whole doctrine of the English criminal law in regard to this subject. When a man voluntarily deprives himself of the perfect use of his reason, and in this condition commits a criminal act, it is immaterial, so far as his moral guilt is concerned, whether the act be prompted by passion, frenzy, or hallucination. The verdict is a memorable one, inasmuch

as it is the first within our knowledge, in which an English jury has made any distinction between a homicide committed in a state of drunkenness though without any criminal intention, and one deliberately planned and deliberately executed, in the full possession of the reasoning powers.

§ 476. Criminal cases are not very unfrequent in which intemperance and insanity are so mingled together that it is impossible to unravel their relations to each other, and ascertain their respective shares of influence in producing the criminal act. The following will serve as an illustration of this class of cases.

§ 477. David Abbot was tried by the Superior Court of Connecticut, for the murder of his wife in July, 1841. · The facts, as they appeared from the testimony, were substantially as follows. The prisoner belonged to a respectable family, possessed some property, and had twelve children by his wife. For several years prior to the event, he had been very intemperate, but not to such a degree as to prevent his walking about and conversing as at other times. Habitually harsh and cruel to his wife, he became still more so when under the immediate influence of liquor. He became jealous of her, and believed that she had frequent criminal intercourse with two of their neighbors. But it was admitted by all parties that the conduct of these persons and of his wife was perfectly unexceptionable, so far as this subject was concerned. On the afternoon of the day when the murder was committed, he was observed to drink rum and cider several times. After he and his wife had gone to bed, they were heard talking together, and at eleven o'clock he called up one of his daughters, and directed her to summon the neighbors, "as they were all dead, or would be soon." The wife was found dead, apparently choked to death, and

he lying on the floor with his throat cut in several places, but not fatally. When asked what he had been doing, he replied, "that the devil had been there, that he had had a clinch with him, and that the devil had been trying to kill them both, and had cut his throat." Subsequently, however, when he became more composed, he stated that after they went to bed, an altercation ensued; that he became provoked, and seized her by the throat, holding her five or six minutes, when he found she was dead. He then attempted to cut his own throat with a razor, but having lost the razor, and bled a while, he changed his mind, and called up his daughter. It also appeared in evidence that his father, two brothers, and sister had been insane; that the prisoner himself, when about eighteen years old, was delirious for several weeks immediately after attending a camp-meeting; and that about seven years before the death of his wife, he went to one of his neighbors, with both hands on the top of his head, saying that he had lost the top of his head and must go home and get his wife to put it on again. The court, in laying down the law, relative to the legal consequences of intemperance, adopted the principles of Mr. Justice Story in the case of Drew, and the jury was also told, that if they found the prisoner insane, but not to such a degree as to render him wholly irresponsible for his acts, they had a right to take such partial insanity into consideration in connection with the provocation, in determining upon its sufficiency. If they found that the provocation, in that case, operating upon a mind partially insane, was equal in its effect to a provocation which would reduce a homicide, committed by a man of perfectly sound mind, from murder to manslaughter, they would have a right to find the prisoner guilty of manslaughter only. The prisoner was found guilty of murder.1

§ 478. In the present state of public opinion, it would be difficult, perhaps, to convince a jury that the wretched vic

1 MS. of Mr. Justice Waite who sat upon the case, and kindly furnished by him.

tims of periodical drunkenness, or of that other form of the disorder which we have illustrated (§ 445) ought not to be held responsible for their criminal acts. It would be objected, probably, that these conditions are the result of habitual indulgence, and that at the utmost, the only difference between these and other drunkards is, that they are impelled to the gratification of their insatiable cravings by different degrees of violence, a circumstance which it would be mischievous to recognize in estimating the degree of criminal responsibility. The truth would be overlooked or disputed, that this irresistible propensity to excessive drinking is manifested as often, if not oftener, in temperate men, as in habitual drunkards; and that it is either a symptom of the first stage of madness, or of a temporary impairment of the mind produced by some disturbance of the cerebral circulation. The drunkenness being thus an accidental, involuntary consequence of a maniacal state of the mind, it cannot impart the character of criminality to any action to which it may give rise. If the merchant, or servant girl whose cases we have quoted from Esquirol, (§ 443, 446,) had committed murder in one of their paroxysms, we should, no doubt, have had the testimony of that distinguished physician, as he has already recorded it in his writings, that they were monomaniacs, not morally responsible." The other cases we have related, though differing a little from these, in some of their accidental symptoms, evidently proceeded from the same pathological causes; and if moral responsibility ceases in the former, it must equally cease in the latter.

"true

CHAPTER XXVI.

INTERDICTION AND ISOLATION.

§ 479. WITH respect to the kind and degree of mental impairment that warrant interdiction, there prevails the utmost diversity of opinion; and such must continue to be the case, till sounder views are entertained of the true purposes of this measure. The radical fault of speculations on this subject is, that the attention has been directed to general rules and abstract distinctions, rather than to a thorough and discriminating examination of the particular circumstances of each individual case. In the following paragraphs will be found abundant illustrations of the truth of this remark.

§ 480. Imbeciles in the first degree cannot be justly deprived of the management of their property, on the ground of mental deficiency alone. If they have shown no disposition to squander their money on trifles, nor suffered their affairs to be grossly neglected, there can be no reasonable pretence for taking it altogether from their control and enjoyment. Neither should we be too rigid in our scrutiny of these cases. If a whole life of extravagance, or hazardous speculation, is not enough to produce the interdiction of a sound person, why should an occasional act of either in one of feeble intellect, provoke that measure? Of course there can be no question of its propriety when it is perfectly obvious that he is dissipating his fortune, to the great detriment of himself and of those who are dependent on him.

§ 481. Much discussion and tedious litigation have arisen, from the difficulty of determining the exact measure of intellectual capacity requisite to the undisturbed enjoyment

of civil rights and privileges, chiefly in consequence of losing sight of the real object before us, and pursuing a shadow of our own creating. It is a question of capacity in reference to certain ends and duties, and we are not called on to go beyond the consideration of these, in our endeavors to settle this question. The speculative opinions of the imbecile person, the little peculiarities of his conduct, his style of living and talking, and his general deportment in society, are points that require but little attention in this inquiry. Our business is with the manner in which he has conducted his affairs, and from this chiefly, we are to draw our inferences respecting his probable future conduct and capacity. And here we are not bound to institute a rigid comparison between his habits, and those of people enjoying ordinary soundness and vigor of intellect. We are not warranted in stripping him of all his possessions and leaving him at the mercy of others, the moment we can fix upon a single instance in the course of his life, where he has neglected to profit by a happy turn of fortune, or has rewarded a service, or bestowed his bounties, in a manner altogether opposed to our ideas of forethought and economy. Has the individual indulged in repeated acts of extravagance, or of profitless expenditure? Has he engaged in the execution of visionary projects with reckless indifference as to the extent of his means and appliances? Has he squandered his money on favorites, or become an instrument in the hands of designing and profligate associates for advancing their own selfish projects? These are among the most prominent questions that require a satisfactory answer; and if they are kept steadily before us, there will be little fear of losing ourselves in the maze of perplexities which the judical investigation of cases of imbecility frequently creates.

§ 482. These views, it will be seen, afford no countenance to the usual practice of canvassing the whole history of the imbecile person, arraying act against act, and speech against speech, and drawing from each an inference for or against his capacity of managing his own affairs, in his own way. Few of those whose interests become involved in protracted