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A.ii-.*,'?.i?v?-:;uCr- -i-^:y-^. /i*i?4Siit^-f ff^t^g^i^iis^- i4^if=^Mj^m>i^^!l'^4tm^ THE QUEEN vs. . F.V. C SHORTIS ENGLISH ADDRESSES OF COUNSEL AND THE CHARGE OF THE HON. MR. JUSTICE MATHIEU TO THE JURY AS lAKKN BY JOHN J. LOMAX AND A. A. URQUHART, OFFICIAL STENOGRAPHERS TO THE COURT. MONTREAL : W. DRYSDALE & CO., 232 ST [AMES STREET 1895. 'WiTNHss" Printing Housk, MONTKEAI.. INDEX. iNTRODUCriON • • ■ ! Indictment Address ok Mr. J. N. Greenshields, Q.C, for the Defence Authorities cited by Mr. D. Macmaster, Q.c, on the question OF Moral Insanity and Weight to be given to Medical Expert Evidence Address of Mr. D. Macmaster, Q.c, for the Crown Argument and Authorities cited by Mr. D. Macmaster, Q.c. Charge of His Honour Mr. Justice Mathieu to the Jury Final Proceedings and Sentence List of Jurors . I'AC.E. I 3 ■ 5 57 62 160 182 228 231 sHsnb INTRODUCTION. The prisoner, Francis Valentine Cuthbert Shortis, was indicted for the murder of John Loye and Maxime Lebceuf, in Valleyfield, on the I St of March, 1895. The trial of the case commenced on the I St day of October, 1895, and was concluded on the 4th of November, 1895. Owing to the importance of the trial, the public interest manifested in it, the defence of insanity and other important ques- tions of law that arose during the proceedings, it has been deemed important to preserve in authentic form the addresses of Counsel, and charge of the Judge. The addresses and the charj^ -. here given are taken from the notes of the official stenographers. The present publication is not intended to interfere with any later or more extended publication of the proceedings of the trial, vhich were taken from day to day by the official reporters, and which are preserved among the records of the Court. When this work is undertaken by more competent hands, no doubt a full statement of the evidence, and of the various points that arose for discussion will be given, including the speeches of the two dis- tinguished French Counsel who took part in the cause, namely, Henri C. St. Pierre, Esq, Q.C., of Counsel for the defence, and J. G. Laurendeau, Esq., of Counsel for the Crown. Cana^ (IOVINCI-; oi lIKICTOI-- BB. Canada : HOVINCM Ol' I, I'l KILT OI-' Ut'.AUHARNtll -—• ICouRT OF Queen's Bench lOHO^W^lSr SIlDE.l THE QUEEN vs. F. V. C. SIIORTIS. INDICTMKNT. The Jurors for Our Lady the Queen present that : Francis Valentine Cuthbert Shortis murdered John ^..o- ... on the first day of March, (1895) one thousand Cigiit hundred and ninety-five ; And the said Jurors do further present tliat : Francis Valetitine Cuthbert Shortis murdered Maxime Leboeuf on the first day of March, (1895) one thousand e'\0it liundred and ninety-five. The prisoner was tried upon the first count. As stated in the preface, the trial commenced on the ist day of October, 1895, before a jury composed half of jurors speaking the English language, and half of jurors speaking the French language. The addresses of Counsel were concluded on the 2nd of November, and the Honourable the presiding Judge charged the jury on the same day. The verdict was not taken until the following day (Sunday), the 3rd of November, at 9 a.m., when the jury returned a verdict of "guilty." On the 4th of November, at 10 a.m., the Honourable Judge pronounced the sentence of death upon the prisoner 4 A report of the final proceedings may be found at the end of this pamphlet Counsel for the Crown : DONALD MACMASTER, Q.C. J. G. LAURENDEAU. Counsel for the Defence : J. N. GREENSHIELDS. Q.C, H. C. ST. PIERRE, Q.C. GEORGE G FOSTER, ADDRESS OF J. N. GREENSHIELDS, ESQ., Q.C., OF COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENCE, TO THE JURY. May it please the Court, Gentlemen of the Jury : — " Thou shalt not kill " was a commandment given by our Almighty Father to his chosen people, a people who trace their origin back to creation, and whose traditions show that murder was the first of human crimes. The precept. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," has been embodied in the penal code of every civilized nation, down to the present day. It is for an alleged violation of this commandment, on the part of the prisoner, that you have been detained in this Court for four long weeks in this tedious and wearisome trial. This is a direct order from Heaven to the Learned Jndge, to you, to mC; as well as to the prisoner at the bar. You have taken your oath before your country and your God, as jurymen to do justice between your Queen and the prisoner at the bar. If by any prejudice, if by any passion, if by any preconceived ideas, you should render an unjust verdict against the facts ; if the Court should, by a wilful misinter- pretation of the law, if the Counsel engaged in this trial, if anyone of us .should, by any wrongful act, contribute to bring about an unjust verdict, which would deprive the prisoner of his life, we too should have violated that command, " Thou shalt not kill." Murder is a terrible crime. It is a ctime against God and man. It is a crime revolting in its nature and deprecated by all right thinking persons, and it is well that it should be so. When the people of this country read on that fatal morning of the 2nd March that Maxime LebfEuf and John Loye had been killed in cold blood in the office of the Montreal Cotton Company, at Valleyfield.a thrill of horror passed through the entire community, and all declared that the perpetrator of this crime, of this terrible tragedy, deserved no mercy, no consideration, and no protection from h his fellow-men, and that to him should be meted out the full punishment of the law. When I read the history of this homicide on the Sunday morning, when I read the details of the murder, I said, " The man who perpetrated it must either have been insane or one of the most debased and deepest dyed criminals that ever had been brought before a Court of Justice." At the time we were empanelling this jury, when you gentlemen were brought into that box, and sworn as to whether or not you stood impartial in this trial, I was not surprised that every man said that he had formed an opinion as to the guilt of the prisoner. If the prisoner in the box is sane, if he possesses all the faculties of a sane man, then no man could be guiltier, and he could not possibly presume to stand before you and demand your consideration. For Valentine Shortis as a murderer, I have no mandate to speak. If I thought th^t his Maker had sent him into this world with his full mental faculties, I would not stand here one instant between him and the avenger. If I did not believe that this man came into this world an imbecile, if I thought that he was a responsible being, I would not utter one word in his defence, and my voice would never have resounded through these halls. I can well appreciate the feeling that went forth when these men were killed. I have heard it said here, and heard it said on all sides, before the evidence was put before you, gentlemen of the jury, that no man should or could raise his voice on behalf of the prisoner. Now, I desire, at the outset, to say this to you, that .the position of the lawyer in an important trial of this kind, the position of him who appears for the defence is as equally important, equally in the interest of justice, equally