Case Name: The State, v. Reuben Sedler Stark
Court: South Carolina Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: South Carolina
Decision Date: 1847-05
Citations: 1 Strob. 479
Docket Number: 
Parties: The State, v. Reuben Sedler Stark.
Judges: Evans J., Wardlaw J,, and Frost J., concurred.
Reporter: South Carolina Law Reports
Volume: 32
Pages: 479–513

Head Matter:
The State, v. Reuben Sedler Stark.
This Court will not sanction a positive charge to the jury, in a matter of legal instruction to them, in any case, where the testimony presents a dubious question.
The positive existence of that degree and kind of insanity that shall work a dispensation to the prisoner, in a case of established homicide, is a fact, to be provedl as it is affirmed, by him, to the satisfaction of the jury, who are the safest, and the proper arbiters of the question.
Where no more than the homicide is proved, the overwhelming barbarity of the act will not be admitted as a presumption of insanity; for then, the more unnatural and brutal the crime, the stronger would become the ground of defence.
When the Court can see, in the evidence of the prisoner, no sufficient reason to question his sanity, and he has had a fair trial, with all the humane allowances of the law, before a jury of his peers, it will not be justified in interfering with the finding.
Tried before Mr. Justice Wardlaw, at Sumter, Spring Term, 1847.
Report of the Presiding Judge:
The prisoner is a man rather under the ordinary size, about thirty years old, of swarthy complexion, black hair, and black eyes.
He was charged with having murdered his wife, Julia B. Stark, on the 30th day of January, 1847, by striking her on the head with an axe, and cutting her throat with a razor. That he killed his wife and only two children, in the most shocking manner, was made manifest. In his defence, it was contended that he was, at the time of the deed, laboring under mania a polu, so as to be an irresponsible agent. The following is the evidence that was given in the case, which I report entire, lest possibly, in an attempt to condense it, I might omit something which, on one or the other side, would be deemed material.
Testimony. Dr. W. L. Felder. I have been a practising physician since 1832, and live in Sumter district, near Fulton, about eight miles from Manchester, and half a mile from the house the prisoner lived in. On the morning of 30th January last, about 8 or 9 o’clock, whilst I was sitting at breakfast, I was called to see the body of Mrs. Julia B. Stark, wife of the prisoner; said to have been killed. I went immediately; found Mrs. Stark lying in the floor of the chief room in the house, at the left side of the fire place, her feet towards the fire, and on the hearth. On the back part of her head was a bruise, and her throat was cut through windpipe and swallow, by some sharp instrument. Three feet from her, in front of the fire-place, was lying her little son, perhaps three years old, on his back, and by his side her daughter, about six years old, on her face. The throats of both children were cut also, and there were bruisdfe on their heads. The wound on Mrs. Stark’s head looked inconsiderable; but I thought that alone might have been sufficient to take life, as it seemed to me, from her position, that she had not moved after falling, and that the blow had been given on the head, whilst she was stooping about the fire; given before the cutting of the throat, and probably with an axe.
There was a plate of meat at the fireside; one piece of meat outside of the plate, and the frying-pan lying on the plate, upside down; a coffee pot and some smoothing irons at the fire; an axe on the hearth with blood on the handle, and part of one side, and marks of bloody fingers on the handle. There was much blood on the floor, and about the bodies, partly congealed, but not entirely. Life had gone perhaps half an hour.
Some gentlemen preceded me, and had found the prisoner. I went and saw him in an out-house, which had a few shucks in it, and seemed to have been used as a corn crib, about twenty steps from the house. He was lying down. I saw a wound on the upper part of his neck, but his position concealing its extent, 1 said it would not be fatal, and turned away; I returned, and found that the incision on his throat reached both sides, and was greater than I had imagined; I went home for some instruments, returned and dressed his wound.
He was placed on a door shutter at the end of the crib. I commenced sewing up his wound. He asked, “Doctor, can the dead come to life?” I said “no.” He requested that I would not sew up his throat, and said, “I did not cut it to be sewed up.” I told him to be still; he resisted by moving about. I threatened to tie him. He said, “let me alone, let me go out of this God d-d world to a better.”
I put no questions to him then. An inquest was held, and after that was over, I conversed with him. I told him that he and I had been friendly, and that I thought it was his duty to make some acknowledgments as to the deed. He made no reply. I urged him further. He said that he wished to make no confessions on the subject. I said, that as to consequences, he seemed to be regardless, as he had evidently purposed to destroy himself. He was silent. I asked if he was aware that he had imbrued his hands in the blood of his wife and children. He said nothing. I told him that he could not live; that in the course of twelve to thirty-six hours, if secondary hermorrhage ensued, as was probable, he would die. He said, “I wish to die, and wish to make no confession.” I asked whether he had cut his own throat; he turned and said, “Doctor, don’t you see my throat is cut?”
1 perceived in him no indication of drink, from smell or otherwise. He answered readily and rationally, all questions which I heard put to him, except those about his wife and children.
With him were living his wife, two children, and a negro girl of Mrs. Elliott’s, named Mary, about eleven years old; no other inmates of his house; the house in this district.
Cross-examined. He lived in a neighborhood thickly settled. James G. Hinson about three hundred yards off; Edward Broughton, Sr., six hundred yards; Thomas Maples, four hundred; M. Goodman, four hundred; and other families within half a mile. A good many negroes and workmen about Brough-ton’s. Lawrence's store house a few hundred yards beyond Broughton’s.
On my way to the house I met Edward Broughton, Jun. There was a low rail fence about the house, which I stepped' over. The house was a small one; besides the corn crib, there wa«, on the other side of the house, twenty steps off, an old carriage house, and a scaffold, which seemed to have been used for cooking.
The crib was boarded up with rough edge boards. In the house, besides the hall room, (where the preparations for breakfast seemed to have been made,) there were two other rooms: one opening into the hall, and having a. window at the end, in which were beds, not made up when I went: the other used as a store-room, and opening into the piazza, which was on the back side of the house.
I saw an indistinct impression under the window of the bedroom—if of a person’s track, there had been no shoes on. I looked at this very particularly.
In conversation with the prisoner, I told him that if he had any messages to leave, he could leave them with me—he has sisters in the neighborhood very respectably married. He said he had no messages.
I have known him since about ’36. He has been an intemperate man—drunk whenever he could get liquor—having an inordinate thirst for spirits: growing worse for four or five years past. I heard, that before this deed, he had taken No. 6 and peppermint, for want of other stimulants.
In 1843 or ’44,1 attended him. Lie then lived at Manchester, in the house of his father-in-law,-Campbell. I found him then under delirium tremens, a state produced by the sudden cessation of stimulants after the excessive use of ardent spirits. It is a disease affecting both body and mind. The symptoms ofit are fearfulness, with occasional disposition to turbulence, watchfulness, wakefulness, nervous agitation, delusions of the fancy—sometimes rage with friends, then again cordiality. The effects somewhat different in different persons. In general, there is in all insanity, greatest bitterness towards the nearest relations.
I found him at this time in Manchester, timid—alarmed when I entered: he said some persons were trying to hurt him; did not wish me to approach him. I remained with him all day. His wife came in, he seemed affectionate; he took a nap; she came again, he seemed alarmed and apprehensive that she would injure him. and would not go to sleep till I agreed to sit by and watch him.
His wife was a lady of fine appearance and good character; twenty-four or twenty-five years old when she died; then pregnant, in the fifth or sixth month, as I supposed.
In reply. Search was made in a drawer for the razor; the razor case was found open, but no razor in it. Some traces of blood were found, and the razor was found under the piazza, very bloody and open. This before the wound was sewed up. House is two or three feet from the ground; not underpinned; one to get under must go on all fours. The traces of blood were on the back side of the house; same side on which the crib was.
