SECTION III.

HOMICIDAL ACTS, IN RELATION TO THE SUBJECTS OF IMBECILITY, MANIA, AND IMPULSIVE INSANITY.

THE question of Criminal Responsibility may be raised in reference to many different crimes and classes of crime; to murder and attempts to murder; to attempts to maim or injure; to assaults; to offences against property with violence and without it; to malicious offences against property, of which arson is the chief; to forgery, and other offences against the currency; and to one or two others. But, as I have already stated, I shall here treat only of Murder and attempts at Murder. Yet, even when so limited, the question before us is not a very simple one; for those whose homicidal acts give occasion to the plea of Insanity are very far from being all mad in the same way.

One considerable class consists of the Imbecile or weak-minded, and of these some have delusions and some have not; another and still larger class of Maniacs and Monomaniacs, whose minds exhibit no lack of intelligence though they are subject to strange and obstinate delusions; and a third class, whose minds, as

far as we can ascertain, are quite free from delusion, but are subject to homicidal impulses difficult if not impossible to resist. Each of these classes presents difficulties of its own. The homicidal acts of the Imbecile, though stamped with the same folly as his thoughts, are often prompted by the motives which actuate sane persons; the homicidal impulses of the third class perplex us by their very suddenness and absence of ascertainable motive-perhaps I ought to add, in order to distinguish them from some of the least easily explained murders of the brutal class-absence of imaginable motive. But the second class of homicides, committed by Maniacs and Monomaniacs, give rise, perhaps, to the greatest difficulty, inasmuch as they present, as I shall presently show, the greatest variety of mental condition.

Let us look into this matter more closely, and under the three distinct classes of the Imbecile, the Maniacal, and the Impulsive Maniac.

I. THE IMBECILE.-Imbeciles abound among vagrants, probably in all countries, certainly in England, where social customs and poor laws encourage them, and no proper legal provision is made for their care and custody. They lead a vagrant life for three distinct reasons: they are restless and unsettled; they do not readily find employment because of their mental deficiency; and they render themselves unwelcome at home. They are also a large element in the class of habitual criminals, as distinguished from those who are under punishment for what is believed to be a first

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offence. In our convict prisons they form a separate class, amounting to some such fraction as one in fifty of their inmates, and they pass through our county and borough gaols in large numbers every year. They are greatly addicted to begging, wanton mischief, and petty theft; and much more than criminals who are healthy in mind and body, to arson, serious and disgraceful sexual offences, and homicide. They also take part in such acts as cattle stealing and burglary, at the instigation of criminals of more intelligence and stronger will, to whom they look up with a sort of respect which Shakespere's Caliban pays to Trinculo. As prisoners they prove troublesome, partly because other prisoners, taking advantage of this feature of their character, stir them up to acts of insubordination.

This unsettled, restless, wandering disposition, and ready subserviency to the will of others, are two elements in the character of the imbecile in which society is greatly interested. Others will reveal themselves in the cases which I am about to quote; for I do not propose in this place to give a formal and complete description of Imbecility in all its degrees and phases. All the cases I shall quote are cases of homicide, tried before the tribunals of this or other countries. I shall give a preference to English cases, and will begin with that of Arnold, tried in 1723 for shooting at Lord Onslow.

Arnold was proved to have been of weak understanding in his infancy; to have been a strange, sullen boy at school; to have led an idle, irregular, and

disorderly life, sometimes unequivocally mad, always strange and different from other people; living alone in a house destitute of the most ordinary conveniences; lying about in barns and under hay-ricks; cursing and swearing to himself for hours together; laughing and throwing things about the house; much disturbed in his sleep by fancied noises. For several years his family and neighbours had considered him to be mad, and treated him as such, if not always, occasionally; but he was thought so little mischievous, that he was suffered to be at large. It is true that he had his unfounded notions (his delusions), and among these the by no means harmless belief that Lord Onslow, his neighbour, was the cause of all the tumults, disturbances, and wicked devices that happened in the country; and he was in the habit of declaring that Lord Onslow sent his devils and imps into his room at night to disturb his rest; and that he constantly plagued and bewitched him, by getting into his belly or bosom, so that he could neither eat, drink, nor sleep for him. He talked much of being plagued by the bollies and bolleroys. It was under the influence of these delusions that he shot at and wounded Lord Onslow, and it was because of them that he declared in prison that it was better to die than to live so miserably, and that he showed no compunction for what he had done. Arnold was sentenced to be hanged; but by the intercession of Lord Onslow, his punishment was commuted into imprisonment for life.

This, it will be observed, is a case of Imbecility, complicated with a delusion of persecution, not rare in

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mania, directed to the person whose life was attempted. I give it precedence, partly on account of the early date at which it happened, and partly of the legal doctrines to the expression of which it gave rise. I shall return to it in a later section.

Barclay had

John Barclay, executed at Glasgow, May 14th, 1833, for the murder of Samuel Neilson, was also actuated by a common motive, that of theft. It is one of the best marked cases of Imbecility on record. shown some affection for his victim, but killed him that he might possess himself of three one-pound notes and a watch, which he took from him. After the murder, Barclay hovered about almost without disguise, and while going to spend part of the money with the first person he met, dropped first one and then another note at his feet. When questioned, he could see no difference between killing a man and killing an ox, except that he "would never hear him fiddle again ;" and he looked on the watch as an animal, and when it stopped, thought it had died of cold from the glass being broken. his parish he was known as "daft Jock Barclay;" and the clergyman, who knew him well, "always regarded him as imbecile, and had never been able to give him any religious instruction, and did not consider him a responsible being." Though Barclay's weakness of mind was recognised by the judge, and the jury recommended him to mercy, he was condemned and executed. Ray, to whom I am indebted for this case, tells us that much stress was laid on Barclay's knowing right from wrong; but he bids the reader to judge for himself how extensive

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