in the interest and maintenance of law and order, as that of the Counsel who represents the prosecution, and the law in its wisdom recognizes, that in the administration of justice every subject of Her IVIajesty is entitled, and should be represented before the tribunal which seeks to deprive him of his life or liberty. You know, that following upon the scene of this tragedy, there nearly occurred what would have been a disgrace to this community, and that was the lynching, or the illegal killing of the prisoner at the bar. It is well that our people in that moment of excitement, in that moment, when perhaps, their passions, (which I am not here to condemn) might have carried them to undue lengths, were able to exercise proper restraint and prevent what would have been a disgrace to our country. Thank God ! in this Canada of ours, our people have confidence in the administration of law, that whatever the crime may be, however great it may be, they feel that the strong arm of the law can protect. It is well that this trial took place, it is well that the trial of the perpetrator of this tragedy, terrible as it appeared a*- first, is left to the cool and calm judgment of twelve men like those whom I see in this jury box. I asked you when you came into that jury box, I asked you, each and everyone of you (whilst as honest men saying that you believed the prisoner was guilty, guilty of the murder, guilty of the killing, guilty of the homicide), that if in the trial evidence was unfolded before you which disclosed an irresponsible condition of the prisoner's mind, you could give him that fair and impartial trial which he was entitled to in a British country, and you each and all said " yes." We have not here what we too often see across the line in the far distant west, men taken and executed without trial, without reason sometimes, by an enraged public, who have allowed themselves to be carried away by their passions. We, of the defence, feel that we are demanding from you, and that we will obtain from you, what is but the right due to every free born British subject, and that is, a fair and impartial trial. We feel that you will consider the evidence as honest men, that you will give it all the due consideration it is entitled to, and if, after having considered the evidence adduced before you, you, as honest men, come to the conclusion that Valentine Shortis was insane on the night he committed this deed, that notwi standing whatever may be said, that you will have the courage and manhood, as honest men, as men 8 on'!^r'l""u '■".' ^'^"""i^"-='"-°" of justice, to state so, but if on the other liand, you do not thinic so, then you will fi^d him gu.lty, w,th all its ternbie consequences. Ah we ask from you ,s fa,r play, all we ask from you is justice, and if we rece,ve that, at your hands, then we have no fear as to the consequences. Now, gentlemen of the jury, you are charged here with a most senous and responsible duty. There is no position which a man can occupy in this world so responsible, so great as that which by the law, places the life of a fellow being in .T \. y°" ^'"' '^" '■'S'^^ to ^^'^d Valentine Shortis to meet h,s Maker and his God. The law has clothed you with this supreme power-a righteous law, a law which protects all men m our community, a law which had its import and begmnmg n. the nghts of man, and in Magna Charta which said that a man accused of a crime agains: his fellow-men was^entitled to be tried b^ a jury of his peers. You, together w h the Court, from whom you will take the law, and who with his well recognized ability and learning will tell you what the law is with that wisdom and long experience which he has had, and to that law you will apply the facts. You are the sole judges of the facts. It is for you, and you alone ^ say whether Valentine Shortis on the night of the first of wheth t \'"'""' '^''' "''^ "'■^'^ "^^''^ -fo-thought, whether he went there with the intention to kill, whether he wen there with the intention to rob, or whether he knew r,dt fT . ""^ °" '^''' ^"''^^"' "'S'^t- ^o" -e the sole judges of the facts. You alone are responsible for the verdict You alone have to answer to your conscience and your God for the verdict you give. It is a serious responsibility which thank God, I do not bear to the same degree. Mine is to do' my duty, mine is to give to you what little benefit mv experience and knowledge of the facts may be, but beyond that my responsibility ceases ; nor has any one of us for the defence the power to say whether or not the prisoner at the bar IS guilty. You alone have that responsibility. In the I 9 years to come, when the intense excitement pervading this commnnity and this Court shall have passed away, when the recital of this tragedy shall be spoken of as a story that is often told, when children gathered around the fireside shall speak of this, the greatest trial that has ever taken place in this district, when your names shall be mentioned because of the serious importance of your part in this great trial, when you shall be asked to tell a rising generation of your verdict, I trust that you will be able to put your hand upon your heart and say : " I did right, I acted honestly, and I did no wrong in the verdict which I rendered in the case of the Queen against Valentine Shortis." All that we ask from you is this •and nothing more. You have listened patiently and atten- tively to this trial. We did not think it would take so long to unfold the facts before you. We have tried, so far as lay in our power, to curtail this trial, and to keep you as short a time as possible from your homes and families. You have paid close attention to the evidence, you have listened with ;a patience to the unfolding of the whole story that is rarely seen in trials by jury, and I feel for this reason that my task and my duty is somewhat lighter than it otherwise would have been. Now, gentlemen of the jury, give that same attention to the end, and give it when you rc'tire to your jury room to prepare your verdict after this case shall have been closed. We do not deny the killing. We do not come before this Court and say that the prisoner in the box did not kill Maxime Leboeuf and John Loye. We say that at the time when this homicide took place Valentine Shortis was insane, and knew not what he did. Now, that is a defence which the law recognizes, that is a defence which, if proven, is as honest and as right as a plea of not guilty, or proving that the man was not the author of the act. Of course, I understand that many say, " Oh, insanity is often the shield of the scoundrel and of the criminal." It is for you, gentlemen of the jury, with your knowledge of human nature, with your know- ledge of the passions of human nature, and of what 10 moves and prompts men to action— it is for you, with- your responsibility as jurors in tiiis case, to decide this, question. Now, what we say to you, and what the prisoner through his Counsel says, because he could not plead it himself, what we say is, that on that fateful night, that terrible night of the first of March, after the first shot was fired, this man, by a lapse of self-consciousness, was absolutely irresponsible and knew not what he did, was insane, and was suffering at that time from natural imbecility and disease of the