetic
story, as he told it, containing motive
for the murder, but no legal pallatlon.
From the standpoint of the law 1t was
n crime to be eXpiated only by death IL
Maria had possession Of her normal
senses,
The real defense followed. Mr.. House
described Maria Barberi as degener-
ate. the ignorant offspring of an ill-Dal.
anced race. There was the stigma OF
lunacy in her blood, and every member
of her family was afflicted with epilepsy.
The lawyers theory was that the de-
spondent girl, writing in her disgrace,
had gone to her living apartment to get
a razor, intending to end her own me.
She had previously threatened to hlde
her shame under the dark waters of the
Hudson, and suicide had been upper
most in her mind when she took the
razor. She entered the saloon where
Cataldo was idling, intending to ask Tor
a last time that he keep his promise.
Only hogs marry" he coarsely re-
marked. and he showed her aside. so
much the girl knows. What followed Is
impressed in her mind only by hearsay.
Epilepsy clouded her brain; she was IN a
fit. frothing at the mouth, though she
did not then fall to the ground,
Sucn Is the lnreau upoh "hiNh hN "
depends.
The girl is receiving all that sympathy
that such betrayal would naturally
elicit, and the court room is daily crowd
ed by her sympathizers from all classes
of society. But the case goes to show
that the plea of insanity in murder trials
is becoming more general and more en-
barrassing to courts and juries.
Perhaps it is beyond human compre
bension to lay down in the law fixed
formula by which insanity may be test
ed There are so many different kinds
of evidence of insanity that it would be
impossible to formulate one rule ina
| would apply to all cases. There Is tht
degenerate and the moral pervert
| and the power and extent of volitlon II
such cases, and consequently the respon
sibility of the criminal for whom th'
| plea of insanity is made, that 1t con
fuses even courts and learned attorneys
and must be thoroughly confusing t.
Jurors uneducated in the higher philos
ophy of psychology. 1t seems an apsur
div to present all these intricate ques
tons to an ordinary jury for settlement
when no two of the most learned psy
biologists fully agree. Fortunately TIT
charge of the presiding judge in thes'
cases strips 'the metaphysical jargon o
the law of much of its confusing ele
ments and the charge reduces the fact
to the comprehension of an ordinar'
mind. else we could never obtain al
intelligent verdict. There are no set o
cases in which greater responsibllit.
rests upon the court. If the instruction
| of the court are not clear and compre
hensible to the jury no just verdict coul'
he rendered by the twelve men in tn
box.