I am not certain of the season of the year in which I visited him at Manchester; think it was between March and July. He exhibited no disposition towards violence then. I visited him two consecutive days. Ho then recovered. 1 often saw him afterwards, sometimes drunk, but never again under delirium tremens.
For the greater part of last year he lived three hundred yards from me, with his half sister, Mrs. Jenkinson, and about a month before this deed, removed to the summer house of Ed ward Brougton, Jr., in which he was living when the deed was done. I saw that morning a little furniture, some beds and a bit of middling. He had seen better days; his estate had been squandered by intemperance, and he was then considered very poor.
According to medical authorities, delirium tremens is after the debauch has terminated; in it the pulse is excited over one hundred, and tense; the expression of countenance wild and incoherent. I did not, on the day of this deed, observe in the prisoner any indications of that disease. His pulse was very low’, there was no appearance of timidity, no wildness of look, nothing like a symptom of the disease, except at one time. After the inquest, and after I had done conversing with the prisoner, Mr. Theodore W. Brailsford was talking to him, and I heard him say, "‘do you see that hawk?” I think the word was hawk. I turned to him, and he said, “do you see it there? see! see! see! one, two, three.” His countenance being directed downwards just after his eye and finger had been raised. He was then in the yard, and was considered to be in the custody of the constable. Before that I had observed nothing at all indicating disease.
Cross-examined again by permission. I think he owned once a small tract of land and two to four negroes, and had been engaged in a little store. About the hawk, he said it was flying over, then said pointing up and looking down, see, see, mentioning two or three smaller objects. I thought from his manner that this was feigned. This occurred in the afternoon, just before I came away, say five minutes after I had conversed with him. I suspected feigning, from the manner in which he moved his hand and dropped his head.
I did not think the attempt on his throat feigned, but believed that it was his fixed purpose to destroy his life.
I did not apprehend his death, unless secondary hemorrhage ensued, but I thought that very likely to occur.
Permanent insanity is said, by the books, sometimes to result from frequent attacks of delirium tremens.
I have heard of his being in broils when sober. In his manner he was, when sober, usually silent and retiring.
I think the axe was used both before and after the razor, for there was on the head of the deceased wife a bruise, and also another on her left shoulder, perhaps a fracture. The blow on the head probably preceded the use of the razor. She was lying rather on the back of her head, with her legs somewhat drawn up.
M. Goodman, a foreign Jew. I kept a store and lived about seven hundred yards from the prisoner. I was eating my breakfast, and was called by the negro girl, Maiy. I went, met in the road W. Hinson, Vvho seemed afraid to go up by himself. I ran; found three bodies lying on the floor. Mrs. Stark’s hand warm as life. She was lying on her side, and on her left arm, close to the fire, her feet to the fire, her legs drawn up. I did not see her throat, and supposed she had fainted. I tied her right arm, and turned her; I then looked at the children, both lying with their faces down, the boy on the axe. I picked up the axe, did not notice the handle, but blood a plenty and fresh.
I hunted all the rooms for him; did not find him; ran home; called the neighbors, Deschamps and others; went back; people then there, and he in the shuck house. Edward Broughton and others with him. I saw the razor brought from under the house very bloody.
Cross-examined. I have not known him very long; saw him three years ago, and I settled near him two years ago. I once employed him as a clerk. He was about my store drunk. I asked him, “Mr. Reuben, why you drink so hard?” He said, “No employment.” I say, “You lost property—get it again.” He say, “If you employ me, I quit drinking—when you see me; clean shaved and with clean shirt, I sober.” This was the week before. His wife begged me to employ him. He came shaved and clean about sunrise Thursday morning next, before the Saturday of the deed. He wanted something to drink; I gave him a glass of wine. I offered Madeira, but he said that too strong, he wanted Malaga to taper off. lie wrote a letter for me, very well. We went to breakfast; he ate hearty. I felt sick; he said he could attend to the store, I left it to him, and went to sleep in my house. I had wine in a cask, but I took the key of the cock. My wife went on a visit; I got out of bed and 1 sat in a chair by the fire, slept till 12 o’clock or thereabouts; my wile returned, called me, and said Stark drunk. I went, and found him with red spots on his face, and other signs of drinking. I missed nothing; had paregoric and peppermint in vials, and cordials and porter in bottles. I dont know how he got liquor; I would have missed cordial or porter if taken. He had got a bushel of corn from me, and I let his wife have some sugar and coffee. He went off about 12 o’clock. I still held out to him that I would employ him if he would be sober. I saw no more till his wife was dead.
Edward Broughton, Jr. When I and my fat her got into the house, Airs. Maples had just entered, and Goodman and Hinson had been there. I found the wife and two children on the floor, the boy next the mother. She on her left side, her feet drawn up; the blood fresh, measurably clotted; the axe lying by the fire, with blood on the handle and side. There were spots of blood from the bodies out of the door, through the piazza and on the steps.
I went to the outhouse. The prisoner was lying with his face next the partition wall, his head in the corner and his feet towards the door, which was ajar, opening outwards from the partition. He was in his shirt sleeves, his shirt bloody, and the blood seemed to have dried in some places on him. I called to my father; several persons came and looked at him. He lay still some time, then got up and walked backwards and forwards across the door. J could sec that his throat was cut on both sides. He said not a word.
The house he lived in was my summer house; he had gone into it about 1st Janury last. I did not speak to him when I saw him. It was perhaps half an hour before he got up. After walking about a little, he leaned over and seemed to be pulling open bis throat, or as I then thought, cutting it again. Some persons went in and tied him. A iter he had been searched and tied, and locked up, before his wound was dressed, he asked to be let out; said he would sit down by the door, and go no further; he was shivering, and seemed cold. Dr. W. L. Felder said, “may be we had bel ter not.” When any question was asked about his family, he would avoid answering. Mrs. Campbell, his wife’s mother, came; he had been talking to the doctors; he clenched his teeth and would not say one word to her.
Cross-examined. His pantaloons were buttoned, but without suspenders. His cloak was in the house, but he had not that on, nor his hat nor shoes. It was a cold day.
Ivy and others tied his hands across before him. The doctor had returned with his instruments when he said, “may'' be not.” I saw two places of blood under the house, about five feet back from the outer edge of the piazza, and two or three feet apart; there seemed to have been a considerable quantity in each place, soaked up in part by the sand.
I did not look for tracts under the window. I recollect no wood in the yard: there was some lightwood in the house lying near the body of Mrs Stark.
Theo. IV. Brailsford. Good many persons there when I went. I went to the crib and looked at. the prisoner. He was standing, stooping, very bloody, and seemingly cold: said nothing. I saw the bodies on the floor, and the razor brought out with blood and sand on it.
In the afternoon, after the inquest, and after Dr. Felder had been t alking to the prisoner, I spoke to him, and asked if he prayed. He said he was always praying. Then he said, ‘•dont, you see that hawk?” ,1 looked and saw nothing.
I told him he could not dive long, and asked if he did not-wish to see his wife? He said “No.” His children? “No.” He lay uneasy. I asked if he did not wish to go in and lie on a bed? “No.” This 3 or 4 o’clock. I soon afterwards came away. He was then lying where the doctor had sewed up his wounds.
Dr. John Boyd. Got there about 10 o’clock. Prisoner was at the end of the crib, lying on boards; his wounds not yet dressed. I was much overcome by the spectacle. My hearing is bad. I endeavored to converse with the prisoner, but he shewed great unwillingness. He was almost naked—very cold—-his pulse much depressed. I gave him a dose of paregoric and camphorated spirits, and he revived somewhat— his pulse afterwards rather frequent and feeble, such as loss of blood would occasion. When I was feeling his pulse, he asked whether I thought he would die? I said “Yes.” “How long before?” I did not know. The same when I felt again. He seemed impatient, and wished me to give him something to kill him.
