The Sun. — 1844-09-19 (London, England)

VERDICTS OF INSANITY.  At an inquest held by Mr. Wakley, M.P., on the body of a woman aged 22, a sempstress, who had taken an ounce of oxalic acid, and who, although she continued to suffer the most excruciating agony until her death on Saturday last, did all she could to prevent her life from being saved, and would not swallow voluntarily tea or coffee, lest some remedy should be mixed with it, the Coroner said, the determination of some persons to die was wonderful. Some time since he held an inquest on a woman in Clarendon-square, who had swallowed the strongest preparation of sulphuric acid, who had lived nineteen hours afterwards, suffering the direst corporeal torment—for her tongue, palate, throat, and stomach, must have been seared as if a red-hot iron had been passed over them—yet she never acknowledged what she had done—kept the act a secret from her medical attendants; and it was not till after death that the truth was discovered. " Gentlemen," continued the Coroner, " the present is one of those cases in which there is no evidence of insanity, though some persons think that the very act of taking poison is an evidence of unsound mind. Such an opinion is very dangerous, for a person having taken poison, and labouring under its effects, might commitmurder, and be on such an opinion acquitted on the plea of insanity. It will be found that persons who commit suicide adopt the means best calculated for the end they have in view. I think it is a very dangerous practice for coroners' juries to come to the conclusion that persons who destroy themselves are insane. The very same jury may be called to the Old Bailey, and placed in very great difficulty in trying a man for murder when insanity would be pleaded, because no motive for committing the murder could be proved, and divers eccentricities could be shown in the previous life of the murderer. They might be told that they had just before returned a verdict of insanity in a case of suicide committed without motive, having taken that as well as previous eccentricities of character into consideration, and they might be told that want of motive and eccentricity in case of murder should weigh equally in their minds, and induce them to record a verdict of insanity, I want to get rid of the dangerous practice of returning verdicts of insanity when the evidence does not fully justify them. On the other hand, we are told that there should be a verdict of self-murder where there is no evidence of insanity, with the view of preventing suicide by the dread of burial at midnight, without funeral rites, and in an unhallowed grave—a very ridiculous and erroneous idea, because I do not believe that any person so ill-treating his sensitive body as to commit suicide, cares one straw how that body b. treated when dead. In the case before you, I as whether it is possible for you, with the evidette you have, to determine the state of mind the woman was in when she took the poison ? I am of opiniVl that it is impossible, and I think it would be a mark of insanity to come to any determination of the Art. lam also of opinion that the proceedings of our law courts are tinged with insanity. Counsel, in cases of murder, plead that the murderer acted under uncontrollable impulses, and the plea succeeds, and the culprit is pronounced insane and provided for during life ' • but if a poor lad suffering from hunger, and I think such privation most likely to produce uncontrollable impulses, steals a loaf of bread, the plea of insanity will avail him nought, and the House of Correjtion will be his lunatic asylum. Think you, if M`Naughten, instead of murdering the unfortunate Air. Drummond, had stolen his horse, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that was his, would be guiltless of the crime on the plea of insanity ? No, gentlemen. I advise you, then, in cases of this sort to pass a medium•verdict—one neither of sanity or insanity." The jury instantly acquiesced, and said, " Deceased had destroyed herself, but the state of her mind when she did eg WM not known to them,"