mind, by which he could not distinguish the nature and quality of the act, and know right from wrong. Insanity! In.sane ! If there is one class of ''our fellow-men who deserve our consideration, it is the insane. He comes into this world afflicted of God, with a mind imperfectly formed, or having come into this world with a mind properly formed, that mind becomes diseased by some cause or other best known to our Father and our Creator. In the olden days, centuries ago, and even farther back in the history of humanity, the madman was treated more as a criminal than one afflicted of God. The mad-house of the past lives on the pages of history as a disgrace to our forefathers. The insane one hundred years ago were punished because God had visited upon them this awful affliction, which deprived them of their reason. Their reason dethroned, irresponsible, without knowledge, they were treated as if they were possessed of the devil. They were held responsible for it. Thank God ! with the growth of Christianity, with the progress of humanity, with the enlightenment of the age, the insane, the imbecile,' the idiot of to-day is the subject of our care and protection rather than our punishment. This is the position in which I wish to put the matter before >'ou now. If you find that Valentine Shortis was insane on ihe night of this terrible tragedy, then you cannot say that he committed a crime against his God, and if he could not commit a crime against his God by reason of that God having afflicited him with a derangement of the mind, much less could he commit a crime against his fellow-man, and instead of his bein^'-' the 11 subject of your punishment, he should rather be the subject of your commiseration. For the victims of his insanity, none have more sympathy than I have : For those children and that widow, made orphans and a widow by the act of the prisoner at the bar, tlie sympathy of every right thinking man in this district, and the sympathy of the father and mother of the prisoner at the bar, goes out as freely and to as great an extent as the sympathy of any one who stands within the sound of my voice in this Court House, but, gentlemen of the jury, if that act was committed by the prisoner at the bar in an irresponsible moment, then let us not extend the terrible consequences of that act, by not only maU'ing the widow and the orphan, but perhaps hastening to an early grave the father and mother of this unfortunate boy. Now, so much for the plea of insanity, so much do I beg of you, and I ask you, as men, as honest men, to set aside all animus against the prisoner, to set aside all prejudice, to set aside any possible opinion that you may have formed, and to approach this subject with a mind free, and to decide and judge the question of his sanity or insanity upon the facts which have been disclosed to you here in the witness box, and upon no others. If the evidence shows you, that on the night of the first of March that man was insane, was an irresponsible being, then I ask you for a verdict in accordance with it. This case, I think, stands unique as a case of insanity. From his childhood days up to the moment when the first shot was fired in the mill, his history repels any other con- clusion than one of insanity. His family history, his life, his ancestry and heredity, all clearly indicate insanity. Now, with your consideration, I propose to discuss and to review in a brief manner the evidence on which we, of the defence, rely for a verdict of insanity. I will take the evidence from the time of the boy's birth, and bring it down with you until the night of the first of March. This boy started out in life with the chances of 12 insanity in his favor, with a grandfather who died a ravin- maniac, with an uncle (a brother of his father) who had been for a penod of ten years in a lunatic asylum, an epileptic maniac, and who died in the asylum in Cloninel. That stands out boldly before you on his father's side of the house. On the other side, his grandmother, that is, his grand- mother on the paternal side, we have there two of his ancestors being confined in lunatic asylums, and having lost their reason. You have, in addition to that, the fact that four of his father's sisters died of consumption, which, with the pedigree and lineage, such as I have outlined to you is closely related and allied to insanity. What a terrible, what an awful history this boy started out his career in life with The learned alienists have told you that there are two periods in life where hereditary insanity, if there is a tamt in the blood, will show itself The first is at the adolescent age of life. The second, (if. by any chance, they pass through that), the taint will show itself, in the case of women between forty and fifty years of age. and in men between fifty and sixty years of age. This boy, therefore, from the day that he was born and breathed the free air of bx^^aven, has had overhanging his whole life a dark and dismal cloud, which at any moment might overwhelm him to make h.m as his ancestors were before him. Now, you have heard the doctors examined, and they have told you that in all their experience of the history of insanity that seventy-five to ninety per cent, of the insane who are confined in lunatic asylums trace their insanity back to their h-^redity. Now, gentlemen, if that be true, and it has not been contradicted before you, you are bound as men, and honest men, to accept it as truth. The prisoner at the bar started out in life with the chances ninety to one hundred that he would become a raving maniac, as his grandfather, his uncle, his aunt and his other relatives were. It was a ''earful handicap in the race of life placed upon him by his C/eator It was more than a doubtful future for him, but those loving parents appear to have kept the knowledge from the boy 13 because the mother tells us that he knew naught of this h'neage from which he sprung until she told him in the jail in Montreal, that his uncle and grandfather had died insane. Now, gentlemen of the jury, I ask you as honest men, in deciding this case, and the question as to whether you shall send this man to the scaffold (who, I believe, would walk to that scaffold as unmoved as he stands to-day in the dock, hardly listening or knowing a syllable that I am uttering on his behalf), when you consider all the evidence of the different acts which I will discuss before you, in Ireland and in this country, not to forget, as honest men, that he, not like your- selves, started out in life with the ace not equal, but that through his ancestry his chancer ».