I have known him long. I thought him that day perfectly conscious. In my opinion, there was no delusion. Generally in ddirium tremens, some, indication in the eyes and appearance may be detected—1 saw none in him.
The wounds on the bodies of wife and children occasioned their death—probably those with the blunt instrument might not have done so. On the wife, wound back of the head, at the junction with the neck.
Cross-examined. I had not seen the prisoner for some time till I saw him that day.
There may be cases in which loss of blood would restore a patient suffering under delirium tremens: the ordinary treatment is by stimulants. Probably an attempt at cutting the throat would have the effect of great bloodletting. Cases have been known of sanity restored by attempted suicide.
No doubt there have been instances, when after suicide attempted by an insane person, no evidence of insanity could be gathered from his conversation.
Edward Broughton, Senior. Monday evening, before the event, the prisoner was at a North Carolina wagon, drunk— spoke to me. I said, “drunk as usual.” I saw him no more till Thursday evening next, afterwards. That day, about 1 or 2 o’clock, he came to my house, and rushed into my chamber where I was dressing, after having come from the swamp, lie was very drunk:—did so again: asked me for liquor: I said he should not have a drop. He sat down by the fire and went to sleep in his chair—could not be waked—after sleeping two hours or so he waked up, asked for something to eat, went off, and I saw him no more till the fatal Saturday morning.
Saturday I went with my son; found three bodies lying on the floor, in their blood; I was struck with a pain in my side, which I did not get over for two hours. My son called to me that the prisoner was found. I went after some other persons had gone, half an hour before he spoke. We searched for knives and razor; there was blood from the door to the crib, and on each side of the steps, and two puddles under the house; the razor was found.
I was out of temper; he said, “take me out and hang me.” I said he deserved burning.
Cross-examined. His throat was badly cut. He frequently inquired, “can I live?” Somebody said, if he was in my son Edward’s place, he would bum the house.
Prisoner would get drunk wherever he could get liquor. He had no bottle Thursday that I saw.
On the second Monday of January last, at the election for clerk, prisoner was at the Fulton polls, drunk; began to abuse me, soon after I went; I went at nine or ten, and found him there drunk. Two hours or so afterwards, Capt. Richardson came, and he and I were talking; prisoner came and spoke to Capt. Richardson, and then offered his hand to me; I asked, why abuse me and then come to shake hands? He said he had not done so, that he had not seen me before that day.
James Harwin. Day of the inquest—many there when I went. Afternoon, I heard Mrs. Jenkinson, half-sister of prisonr er, ask him if he wanted to die? He said, “yes, you know I do; I expected to have been dead five hours ago.”
Last Christmas, at my house, he said he expected to live till he was thirty, and no longer—that he had given himself that time. I attached no importance to it. I married a sister of his wife; his family and mine were all present.
William S. Belser. About three years ago, prisoner settled with mo some rent he owed for house, &c. He complained of his difficulties, and reduced circumstances; asked, “is there no way for a man to get rid of all this?” I said, “there is nothing to be made by a man’s killing himself; you are young, go to work.” He had then gone through most of his property.
Dr. Marcus Reynolds. Have had a good deal of experience in cases of delirium tremens. Loss of blood I think would aggravate—produce greater depression. The ordinary treatment is by stimulants, and they are decidedly efficacious.
Optical illusions would be produced in a healthy subject by extreme loss of blood.
Cross-examined, Insanity in general is a very difficult subject.
I recollect no instances of partial cure of insanity by strange means applied by the patient.
I think delirium tremens is not likely to grow worse by repetition; doubt whether permanent insanity ever results from intemperance.
I have seen cases of mania a potu, in which for the time there was insanity—disordered perception, delusion.
Acts of violence are not likely to be committed in mania a potu, but such cases are given in the books.
Mania a potu is an aggravated form of delirium tremens. Tremulousness is an invariable symptom, but that sometimes results from ordinary intoxication just ceased.
There is always in mania a potu some indication not to be mistaken.
Eli Weeks. I saw the prisoner the night after the aflair, in his house. I went after dark; he Was in bed. I asked how he came on, he said, “badly.” I visited the room often through the night, perhaps once every hour. Every time I asked him where his family was; the second or third time I asked, he said, “I expect they are somewhere about the place: I have been asked that question fifty times to-day.” He seemed then a little roused. He asked me what I would take to be in his place. I answered, “not the world.”
I supported him to the cart next morning; he got in himself. He asked me where they were going to carry him. I said, “to the doctor’s.” Lie asked, “what doctor?” and then said, “I expect they are going to take me to the gallows.” I said, “they will not take you to the gallows now, but I expect they will after a while.” Lie drew the cover over his face, and I saw him no more till to-day.
Cross-examined. I went with my father-in-law, and staid because I was requested. I expected that he would find a doctor here in jail. I was born and raised about sixteen miles from Statesburg. I supposed Chewning, the constable, had a warrant when he took the prisoner off in the cart.
Defence. John Powers. I have known prisoner since he was a boy; known his wife and children. Lie lived within one hundred and fifty yards of me the year he lived with Joseph Richardson, and I frequently traded in his store.
I know nothing contradictory of entire harmony in his family; he was indulgent beyond his means; affectionate, and fond of having his children about him.
I left the neighborhood twelve months ago; up to that time I had seen him drunk three times. First time there was a Tray with counsel; two other times at Goodman’s store. When sober, quiet and silent.
Cross-examined. He had no property after his marriage. Before that had lived with Broughton, and kept store, then sold his negroes and bought goods. He stopped, became clerk to Joseph Richardson (which was two summers ago;) then lived with his half-sister, Mrs. Jenkinson, doing nothing at all, and I thought he was living with her still till I heard of this disaster.
Thomas Maples. Prisoner lived within a mile of me since ’36. I knew his wife and children.. He seemed very friendly in his family. I never heard a word to the contrary; affectionate to his children.
In the last year or so, he became a very hard drinker. Tuesday evening before affair, I saw him at a wagon camp, near to Counsel’s wagon, where liquor was. Hinson took him home. I saw him again at Goodman’s on Thursday, somewhat excited by liquor. I heard of him Friday evening.
Saturday, when I got there, five or six persons there. I live four hundred yards off.
James G. llinson. I have known the prisoner from his infancy. I lived three or four hundred yards from him at the affair; nearest neighbor to him. Last summer, when he was at Mrs. Jcnkinson’s, I was within a mile of him. I was familiar with his affairs. He seemed affectionate in his family, attached to his children.
I saw him Thursday morning and Thursday night; morning at Goodman’s, sober, night at my house, drunk.
Wednesday he was out of liquor, and was bad off for want of some; none could be got. He came to my house, and insisted on my giving him No. 6; he had previously sent for peppermint; he drank a table spoonful of the No. 6, and another drink of it, as I was told, and that night finished the bottle.
I went Friday evening to sec how he was—as he had been in a frolic all the week. I found him in bed, covered up. I staid about half an hour. Soon after I got into the house, he heard me, and called me into the room where he was; asked me what he had been doing; asked me if he had not been at Dunn’s & Dyson’s, and had not seen Mrs. Logan; said he had insulted some ladies badly; said, “did’nt William (Jenkinson, his half-sister’s son, who was talking in the hall) say they were going to take me?” I told him to get up and take some coffee. He said, “no, I have done something horrid,” and turned over. I came out of the room, and his wife, at my direction, took in some coffee and bread for him, and brought back the bread.
Cross-examined. I was one of the jury of inquest; was not sworn as a witness then, but stated to several what had occurrd the evening before.
Thursday night Mrs. Stark came to my house. I never said for protection.
The bottle of No. 6 held a gill.
The prisoner is my nephew. I never said that I sent over there Saturday morning to see if any thing had happened. I said I sent over.
Goodman and I were the first persons there—went together and found the bodies dead: did not find the prisoner. I looked for him in the bed where he was the evening before, in the room adjoining the hall.
I had heard from the negro girl; started, and turned back to get camphor—said I did not like to go by myself.
William Jenkinson, (a slender youth, about twenty years old.) I have known the prisoner ten or fifteen years: lived with him for about eighteen months after his marriage: since had been clerk to him; very intimate. His treatment of his wife and children was always kind and affectionate: he was fond of his children.
On Thursday, after he left Goodman’s, I was trying to take him home; he insisted on going to Goodman’s. I went into Hinson’s, and after a short time he came in there about three parts drunk; he stayed twenty minutes or so; went home; I went to his house: he was lying on the floor across the fireplace; had complained of being hungry. I advised him to eat; he would not; rolled about, raised up and fell down, looked foolish. His wife was at home. I went off.
About 12 o’clock, Friday, I passed his house, and heard he was in bed. Just before night, Hinson and I went to see him; he called Hinson into the room. After some time H. came out, and the prisoner called me in; he said he had insulted a good many ladies; had been to Dunn’s, Butler’s, Dyson’s, Logan’s, Belser’s, &c. I said he had not seen all those people for some months. He said that he had done some great crime, and I would not tell him. I said “No.” His wife came in with bread and coffee; he said he would take the coffee, but did not want bread. He opened his eyes and stared; gritted his teeth when taking the coffee; would chew the coffee. I asked “what’s the matter, that you grit your teeth so?” he said some tobacco had got between his teeth. I said that’s a queer way to get tobacco out, to grit your teeth so;” he went on so all the time he took coffee, chewing it; paid no attention to what I said. He then had on his pantaloons, but no coat or vest. I was in the room twenty minutes after his wife went out; he was still talking of having insulted ladies. I went home and saw him no more till next morning.
Cross-examined. Prisoner is my half uncle. I kept store for him. Sheriff and constables sold the remnant of his goods. I was with him four or five years ago; since then, I have been with Joseph Richardson, Goodman and Tuning: and he has been part of the time a clerk, and other part doing nothing.
I was sworn before the inquest; told them nothing of the matters which had occurred the evening before; I think if I told any body of them, I told Mr. Brailsford. I told him about Barwick; that is, twelve or fifteen months before this affair and whilst the prisoner lived at Manchester, I and the prisoner were riding together and passed Barwick and his wife plough-ing: he said, “do you see that?” I said, “what?” he said, “there is Barwick and his wife a ploughing; before I would come to that I would cut my own throat and my wife’s and children’s too.” This I told to Brailsford.
The sun was not down when Hinson and myself went to see him. We came away before dark. He drank all the coffee; looked wild at the time; his wife did not stay whilst he drank the coffee; he drank no liquor that day, that I know of; he was not on Thursday night real drunk: real drunk I call when one cannot get up.
Examined in reply. Squire Johnson acted as coroner, and I think asked questions. Conversation about Mrs. Barwick twelve or fifteen months before the event, and jocular. It is unusual for white women to plough. “ I’d cut my throat first,” a common form of expression.
Dr. C. R. F. Baker. I have known the prisoner since he was a child; attended him in 1844; he was then soldering under monomania from intemperance*, which lasted longer than delirium tremens usually does, and was a modification of delirium tremens, wanting some of the. ordinary symptoms; ho had not then just come from a debauch, but had been maniacal for several weeks, and continued so for a month longer, gradually getting better. He said he had not slept for three weeks, and that his heart was enlarged and had bulged out his chest; his eyes were restless and. wild. I could not persuade him that there was no enlargement, although obviously there was nothing misshapen about his chest. I attended him two months, and think I left him restored.
I think a person who once has had delirium tremens is more likely than another to have it again; and that by repetition it becomes more easily produced and more aggravated. 1 knew a case in this village (Sumter) of permanent insanity produced by repeated attacks of delirium tremens.
Hypochondriasis is not usually produced by intemperance; it may arise from it as a remote cause.
I have heard of cases of insanity relieved by bloodletting made in attempted suicide, the desire to save life supervening.
Insanity cannot be always detected from conversation.
Cross-examined. There may be a design to kill one’s self, which may cease upon the feeling of pain.
This was a case complicated; mania and delirium tremens united—monomania—derangement upon one subject only—an hallucination as to the state of his body, with some wildness and restlessness, and an imagining that he did not go to sleep. I did not use stimulants upon him; his nerves were shattered; I used anodynes, purgatives, sedatives and bathings; once I took a little blood. He had, in the beginning, a small pulse, and bleeding would have been unsuitable.
Intemperance is more fruitful of insanity than any other one cause. A person who has been drinking for several years, is more liable to attacks of delirium tremens than one who has lately become intemperate; one who has a vigorous constitution not so liable as one whose constitution has been shattered. Usually a day or two intervenes between intoxication and delirium tremens; when the excitement of the liquor has subsided, the delirium tremens ensues, may be a day or a week after, usually between these times.
There is another form of the disease, in which inflammation is produced by continued intoxication; inflammation may come on during the intoxication, and continue after it has ceased. In this some depletion might be serviceable, but not great, since drunkenness usually weakens. Of active delirium tremens of this kind, the indications could not be mistaken.
In the first mentioned form, there are found usually timidity and shyness, sometimes a belief that urges the patient to deeds of violence. Frequently these manifestations are strongly developed; but there may be all shades of the disease, from trifling incoherence to phrenzy.
Dr. John Felder. Practising physician for twenty-two years. Delirium tremens and mania a potu, two names for the same disease, produced by the immoderate effect of ardent spirits. Some writers say the disease comes on during the drunken frolic, and 1 think it as frequently comes during the frolic as after; it continues after the intoxication has gone. The stomach and the digestive organs are affected, the brain sympathizes, and an irritability of the nervous system is produced. I have heard of cases of cure from attempts to cut the throat, but it is improper to bleed in a majority of cases.
Various grades of disease of the mind—a case in this village, of permanent insanity, produced, as supposed, by intemperance; and a case of insanity (not from intemperance) cured by the shock of jumping into the water.
Cross-examined. Delirium tremens may be spoken of as a more violent form of the disease. It may come on within twenty-four hours after the abstraction of the stimulants; more frequently during the drinking. It is hard to draw the line between drunkenness and mania a potu, not hard to distinguish the symptoms of one plainly existing, from the symptoms of the other fully established, but hard to say exactly, where one ends and the other begins.
After long drinking, one may continue to drink, and take the disease; if he should continue to drink on it might be speedily fatal.
In delirium tremens I administer opium, camphor and calomel; do not bleed, unless there be a determination to the brain. The symptoms are fearful apprehensions of danger, wildness of the eyes, violence resulting from fear, friends taken for enemies, optical illusions, tremulousness, strange imaginings, delusion.
Doctor C. W. LeSesne. Practising physician fifteen years. Delirium tremens and mania a j>otu the same. Caused by use of ardent spirits; often commences during the revelry, sometimes after the abstraction of stimulants. Symptoms, nervous tremor, quickness ef pulse, inability to sleep, apprehensions, illusions.
If the arterial action strong, blood-letting might be useful in the beginning. That could never be so, if the disease has been produced by a cessation of stimulants, then the surface would be cold and moist. Persons who have the means of indulging their appetite, usually take the disease from their stomach’s rejecting the liquor, then blood-letting would be unsuitable. Insanity is sometimes cured by attempted suicide, that is, by copious blood-letting.