■ life were seventy-five to ninety per cent, that when he reached the ige of fifteen or sixteen years he would become insane and lose his reason. It is a tottering foundation to build upon. It is to my mind one of the strongest possible facts, which you as honest men must never lose sight of in considering the other acts of the prisoner at the bar. For one moment think, for one moment consider, that if your own child was to be put upon his trial for an act like this, and that your ancestry and lineage, that the blood which coursed through your veins and through his was tainted by 'the blood of the epileptic maniac and of the insane in years gone by, consider and think for one moment if you would not ask the twelve of your countrymen who were trying him, if you would not say to them, "Consider the circumstances, consider the chances." Every one of you who are sitting in that box, know the effects of heredity. You who are farmers, raising stoc : and animals, know how that the taints and habits of the ancestry of any one of them shows itself in the next generation, and sometimes down to two or three generations. You know yourselves that hereditary insanity may skip one generation, but in the next it may display itself The doctors have told you so, the men of science who stood in that box have told you so ; but if no man of science had got into that box and told you, you, as men of common sense, you as men of practical experience, know that it is the 14 fact. Now, what do wc find? This terrible taint in the blood which flows in his veins, a disease which is liable to disclose itself ?t almost any period of time, for it is like the slumbering volcano which is liable to burst forth at almost any moment— it is brought forth by any undue excitement, by extreme sorrow, by extreme joy, by anything which calls' for the quick and active working of the brain, because this terrible disease of insanity settles upon that God given quality which distinguishes man from the brute, and that is the power to think and to reason. Well now, we have this heredity clearly proven before you. and let us start out with his life's history. The mother comes into the witness-box. She told a story of her child, an only son, an only child. Hers is a human life devoted, sacrificed to his educafon, to his godly training, to bring him up as other children. When you saw that mother stand in the box, you as fathers felt that she had sacrificed her life for her boy. Let me trke you back for an instant to a scene of which she spoke. Let us look at this mother years gone by in the dusk of evening putting her child to sleep. I can well imagine that child before he retired at night, kneeling at his mother's knee as she tried to teach him the commandments given by God through Moses on Mount Sinai, and one of those commandments was "Thou Shalt not kill." That boy heard, that young man in his early days heard it, but he understood it not then, and he under- stands it not to-day ; and when that mother, gazing into the face of her only boy told him that story, could she have seen the terrible future which the scroll of fate would unfold to her, her voice would have been raised to heaven and she would have prayed to her Almighty Father to avert the dread blow. It is an awful fate for her. She has told you, and you must believe her story, because she has been a good, kind, and pious mother, and she told you that from his earliest days he appeared to be an unintelligent child. He was unable to articulate until he reached the age of four or five. There was a lack of intelligence, there was a want of devel- i 15 opmciit in the boy. Up to the age of four or five he could hardly speak, and on account of this his mother consulted a doctor to see or know the reason why. VVe start therefore his childhood's days with a taint of insanity and the tainted blood showing its effects on his defective mental condition in the inability to learn as other children and to speak as other children. You of you that are fathers and have children of your own — I have not the honor or priv'ilege to know anyone of you personally, but if you are fathers, and if yf'U have children, — casting your memory back, you can well remember how your own prattling child talked to you when he had scarcely passed the age of twelve or eighteen months. Why ? Because he was intelligent, because his blood was not tainted with insanity, tracing it back or upward to his ancestors. The mother tells us that this child was a sickly child. She gave her whole time, her whole attention to the education and up-bringing of this boy, and to the age of seven years had tried to teach him herself At that time she .sends him to school, and he makes but slow progress. She can hardly teach him anything. He then goes <:o a school taught hy ladies, and up to that period of time, (seven or ten years of age) he could hardly talk intelligentiy, or in a' way that others than his mother or his nurse could understand him. Is not that worthy of your consideration ? If that portrait of his early life be true, and there is no evidence against it, if, I say, that picture of his early life be true ; is it not different from any child which you, yourselves, have known? VVe bring you further, until he goes to another school. He goes to a school taught by the Rev. Father Dunne, and here I wish that you should pay particular attention to the evidence of Father Dunne. We have got the prisoner now at about the age of adolescence, at about four- teen tc sixteen years of age. What was that mother doing to educate her boy ? Was he allowed the ordinary advantages other children enjoyed? She takes him to the Christian Brothers school, and Father Dunne, who was examined in this box, and who crossed the Atlantic three thousand 16 miles, because the life of a fellow hcing was involveu ; to tell the story of his early days, tells you what kind of a boy the prisoner was. He was taught in that school during the day time, under the special care and teaching of Father Dunne, and that mother, in order that that boy might have exceptional advantages of education, engaged a special tutor Mr. Cunningham, to teach him his lessons at night that he might stand equal with the other boys the next' day With all these advantages, with all that desire on the part of this loving and fond mother, to bring this boy to a position that she could look to with pride and satisfaction, we find him unable even then to learn. Father Dunne tells us that at moments he would seem to lose all control of himself He would apparently have lapses of his mind and of his know- edge, or as he describes it in one instance, " his mind seemed to be like a piece of blank paper." He was fond of fire arms He was apparently developing this mania, ihis homicida' mama which in after years, with his growth, and having passed the age of adolescence, developed itself until it terminated in the terrible and awful tragedy of the first of March last. Now, this child lacked no advantages. Every- thing that money could do for him was done. He received a religious training. He received all the advantages of education, everything which kind and fond parents could do in the right direction for this boy was done, in order that his moral and intellectual r^tture, if any he had, should be properly and rightly developed. It has been said, and I have heard it, that he was a spoiled child. Is there any evidence before you to show that he was a spoiled child ? Is there an>^? No. On the contrary, the strongest possible evidence has been put befo-e you to satisfy your minds, that the motaer, m v, hose care and keeping his education was entrusted did everything possible in life to keep him within prooer bounds ; to give him an education, to give him nothin- more than he was entitled to, so far as liberty of action was concerned, but that he should be properly and well trained in order to fit him for the battle of life. Can you doubt' 17 gentlemen of the jury, that with a training such as that, that with the advantanres which he had. with all this, and that nothing more was produced as a result of it, morally and intellectually, than the prisoner at the bar, who stands 'in the dock to-day; can you doubt that tiicre was something radically wrong with his mental condition, his mental com"^ position from the day of his birth up to the present time? Now, he is at this school. Father Dunne tells us that he was unable to learn, that what he would learn to-day he would forget to-morrow, and that he was unable to devote his mind or attention for any given length of time to a particular -subject ; that during the year he was in that school he made little or no progress ; no advanrcment in education. After this he was sent to Clongoes because, as he (Father Dunne) thought there would be a more close and more strict super- vision over his actions, becau.se he uas there under the control of the teachers during the day and during the night. During all t;.c time he was in this school he is troubled with these neuralgic headaches. Father Dunne fells you that these neuralgic headaches are due to a want of cerebral cn-culation, tiiat is, a proper circulation of the blood throu'-h the blood vessels of the brain, and neuralgic headaches a'ie clo.sely connected and allied with in.sanity. This taint in the blood, coming from his ancestry, showed itself in his early life by these neuralgic headaches, by this inability to learn by this want of brain power to consider, or look at, or study any question for any given period of time. We have him, then, at Clongoes College. He has no physical stamina. He is unlike other boys. John Ryan h witness examined under the commission, tells you that he did not take part in the games, that he stood awa>- from the rest of the boy.s, that he was by himself, that he complained frequently of these headaches. He stood unique in his character and in his actions. He was fond of remainin-r by himself, and one of the witnesses examined from Vallev^field tells you that even after he came to Canada he walked very much and very frequently alone on the streets He 18 is sent to Clongoes. He is obliged to return back to his home because of his faih'ng health, and because of his inabiUty to stay there and go through the system of studies owing to his physical constitution not being strong enough and to his illness. After spending some seven months at Clongoes he returns home. Before he went there for the last term, his father told him : " Now, Val., if you wish to study for a profession, if you wish to take any calling in life, I will put you through for it. I want you to go back to school and come home and tell me what you think you can do." He comes back and he tells his father that he thinks he will try to learn his father's business. With what success ? With what success was he able to assist his father in the management of that business that he carries on so successfully himself? He was utterly unable to learn or understand the first idea of the business. Now, what do we find .-> From his early childhood he develops this homicidal mania, this desire to shoot, this desire to kill, because in.sanity is of many forms and many types, and one prominent among them all is the insanity of homicide. There is the suicidal mania and the homicidal mania. The suicidal mania is the desire of a man to kill himself, the homicidal mania is the desire of a man to kill others. Alas ! how differently, how differently the one is treated from the other. When a man commits suicide through the promptings of a suicidal mania, twelve of his fellow-citizens at once say he committed suicide at a period, at a time, when there was an aberration of his mind ; but when he has the homicidal mania and kills somebody else, that same spirit which the jury bring into the box in the case of the suicidal mania is entirely lacking, and it is much more difficult for a jury to find in the latter case a verdict of insanity. Let us consider the evidence in Ireland for a moment. The earliest evidence we have of his homicidal mania is given by Doody, who tells us aoout this boy shooting at his child, when the prisoner was some ten or twelve years of age. The cross-examination of the witnesses was directed to show low 19 whether or not there was shot or a bullet in the pistol. That, to my mind, is not of very much moment, because, whether there was a bullet in it or whether there was not,' the fact stands out pron.inently here that he fired the pistol' at these children, loaded at least with powder. The evidence is that there were marks on the hand ; but at all events, the one fact which is patent, and which cannot be denied, is the fact that this boy, this young man, at the period of ten or twelve years of age was so reckless, if you will call it reckless, was so imbued with this homicidal mania which was growing in his blood, and which we find developed at the early age o^f ten or twelve years in the shooting of Doody's child.*' This was reported to the police. There is no question about the fact. And now, gentlemen, before we enter more fully into the consideration of the Irish evidence, let me draw your attention to one fact, and I ask you when in weighing that evidence, in your chamber, when you have met to discuss this case,' to consider this, that the men who have been examined under the Irish Commission are not the relatives of the Shortis family. They include the leading and most respectable citizens of the town of Waterford, men who have been Mayors of the town, the bankers, the aldermen, the police officers of his native town. Some forty-five or fifty of the men of the town of Waterford have told you incidents, which if told of one of your own children, you would be the first to say that they were the acts of a mad man, the acts of an insane man, and that he ought to be locked up. Gentlemen of the jury, have these men perjured themselves? Have the Mayors, the bankers and business mon of Waterford, and the young men and the Councillors and men of position and trust there, have they all come before Judge Dugas, and having taken their oath upon the Bible, have they perjured themselves and told what was not true ? These acts have taken place and they are true. The shooting, the insane acts and pro- ceedings of this man, from the time he left there to come here are established beyond all question and beyond all doubt, and if wc were able to show, as we have, so many 20 of these acts, how many more, in the name of common sense, must he have been guilty of, of which nothing was heard? The learned counsel who represents the Crown here, in the cross-examination of these witnesses when they declare that he was crazy, asked nearly every one, " Do you mean to tell me that you kept the company of a fool, that you talked to a fool, that you walked with a fool, that you slept with a fool," and they say " Yes." Is it possible that the Crown takes the position that a man who is afflicted of God, deprived of his reason, is to be ostracised from his fellow men, that those in the same rank of Hfe with him are to turn their back upon him as they meet him in the street, and to point the finger of scorn, of hatred and defiance at him, and not to speak to him ? If so, then we are going back to the dark ages, and to the period of time when that same principle, which the Crown in