Cross-examined. The first indication of delirium tremens, is usually watch lulness, then tremor, &c. Whenever the patient sleeps sound, he is cured.
If the disease were coming on a person of robust constitution, during his revelry, blood-letting might be cautiously used, in general it would be dangerous.
Robert Bradford, Esq. I have seen the prisoner once or twice in the street, and once he was at my house. I had no acquaintance with him; and six or eight months ago, I was sitting by the fire at night, about to retire to bed, when I heard somebody running; presently the prisoner ran right in, bareheaded, saying that he had been pursued by Mexicans, and had escaped. He sat down; I saw he was under the influence of liquor; he jumped up and cracked his feet together, and I sent him off by a boy.
Cyrus Morse. I have seen the prisoner occasionally since he was a child; of late he has been intoxicated whenever I have seen him. When drunk I have seen him like other drunken men, not knowing what he was doing.
Last fall at Court, he came to me and said he was a candidate for sheriff, asked me and others to vote for him. He was walking about without staggering, although he had the appearance of a drunken man, not dead drunk. The election for clerk was pending, and took place last January.
Cross-examined. He was a great fool, drunk.
Rei>i,y. Theodore W. Brailsford, recalled. On the day of the inquest, Jenkinson said that the prisoner had observed, that before he would work as hard as Martin Barwick did for so large a family, he would cut his own throat and his family’s too.
James Harwin, recalled. Nothing.
Dr. William L. Felder. In the books, delirium tremens and mania a potu have been generally spoken of as the same, but a distinction is now drawn; mania a potu now regarded as an exalted state which may come on in the debauch; delirium tremens ensuing from the abstraction of stimulants. Dickson thinks the disease more frequently arises during the debauch. Ellerbe, Hunter, &c., say that it is brought on after abstraction of stimulants. As to delirium tremens, I agree with the latter.
Mania a potu is a determination of blood to the brain during the debauch; delirium tremens, an influence upon the nervous system; the former might be treated by blood-letting, the latter not unless there were special circumstances. Either easily detected when the reason affected.
I have known of no case of delusion which could not be detected in short intercourse; there is delusion in mania a potu as well as in delirium tremens.
I think that if there had been any insanity in the case of the prisoner on that day, I must have detected it, and that it could not, after the act, have passed away so as to leave no trace.
In ordinary health, blood-letting carried to great excess might produce optical illusions. In this case it was excessive.
Cross-examined. There may be moral insanity; great varieties of insanity.
If mania a potu previous night, and throat cut in the morning, whether I would say the cutting proceeded from mania, would depend on circumstances. There might have been rationality restored if mania a polu; not so likely if delirium tremens.
If I saw the throat cut, and nothing more, I would not say there had been mania.
I said that I supposed he feigned when he said,‘‘dont you see hawk, &c.” that was the impression his manner made on me, and I was pressed for my opinion. He held his head down when ho pointed up; there would, however, have been more pain in his holding his head up then; and I wish it to be considered a matter of doubt with me whether he feigned, and if he did not, whether some optical illusion may not have been produced by loss ofblood.
I know William Jenkinson; he is of good character; I would believe him.
Richard J. Manning. At the inquest, I saw the prisoner lying on boards. I asked him about the transaction; he was silent. Dr. Boyd came; the prisoner asked about his pulse, and seemed anxious to die. He would answer no question about his family. There was nothing striking in his manner. lie seemed, I thought, to have an averted look, when questioned about his family.
The case was fully and ably argued by Messrs Smart, W. F. DeSaussure, and Moses, for the prisoner, and by Mr. Solicitor Fair for the State: and I summed up with all the care which the importance and difficulty of the case demanded.
I regret that the great pains which I took should have been so ineffectual, that such wide mistakes of my meaning seem to have prevailed as the grounds of appeal indicate.
Upon the various points made in the argument, involving the extremely difficult subject of insanity, I made such remarks as I deemed necessary to direct the inquiries of the jurors, and with full instructions concerning their powers and responsibility, presented the questions to them, and invoked their decision. I shall confine myself now to the matters which arc suggested by the grounds of appeal.
I held, that actual insanity, no matter from what cause proceeding, nor of what duration, rendered its unhappy subject unaccountable for acts committed under its influence: that mania a potu, or insanity, of which drunkenness was the cause, was like insanity which has been produced by some other vice, but was to be carefully distinguished from mere intoxication, which being a temporary and voluntary suspension of the faculties given for control of the conduct, constitutes no excuse for crime: that mania, which might arise during the fit of intoxication, could not be distinguished from other extravagancies of drunkenness, so long as the ordinary time of intoxication lasted, and whilst the ordinary evidences of intoxication were manifested; although it would be like other mania a potu, if an inflammation of the brain, or other direct effect of stimulants, accruing during the intoxication and producing insanity, should continue after the intoxication had ceased. But that the questions concerning mania arising during intoxication were of small moment here; for in this case, if there had been mania a potu, at all, it must have been of that kind which is spoken of in books on Medical Jurisprudence, which comes on after the intoxication has ceased, and is escribed to an abstraction of stimulants.
I carefully avoided the terms, “permanent”—•“settled”—“fixed” which the Solicitor-had used; and (terrible as may be the consequences of the doctrine,) not being able to discover the principles upon which I could distinguish between madness of an hour and madness of a year, directed that mania, if it existed even for a short lime, distinct from intoxication, formed an excuse.
Amongst many comments which I made when I called attention to the testimony ol Hinson and Jenkinson, (which had been mainly relied on as evidence of those symptoms of mania a potu, which the physicians examined, and the books read had described.) 1 remarked that these witnesses seemed to describe rather a bewilderment of the memory concerning what had transpired during the intoxication, than those optical illusions which were said generally to attend mania a potu. Delusion I spoke of as the most certain manifestation of insanity, and I gave instances of delusion in the senses, and in the fancy, recognizing the opinion that; insanity usually deduces correct conclusions from premises misconceived through delusion; but I gave no opinion as to a case where memory alone was affected, (although I can conceive of no such case of insanity,) and if I made any distinction between delusion as to things supposed to be present, and delusions concerning matters conceived of as absent or past; I spoke only in reference to the symptoms of mania a potu, which had been detailed.
The great question seemed to be, whether the prisoner perpetrated the horrid deed whilst he was really suffering under mania a potu, or whether his gloomy temper, under the depressing influence of sickness and exhaustion from drunkenness, brooding over his desperate fortunes and the frustration of his last effort at reformation, had brought him to yield to the demoniac imagination before indulged, and with only such madness as attends all great crimes, to resolve that death should end at once the misery of himself, and of all that belonged to him.
I professed, as I felt, my inability to explain what mind was, or to show how it was operated on by the body, or what changes were wrought to develope that state which we call insanity"; but I held that depression of spirits was not insanity, nor was much disturbance of the ordinary operation of the mind by bodily ailment, or other extraneous cause, nor much weakness of particulai- powers, called faculties of the mind; that to constitute the insanity which forms an excuse for crime, (not to speak of fatuity,) there must be delusion—some such perversion of the means of intelligence and judgment, that the agent does an act unconscious of what he has done, or under disordered conceptions, such as, if true, would render the act blameless.
In answer to the argument, that no indication of any insanity was detected by any of the many persons who, from a short time after the act, for five or six hours, saw and conversed with the prisoner, it was urged in his behalf, that blood-letting may have relieved his mania, or that his insanity was of that lurking kind often existing, which cannot be detected by ordinary observation, or by conversation on ordinary subjects.
On the other side, it was urged, that in a case of mania supervening intoxication (the only mania a potu which the prisoner could have had,) blood-letting would have aggravated the dis ease; that the hawk spoken of in the afternoon, was either an act of feigned insanity, or an optical illusion produced by excessive blood-letting; and that the enormity of the offence was not itself to be taken as sufficient evidence of insanity— but for this monstrous act proved against him, the prisoner must be held to account as he would have been for a less offence, unless there had appeared evidence to show that he was not an accountable being.
The former suffering of the prisoner, under mania a potu, as shewn by Drs. Baker and W. L. Felder—his conduct at Bradford’s, and the circumstances mentioned by Morse and Edward Broughton, Sen., were adduced by the prisoner’s counsel as confirmation of the conclusion they drew with confidence from the testimony of Hinson and Jenkinson, and from the absence of all motive for the dreadful deed.
On the other hand, it was maintained that none of the symptoms, before so obvious to the physicians, could be detected on the day of this deed; that Hinson and Jenkinson did not describe a case of mania a potu, nor at the time of the matters they spoke of, act like men who had observed any thing unusual-that the conduct proved by the other witnesses was only the result of ordinary intoxication: and that the enormity of his crime stood as the only evidence in favor of the prisoner.
I arrayed the evidence and arguments on these points, and with merciful admonitions submitted them to the jury.
The jury was a very intelligent one, evidently selected of the best of a good pannel; and after an hour’s consultation, rendered a verdict of guilty.
The prisoner moved for a new trial, on the following grounds:
1st. Because his Honor charged the jury, that if mania a potu existed during the fit of intoxication, the party would not be excused for any act committed under its influence.
2d. Because his Honor charged, that before the jury could excuse, by reason of the affection of mania a potu, they must be convinced that it had induced a permanent and settled disease of both body and mind.
3d. Because his Honor charged, that there could be no delirium sufficient to excuse, where the memory of the party was alone affected.
4th. Because his Honor charged, that no delusion was evidence of insanity, except delusion of things present, and supposed to be transpiring at the time.
5th. Because the evidence submitted made a case of insanity? and his Honor should so have charged.
6th. Because the verdict was against law and evidence.
Smart, for the motion.
The difficulty here is, to ascertain what case is made out by the facts, so that the law can be applied. First, the prisoner had mania a potu, or delirium; and if he had either, it is sufficient. Second, it is at least a case of doubt, and then a new trial should be had. The fact of his insanity is to be ascertained from many circumstances; there is a difference of opinion among the physicians as to these, and the fact itself is, therefore, of doubtful existence. Vide Hooper’s Med. Die. as to the various effects produced on the brain, by gun shot wounds in the head. On the 1st ground of appeal, see 1 Beck’s Med. Jur., and 2d Dickson’s Prac.; title mania a potu or delirium tremens: if it is secondary, it is an excuse. Where is the difference, if mania a potu exists during drunkenness? Mania or delirium, either should excuse, and neither is drunkenness, but, remotely only, a consequence of it; 2 Dickson’s Prac., 388; and 1 Beck’s Med. Jur., 634.
W. F. DeSaussure, same side.
The law is a rule of conduct for rational beings. This man was not rational. A maniac cannot commit crime. Revenge is not the object of the law in the infliction of punishment, but to deter others by the example. Can example deter a madman? If the insanity arise from a man’s own act, is he excusable for crime? Drunkenness is no excuse, for he may get drunk to commit crime; but mania, induced by drunkenness, is an excuse, whether the intoxication runs into it at once, or it is an after consequence. The .Judge instructed the jury that if mania existed independent of drunkenness, then it was an excuse. 1 Russel on Crimes, 12. Insanity, whether from the voluntary act of the party or not, is an excuse. In this case, the enormity of the act itself, and the loss of blood, were sufficient to restore him. Hatfield ads. The King, 1 Russel, 17. The idea of the prisoner’s feigning insanity, is preposterous. Did he fly? Did he seem desirous of living! No! The act itself was evidence of insanity, connected with the attempted suicide, certainly. Dickson’s Prac., 384, 393 and 399; Ebcrly, 175; Watson’s Prac., 253 and 254.
Fair, Solicitor, contra.
Contended that the jury should be allowed to judge whether one gets drunk to commit crime—• admitted, that irresponsibility attaches to any insanity, however induced, but thought that was carrying the matter too far. Insisted that the case of insanity should be fully made out to the satisfaction of the Court and the jury, and urged that the rule should be strict on this point. It must not be from drink; he allowed no difference between intoxication, and the after, immediate consequence. Cited, Grey’s Forensic Medicine, 331, note—.as containing the answers of the English Judges to the questions of the English Parliament, on insanity. At the time of the act, the party should be proved ignorant of right and wrong. Said the plea of insanity was often made use of to avoid the punishment of crime; abolish capital punishment, and that it would be seldom heard of. He urged that, in this case, the doubt should not be given to the prisoner. That the homicide had been established, and that he should positively prove his insanity,—and that insanity should be also proved to be an existing and continuous disease.
Moses, in reply, for the motion.
Winslow on Insanity, 42, Law Lib., Cooper’s Medical Jur. Is insanity a disease of mind or body? The prisoner was not under the immediate effects of liquor, but of mania or delirium. Mania, if it existed at the time of the act; no matter how long it lasted—no matter how induced, orto what extent, is sufficient; the law excuses. Mania and delirium are the same, for the purposes of this trial. In the beginning, the prisoner was not treated as a man in his senses. The shock of blood-letting, afterwards sobered him, and cooled the mania. Elliotson's Prac., by Stewartson, 531; Marshall Hall’s Prac. Med., 440; Elliotson’s Prac., 558. To be mad, a man must have an alienation of mind, rendering him incapable of attending to ordinary duties, or disposing him to injure others. 1 Grey’s Med. Jur., 270. A maniac never refers to a hallucination under which he had labored when mad, but a drunkard does, to facts committed by him while drunk. There must bo a motive in crime, and that motive must be bad to entitle it to punishment. See Erskine’s speech, in Hatfield ads the King. Doubts are given in mercy to the prisoner. I cannot agree with the answers of the English Judges on the subject. A total deprivation of reason is not necessary to excuse crime; U. S. v. Drew, 5 Mason’s Rep., 28. The prisoner must know that he is committing crime, violating the law of the land, &c.; to decide otherwise, the Court would be going backward towards barbarism. Winslow on Insanity, 74. Delusion affecting the particular act, is sufficient to excuse : each case must be viewed practically. In Grey, 334, it is shewn, that where the case excites interest enough to elicit all known of the prisoner’s acts, he is likely to escape. Dickson at page 279, says, it is a difficult subject; and so does Winslow, at page 73. Winslow, at page 61 says, the motive must always be looked to. The maniac murders those nearest to him. Winslow, pages 15 and 76. The lunatic must have control over his actions at the moment of the deed. Grey, 237, note.
Smart added: That as the prisoner had been proved to have said that he would commit this very act under certain circumstances, which he almost anticipated; and that as when the mind dwells for a long time on one subject, it often causes insanity; this may have been a case of insanity not at all connected with drunkenness.

Opinion:
Withers J.
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The prisoner was tried upon a charge of homicide, characterized by circumstances which must place his case among the most shocking that have stained the annals of our criminal jurisprudence. He has obliterated, in blood, from the face of the earth, apparently with deliberate hand, every vestige of his entire family—comprising a wife, who as the testimony indicates, was virtuous, constant and blameless; and two children, blooming and lovely, clothed in innocence of the tenderest years. This dreadful tragedy seems to have been perpetrated at a moment when that wife was engaged in preparing for himself and his dependent offspring, an humble repast from those scanty stores, to which his own improvidence and vice had reduced her—and if one gleam of consolation can spring from this dismal scene, it must bo derived only from the supposition that this wife and her offspring have been released from the torture of an indefinite and protracted suffering; and though all were hurried to the bar of God by a cruel and unnatural hand, she, perhaps, may have plead at the dread tribunal, that she ceased to live while actually engaged in the virtuous offices of maternal and conjugal affection and duty—and they, the uncorrupted innocence of childhood.