cross-examinintr these witnesses by trying to cast a doubt upon their evidence, because they kept company with him, that same principle and that same idea prevailed one hundred years ago, when the\' burnt witches at the stake because of acts that they were supi)osed to have done. No. Because a man may be afflicted of God, in his mind, that is no reason why in this Christian age in which we live, he should not receive the same consideration nnd the same affection, nay more, than those whom Chk\ has sent here with their f^iculties full upon them. Let us consider the evidence taken in Ireland. We find this young man, after the age of fourteen or sixteen years, developing the iioinicidal mania, the very period of life at which the scientific man told you, that this taint in blood, if it existed, would develoi) itself We find this boy cruel to am"mals, which shows an absolute want of moral responsibilit}'. We find him telling his man, a man who worked for his falhcr, to take a dog down to the edire of the wharf, and to tie him to an iron railing, and the prisoner puts on an overcoat, buckles on a sword, and marches down in a sort of Napoleonic style to the wharf, and having this poor dumb animal chained to a post draws his sword, and the moment he does it, he is seized \ ,«,; ii w rr \ ra ni tl g< d. w d. w "1 21 with a frenzy when he sees his victim before him, he makes a blow at the dog and' breaks the sword on the iron railing, and not satisfied with that ; with that hatred and maniacal idea of taking life ; he is not satisfied until he kills the innocent little animal with the broken sword. This fact goes to show, that this insanity, this taint of the blood was developing itself day by day. He was growing up in the way his forefathers had gone before, and he was becoming day by day more insane. What would you say of your child, what would I say of my child, if I saw him acting in that way ? My learned friend says, " Oh, but lots of boys have killed a dog." It is true. But have boys killed dogs in the maimer related there, and it is not the one fact of the killing of the dog. it is not in the fact of killing the dog as standing by itself, but it is in the vast number of circumstances, of acts proven, which characterizes this boy's whole life, from the time he was in Ireland up till the time he left to come to Canada. Imagine a boy walking along the street with a loaded rifle, and a boat in the night passes up the river, loaded with passengers, and he says, " There is a shot,"' and before his companion could prevent him, he fires the rifle at port hole on a boat. Is that the act of a sane man, or is it the act of a madma.. ? At another time, while a boat is being loaded to go to Milford, he stands on the wharf and fires a rifle at the steamer, and the bullet strikes against the funnel of it, where the sailors were working. Is that the act of a sane man, or the act of a madman ? Again, when he is over at the boat house, and sees a lady and gentleman walking along, he says, " There is a shot';\nd by God I am going to have it." Those are his words. Is that the act ofa sane man, or is it the act ofa madman? This is the evidence. This is the evidence which has been disclosed before you in the reading of the Irish commission. Another instance is where Delandre tells you, that at the bicycle races, when they wanted to Iceep the crowd off the green, around which the bicycles ran, that he came holding out two revolvers, and said, " T will keep them off, and if you will put me here, I 22 ji will blow the brains out of the first man that sets his foot across on this green sward."- Is that the act of a madman, or is the act of a sane man ? Mr. Allingham, a lawyer there, examined, tells us the story of this boy riding in the early morning on horseback up from Waterford to Tramore, shouting and yelling and firing off pistob and revolvers in the early hours of the morning, imagining, pro- bably, that, he was on the distant prairie shooting Indians or running from Indians? Was this the act of a madman, or was it the act of a .sane man ? Another witness tells of his riding his pony with his face to the tail ; well now, my learned friend says, " Oh, have you never seen boys riding that way ? " It might be so, but if you saw your boy riding on St. James Street in Montreal, in a public thoroughfare, riding madly through the street, and attracting the attention of everybody because of this manner of riding; if you saw soniebody else's boy doing it, would you not come to the conclusion that there must be something wrong, that this man's mental condition must be affected in some way or other ? Numbers of witnesses have told us that in Ireland he was known as cracked Shortis, mad Shortis, Shortis's fool. Ryan, the ex-alderman and ex-mayor of the town of Water- ford, tells us that he was known as " Shortis's fool, cracked Shortis and mad Shortis." They said, " Pay no attention to him, the fellow is crazy, shooting at town clocks, doing all these mad, insane acts, prodding cattle, bringing suffering upon dumb animals." Well, now, this man was known in this community as mad Shortis. Now, what do we find? The learned Judge will tell you that you cannot find this man insane because somebody said he was mad or because he was known as mad Shortis ; but, gentlemen of the jury, that is why cases of this kind should be tried before tweK- men like yourselves. It may not be strictly evidence, but to men of the world like yourselves, to men whc know that a sobriquet does not attach itself to a man, that a nickname does not affix itself to a man without there being some rea-on for it. This boy, known as mad Shortis in Ireland, how lono- 2'A s his foot madman, yer there, the early Tram ore, revolvers ing, pro- ? Indians madman, ness tells i now, my iding that riding on re, riding ention of you saw le to the that this i way or reland he tis's fool. )f VVater- , cracked ention to Joing all ing upon 1 in this d? The this man e he was /, that is men like ) men of obriquet Joes not a'-on for low loncf does it take him until the same title is applied to him in Canada? When he was in Valleyfield he was known as "le grand fou " or "the great fool." Was this without reason ? The Crown will tell you it was because he wore knee breeches that they called him the great fool in Valley- field ; but in Ireland they wear them and in this country they do not wear them. Well, surely they did not call him "mad Shortis"or "cracked Shortis " in Ireland because he wore knee breeches there. But, gentlemen, that is not the reason of his being called "mad Shortis," and "cracked Shortis," and " le grand fou," it is because of his acts, it is because of his conduct, it is because they, looking in his face, noted that lack of intelligence, and saw that this man had not that reason and had not that intelligence that he should have had, and they dubbed him with the title in Ireland and they dubbed him with the same title in this country. You, as men who know the motives and passions of human nature, know well that he never got that title either in Ireland or in this country without reason or without there being some foundation for it. Another story is told us in Ireland by the Heaneys, I think it was ; the father and son were examined. This boy Heaney was afflicted with large lumps