It cannot be, but that to all men; in an eminent degree to him who is a husband and a father, the recital of the particulars of this terrible deed instantly suggests the inquiry, in what motive of an unperverted mind shall wc seek the cause? And if a jury, or this Court, were required to designate the rational or sane impulse, that could have impelled the prisoner to such butchery before he could be condemned, then he might escape-But it cannot be seriously insisted that this would present the true issue. The perpetration of the act is established. The prisoner's defence below, his appeal to this tribunal, rested upon the allegation, proceeding from him, that though he slew his wife and children, and mangled their bodies in a manner the most brutal and barbaimis, yet he was driven by insane impulse; that by some species and degree of mental disorder, in the intellectual or moral attributes, or in both, his judgment was so far dethroned, or his reason so far obscured, and the action of his free will so far suspended or perverted, that he deserves to be regarded but .as the mere physical agent in the perpetration of the homicide, and held irresponsible to the sanctions of the criminal law. Whatever might be the sudden response of a heart jealous of the honor of our nature, and in which there lives a virtuous sentiment to be shocked by the amazing turpitude of this act, the stern and solemn answer must be, that as in the case of every other plea, intended to mitigate, to excuse, or to justify an established homicide, so in this, the positive existence of that degree and kind of insanity, that shall work a dispensation to the prisoner, is a fact to be proved, as it is affirmed by him to the satisfaction of the jury, who are the safest, and the proper arbiters of the question. Such inquiry, it is too true, will often lead us into those awful mysteries that enshroud the organization of the human being—an inquiry, which, seeking to detect the unseen action of the intellect upon the body, must often confound and appal the boldest^ the wisest, the most acute; and, manifesting an universal ignorance of all that is certain, must subject the philosopher, the judge, the wise, and the unwise, to a reverential humility.
Yet, the Court has a function to discharge, even in this region of twilight. It can be no other than, as each case shall arise, to erect the best standard for the guidance of the jury, that the lights oí the age, however glimmering in this mysterious region, have afforded to jurisprudence, and endeavor to hold, with a steady hand, the scales of justice, even though the issue be life and death.
We are, therefore, to inquire whether the landmarks afforded to the jury, b}7 the presiding Judge who tided the prisoner, were such as the law prescribes and sanctions.
We are of opinion, that in this difficult undertaking, there was no error of which the prisoner can properly complain.
It might be enough soto announce—but we deem it due to the gravity of the cause and to the argument of counsel, to review briefly, the positions that have been assumed for the defence.
The first ground alleges as error, "because his Honor charged the jury, that if mania a potw existed during the fit of intoxication, the party would not be excused for any act committed under its influence."
The proposition, in the words of the report, was this: "that mania, which might arise during the fit of intoxication, could not be distinguished from other extravagancies of drunkenness so long as the ordinary time of intoxication lasted, and whilst the ordinary evidences of intoxication were manifested; although it would be like other mania a potu, if an inflammation of the brain, or other direct effect of stimulants, occurring during the intoxication, and producing insanity, should continue after the intoxication ceased."
This proposition, in the form given to it, was more favorable to the prisoner than those terms would have been which are used and authorized by Hale, adopted by Blackstone, and supported by the authority of Coke. In the words of Hale, (1 P. C., 32)—"although the simple phrenzy occasioned immediately by drunkenness, excuses, not in criminals, yet, if by one or more such practices, an habitual or fixed phrenzy be caused," this shall excuse. In the case of Drew, (5 Mason, 28,) the proposition was laid down by Judge Story thus: "In general, insanity is an excuse for the commission of any crime, because the party has not the possession of his reason, which includes responsibility. An exception is, where the crime is committed while the party is in a fit of intoxication, and while it lasts, and not, as in this case, a remote consequence superinduced by the antecedent exhaustion of the party arising from gross and habi. tual drunkenness. Had the crime been committed while Drew was in a fit of intoxication, he would have been liable to be convicted of murder." It is quite clear that the doctrine held on the circuit, was in no degree stronger than that announced by Judge Story, and by no means so strong against the prisoner as that sent down to us by the earlier luminaries of the English law; for wo are informed by the report that the prisoner was not held to the proof of an "habitual and fixed" phrenzy or mania, but that the terms, settled, permanent, fixed, were carefully avoided in the charge to the jury, and they had the opinion of the Court that the madness of an hour would excuse as well as that of a year. But this doctrine had no place, in any form, in the facts of the case, for there was no ground to suppose that the party was intoxicated when the act was committed.
The second ground is well answered also, by the extract from the report above quoted. It was not exacted of the prisoner that he should prove a permanent and settled disease of both body and mind, or either of them. We need not, therefore, enlarge upon that.
The third ground imputes error to the charge in this: "that there could be no delirium sufficient to excuse, where the memory of the party was alone affected."
No other form of insanity was urged on the trial in behalf of the prisoner, or has been insisted on here, except that of delirium tremens. This consequence of drunken debauchery is described to be almost always accompanied by tremor. The patient (as we are informed by medical writers) is restless, anxious, sleepless, suspicious, timid and cunning—deems himself in a strange place, and under control, from which he is constantly endeavoring to escape—conceiving himself surrounded by loathsome objects, such as toads, serpents and scorpions; and tormented by such optical illusions, he seeks to escape. It was insisted here, that the evidence of Hinson and Jenkinson established a case of delusion on the part of the prisoner on the night before he perpetrated the deed. Now, the charge on this subject went no farther than to suggest that the particulars stated by these witnesses indicated rather a bewilderment of the memory, than such optical illusions as were said to attend generally delirium tremens. But the criterion of the delusion so much insisted on here, (and well supported in Hatfield's case,) was submitted to the jury as affording the most satisfactory characteristic of insanity. The delusion which it is insisted was discovered in the prisoner on Friday evening, is traced to his assertions that he had insulted a good many ladies, that he had visited sundry houses in the neighborhood, which, it is said, he had not for some time seen, and that he had committed some great crime, which he accused Jenkinson of concealing from him. Conceding that, according to the arbitrary definitions of metaphysi-cians, who would vainly attempt to dissect the mind as a surgeon would the body, it might not be clearly true that the faculty of memoi'y only was at fault in these capricious observations, it was still left to be considered, whether its principal handmaid, the law of association, had not combined with persons to whom he had lately been rude, those whom he had not affronted, and, driven by the goadings of a disturbed conscience in a dreamy slumber, had, by overleaping time, brought in conjunction to a confused memory the remoter scene at Bradford's, and the later transactions at Broughton's. If, however, the phenomena in question be resolvable only by the supposition of existing delusion, then, as has been already remarked, the prisoner had the full benefit of that view of the subject. Nor must we forget that the delusion, (if it were such in the legal sense,) was traced no nearer to the fatal moment than the evening preceding, and was not shown to have had any connexion with the hloody deed, to have vanished with its perpetration, or to have existed thereafter. There was no evidence to warrant the belief that there was a general subversion of reason, a general suspension of free will. Surely Hinson and Jcnkinson did not suspect this on Friday evening, or they would not have loft a madman and relative at large, nor could his poor wife have suspected this, else site would have sought protection. To imply a general disorganization of mind, would be but a naked assumption—it would be to presume more than was suggested here or on the trial, and would want any basis in the testimony. Supposing, then, the fact to have been established, that there was delusion, or unsoundness of mind, on some particular point, it nowhere appears that the act of the prisoner was the consequence of such delusion as the effect of a cause merely; much less docs it appear that the delusion (whatever we may allow it to have been,) satisfied the mind of the prisoner that the act flowing from it was justifiable, if there was delusion, has the prisoner shown of what faculty, whether of one or more, on what subject, whether his insanity was moral or intellectual? whether a false assumption, acted upon as true, has conducted him to the perpetration of this catastrophe? If so, what was the assumption? wherein connected with iris wife and children? In what portion of the testimony shall we seek for that morbid delusion of any faculty, moral or intellectual, which may excuse, when the act is the immediate unqualified offspring of the hallucination? What fact existed only in the morbid belief of the prisoner, but which, if it were indeed a reality, would have justified or excused the act? Alas! for this unhappy man, he was sane, (so we must conclude,) when, twelve or fifteen months before the fatal morning, he prefigured the sad event in terms most fearfully exact. Before his wife should plough (he said) as Barwick's did, he would cut her throat, his children's, and his own. Substantially the contingency had occurred— produced by his own unmanly conduct, when the horrid prediction of a sane moment was to be fulfilled. What was there to show that the conceit of a sane mind became the act of a madman's hand? Had he executed the deed immediately that he threatened it, what then would have been his defence? Had he pillaged his neighbors goods, from time to time, to ward off from his own the fate ofBarwick's wife, instead of holding the plough himself, in what would he have founded a plea of insanity? Had he labored successfully for the support of his family-had he encountered with manly resolution the obligations of an husband and a parent—had there in fact been no danger that his wife's necessities were to be such as Barwick's—and yet it had been shown that the prisoner really thought so and acted upon the belief—then, indeed, it might have been urged with more success, that there was evidence of delusion. Unhappily for the prisoner, the shame and degradation of his family, which he had threatened to wash out in their blood and his own, brought on them by himself, rendered the more irretrievable by his failure in a last effort at reformation, though stimulated and encouraged by his wife—was not the spectre of a delusion, it was a sad reality, and presented the contingency which was to work their destruction, not from the mad phrenzy of a moment, but it may be by the wicked execution of an idea long before lodged in a brain that had given it form and semblance.
It will never do to permit the excessive indulgence of a feeling natural to the most sane, the mere morose brooding of a heart "devoid of social duty and fatally bent upon mischief," to operate the exemption of the accused, else immoderate rage or lust will come to excuse the most atrocious acts. Though it is, confessedly, beyond the power of human learning to define the misty line that separates violent passion from insanity, yet, as a case arises, the prisoner must be held obligated to produce the evidence that will enable the jury, aided by the best lights which the bench can afford them, to place him on the one side or on the other. It will never do so to administer the law, on this most difficult and mysterious subject, as practically to throw upon the prosecution the office of establishing the sanity of the accused.
As to the 4th ground, to wit, "because his Honor charged that no delusion was evidence of insanity, except delusion of things present and supposed to be transpiring at the time," it is sufficient to remark that the proposition set forth was not. as seems to have been apprehended, submitted to the jury; but with reference to the characteristics of mania a poiu, or delirium tremens, as described on the trial and in the books, and which was made the basis of the prisoner's defence, the observation was made that the optical illusion said to attend that disease was supposed to relate to things believed to be present (as obviously such illusion must;) whereas the delusions imputed to the prisoner on Friday evening seemed to relate to things absent and pa«t.
It is finally insisted, that the evidence made a case of insanity, and the jury should have been so charged.
This Court is by no means prepared to sanction such language in a charge to a jury, as matter of legal instruction to them, in any case where testimony presents a dubious question; much less would we hold it to be proper in the case now before us. If this Court could come to that conclusion, and we have examined the case with deep solicitude, it would be remitted in virtue of the high discretion entrusted to us, to the revision of another jury.
But upon a review of the whole cause, what are the considerations really relied upon to establish the insanity of the prisoner?
1. The overwhelming barbarity of the act. The prisoner has put to death the unoffending mother of his children, and those children themselves, still more unoffending. For all, it is urged, he has exhibited the usual marks of affection—save, however, in the important particular, that by habits of thriftless vice he had rendered himself unworthy of such a family—had reduced them to penury, and thus beheld in them the living memorials of his own shame and reproach; and having butchered them, he sought to destroy his own life.
It is quite clear that if we admit the dispensing power of such reasoning, no man can ever be convicted of the murder of his family, if no more can be proved but the homicide itself, for the more unnatural and brutal the crime, the stronger would become the ground of defence. Nor should we find encour agement for this in the Courts of England, for it is but recently (see the Queen v. Higginson, 47 Eng. Com. L. Rep.,) a prisoner was upon trial for the murder of his little son, and the question being whether he had first killed him or had buried him alive, lie rose in Court and said, "I buried him alive:" no presumption of insanity was urged, and he was convicted. And as to the attempt of Stark upon bis own life, it is obvious to remark that even if suicide be considered as necessarily proceeding from insanity, (which need not be affirmed or admitted,) the attempt to commit it would furnish to a wicked and designing felon, too convenient a shelter to be yielded to such by the advice of this Court.
2. It is urged, moreover, that the prisoner suffered under delirium tremens, by some identified with mania a potu. We have looked in vain for the proof of this very material allegation. Wc can discover no warrant for such conclusion from what is said by the two physicians who saw the prisoner soon after the tragedy, for they believe he was not so affected. Nobody who then saw him establishes the existence of those symptoms which characterize this condition, unless, indeed, we may so regard the solitary fact, that he uttered an incoherent expression concerning a hawk. It is not necessary that this should be imputed to artifice. It is enough, that, if it were not a mere trick, it may have been an optical illusion, resulting from loss of blood. And after all, who but the jury shall determine the fact? And why shall we hesitate, when we see no cause to complain of the manner in which it was submitted to them, upon such light circumstances as the one just mentioned, and the vagaries of the night before, as detailed by Llinson and Jenkinson? Were we to send this case back, and thus authorize the inference that we had detected insanity from the testimony adduced, it is scarcely too much to say, that we should be, without example, among that long list of cases, consulted upon this occasion, wherein this species of defence has been urged in some one or other of its infinite variety of forms.
If, as was contended, delirium tremens, or anv other form of insanity, existed on Friday night, and continued up to the period of the fatal deed, whereupon it vanished with the flowing of blood from the prisoner's wound, the jury might well have demanded, and failed to perceive the answer—why did the parly, when a ray of reason again beamed upon his mind, maintain a stoical, stubborn indifference, when the eye of the husband and the father beheld the awful and complete havoc which his own hand had spread throughout his household ? Why apprehend that the gallows was the end to which he was destined, if he knew or believed himself to be irresponsible ? Why withhold an answer touching his wife and children? If, on the other hand, the paroxysm yet continued, and is made to account for the phenomenon, where is the evidence that it so continued 1
The standard of a knowledge of right and wrong, or a capacity to understand the difference between them, as the criterion of sanity or insanity, so earnestly contested at the bar, was not prescribed in this case or recommended to the jury; and hence we need not enter upon the question presented by such a proposition, nor vainly attempt to define with precision any standard upon the subject.
Our painful conclusion is, that there is nothing to justify the interference of this Court with the finding of the jury, and that though we cannot, prove the prisoner's sanity, yet we see in his evidence (and to that only we are to look) no sufficient reason to question it; and having had a fair trial, with all the humane allowances of the law, before a jury of his peers, their solemn arbitrament must seal his fate.
The motion is, therefore, dismissed.
Evans J., Wardlaw J,, and Frost J., concurred.