in his neck, and this man (the prisoner), with the love of blood, with the homicidal mania that characterizes him, wanted to take this boy down into one of the cattle pens to take hi. jack knife or some other knife and cut out the lumps that were in this child's neck, and he offered him some sweeties, .some candies, or some mon-y ir order to get the child to consent that he should do it, but young Heany's father prevented it. Is that the act of a sane man, or is it the act again of a madman ? Now, surely, you caunot come to other than the one conclusion, if'he had had the opportunity to cut these lumps, or cut this boy's throat, which he would have done, he would have been guilty of homicide in Ireland before he came to this country at all, and it was prevented only by the foresight and prudence of Heaney. Would he have been guilty of murder in that case ? Surely not. 24 The Crown will tell you, and they say that because he slept with a loaded gun, because he fired off the revolver, because he rode down a railway track like a madman, it does not show that he was insane. The Crown says he couid have got off on this side or on that side of the track ; there were six feet here and seven feet the.-e,and it was not the act of a madman. In the Old Country particularly, where no man is allowed to go on the railway track, and this boy, instead of going down the ordinary road, rides right down the railway track for three-quarters of a mile or more, and the man, himself, who had charge of the gate, whom he passed against his wish, against his desire, and against his protest, and he (the gate- man) writes to his directors, saying, that the boy put s^purs to his horse and rode down the track like a madman, two years ago. Was not the gatcman right when he characterized him a madman ? We do not rely upon an isolated fact to establish insanity. If the Commission had proved only one of these things, then the argument of the crown might be well taken, but it is a series of madman's acts from the earliest development of his childhood up to the day when he left to come to this country, upon which we rely. Now, you will say, why was he allowed to come here? Did the flthcr know of all this? The father is a respected, revered and loved man in the community in which he lives. He enjoys the respect and confidence of his fellow citizens, and they did not tell him, but hid from that father these acts of his son, first, because he was not a great deal in the own of Water- ford. For other reasons, he did not and would not know of his son's actions and conduct, and .secondly, because of the deep seated prejudice there is in Ireland against an informer. When the Irish witnesses are examined, and when my learned friend asked them, "Why did not you tell the father, or why did not you tell the motiier, or why did not you inform the authorities of these acts?" they said, " Is it an informer you would want me to be?" The deep .seated prejudice, born of their relations with the empire, is such, that if there is anything that is abhon-nt to the sou! of .in 20 Irishman, it is to have applied to him the term of " informer," and these men, honest men, who had much at stake in the com- munity, did not tell the father or mother, or the authorities, of the acts of this boy, because they did not want to have applied to them the hated, loathed title of an informer. That father, v^hen he got in the box, when he was asked if he knew of the doings of his son, and he told you he knew only of his riding down the railway track, and of his shooting at Doody's child, and when that man, raising his hands and eyes to heaven, swore before you, as God was his judge, that it was true, was there one of you sitting in that jury box that doubted that that old man told the truth ? Was there one of you who doubted him ? If there was, you have the ratification of it in the fact that every witness examined upon these different points, tells you that he did not tell the father. Have you any doubt as to the honesty of this man, do you think that that man comes before you here with a lie on his lips to save his son from the gallows ? Not so, not so. As the old man said, " If my boy had forty lives, I would sacrifice them all before I would tell what is an untruth." The father knew it not, but the father saw that his child was unsteady, that he was unable to learn his business, that he could not even teach him to count twenty-five bullocks in a paddock, and he thought, as many others in tlie old country think, that this land of the far west is a land of freedom and a land of hope, •and where there is a chance for the young for their develop- ment, and he said, " I will have him go, I will let him go to that distant land where he will be among strangers," thinking that the boy relied too much upor his father and mother, knowing that they had the means to gratify his every wish and every desire, and that if he was thrown upon his own re.sources, that coming in contact with nature and with the struggle for Ine, that it would develop his independence, his self-reliance, and, perhaps, make a man of him, which his living in the old country, knowing that he was under the shadow of his father and mother, would not develop. Is it to be doubted? Do you ■doubt it? Would you not yourselves have done the same fl> I H 26 thing ? Those of you, who came from the motherland, and can understand that overcrowded population, how that they look to this western land of ours, and think, if they can only cross the sea, if they can only come to the far west, that there is hope, that there is a chance to succeed in life, and that father, when he sent his boy here, he did not send him to murder and kill the people of this country, or of Valleyfield, but he sent him here because he thought and because he felt that when he was put upon his own resources, he might develop and might be somebody. The mother had trained the child— the mother told you in the box that she opposed his coming here. It was like tearing her heart sLiings out to send her only boy across the sea, to send him alone among a strange people. That mother did not wish him to come, but she yielded implicit obedience to her husband's will. He came here, and proper and necessary provision was made for his being taken care of That mother, with the filial affection which does her credit, and for which we respect and admire her, when he came here in September, 1893, that loving, faithful mother followed her boy, three thousand miles across the stormy Atlantic, to .see how he was getting along in this new country. She stays here a period of time with him in order to help him and see whether or not she can get some position for him. Is that to your mind evidence that that father and mother wished to desert their child, that they wished to send him here into this community to shoot and kill at will, or is it not to your mind the best evidence that they desired to take care of him, that they were actuated by proper and pure motives in sending him to this country, and that when he came here, that they were prepared to take care of him as best they could. Now, so much for the Irish evidence. I have not given you all of the incidents, all of his insane acts that have been proven under the Irish commission ; you have heard it read, and you know it. I have only to relate to you sufficient of them to satisfy you, and to shew you, that up to the time of his coming here the insane taint in the blood was shewing 1 and, and hat they can only est, that life, and d him to Ueyfielci, >e he felt e might d you in vas like :ros.s the ; mother niedience )er and care of. r credit, mc here wed her c, to see le stays and see 1 that to shed to nto this Lu- mind im, that sending at they t given I'e been it read, :ient of time of hewing 27 itself, that the terrible affliction under which he suffered was developing in him. Now we have him in this country. Is there any change in his manner? Is there any change in his actions? Is that same in.sane love of revolvers, firearms, rifles, and guns, and desire to shoot and kill still present? Does it manifest itself immediately on his arrival in Canada? We find that it does. He goes to live with Mr^. Mulcahey ; we find from the evidence of Mr. Matthews, j.nd Mr. and Mrs. Mulcahey, that he is putting cartridges on the stove, that he is running up four or five stairs at a time, and jumping down stairs, that he is putting matches in an envelope to send to the Old Country, that he is promenadi.ig up and down the halls with bare legs. Now, my learned friend say,' a man goes around on board ship with his bare legs, and the Royal Scotch regi- ments travel with their legs bare ; I say that has nothing U do with the ca.se, the question is, with all these different thnigs, is it not the act of an insane man, to be seen in a public building in that condition, where public offices are? We find him in the Cadillac Hotel .vith those same character- istics, with these same insane actions. We find him in the Queen's Hotel, as proven by the evidence of Mr. Malabar and Mr. MacKay, trying to wash his feet with his stockings on, in the wash basin, out on the sidewalk firing or shooting or flourishing revolvers in the public .streets of Montreal, lading down upon the seats on Dominion Square with a revolver alongside of him. Are these the acts of a sane man ? Are these actions which you yourselves would like to be guilty of? My learned friend will tell you Mr. Malabar is mistaken, Mr. Mackay is mistaken. They will tell you " V/e called a man m charge of the wash-room and he did not see him ; Mr. Matthews did not see him; Mr.Crierie did not see him;" but, gentleman, that evidence is negative evidence, and he might have done all these things without Mr. Matthews or Mr. somebody else seeing him. I did not see him shooting John Loye and Maxime Lebceuf in the office of the Montreal Cotton Co. on the ist of March last, but there is no doubt 28 that he did it. I could get a million witnesses to go into that box and say they did not see him, but the fact remains that he tiid it. It is very easy to get one hundred \vitne.s.ses to say that they did not see him wash iiis feet in the basin or fire a revolver on ^he street, but we have two witnesses, Mr. Malabar and Mr. Mackay, and they both tell you that he did it. Mr. Matthews and Mr. Crierie, who were brought up to contradict these statements, they tell you that Mr. Malabar is an honest man, that he is enjoying the confidence of the authorities of the Queen's Hotel, that he is working there yet, and what he says is true, and you have a right to believe it. Now, gentleman, these are the facts, these are facts sworn to by these iieople. Mrs. Lewis and Mr. Roe in the box tells of his conduct in the Cadillac Hotel. x\ow,all these stories, the.se actions on the part of this man, this insane desire to flourish revolvers, this homicidal mania, this desire of his to do these thing.s, which nobody else would' do, all, to me, or I think to you, as sensible men, point only to one conclusion, and that i.s, that this man must be deranged in his intellect and must be insane. When he comes to Valleyfield, what do wd find ? The same actions, the same characteristics, the same deeds com- mitted by him in the old country, against common sense, against the dictates of prudence and of judgment, and different from what anybody else under like circumstances would do. Well, now, what is this man ? We have this picture. I do not wish to take much of your time, but I ask your patience for a while. I have been some time in drawing to your attention the evidence from his early childhood up to the time that he i: in Valleyfield, and up to the night of the first of March. Now, we have on the first of March this man with all these characteristics, guilty of all these acts, these insane acts ; acting as he has done in the old country, in Montreal, in Valleyfield, and above all that, above all these acts, we have what is still stronger, and what is more con- clusive, and what is irresistible evidence of his insanity, and that is, the delusions and hallucinations which he had. Now, 29 what were these dcUisions ? You have it cstabhshcd by the evidence of three or four witnesses, that he says, he carried a revolver in Ireland because his father at certain seasons of the year went mad. The doctors told you that that is the surest possible symptom of a diseased mind, and of the insane condition of a man ; he carried revolvers because his father went mad at certain seasons of the year, a delusion pure and simple, an absolute delusion, an insane idea wliich had no foun- dation in fact, and which was the creation of his distemper and derant,rcd mind. Another witness also tells you that he carried a revolver because under certain conditions a man may want to protect himself. We have this evidence from the Irish commission, but we have that evidence supported and confirmed by the testimony of Morri.son, a witness pro- duced on the part of the Crown. Mr. IViorrison tells us that the prisoner at the bar went up to his house to a Christmas dinner, and in speaking to him about revolvers, he said, that the prisoner told him he carried revolvers in Ireland to protect himself, and to protect his father against the cattle buyers— the cattle and pig buyers— a thing that has no existence in fact, that exists only in the diseased imagination of this man, and according to the medical testimony, and according to the books, the most absolute and convincing proof o*" the insane condition of the man, and of the diseased condition of his mind. He had an idea there that his father went mad, and that, if he did not carry a revolver to shoot his father, h' father would kill him. He has an insane idea that the caluc.K n are going to kill him, and are going to^kill his father, and forsooth he must carry a revolver. He comes to this country with his moral nature undeveloped from his early childhood, or in a rudimentary condition, with hallucinations, and delusions developed from the time that he reaches the age of fourteen or fifteen years, so that we have him at that time a natural imbecile, and implanted upon his natural imbecility is the insanity as evidenced by the delusions which existed up to the time that he came to this country. When he came here, had these delusions 1 in: 30 disappeared ? We find, from the evidence of Miss Anderson and Jack Anderson, that he, at their house, has visual and aural hallucinations, that is to say, he hears imaginary sounds, he hears imaginary voices, imagines people are looking at him, that people are walking on ihe verandah, and asks Jack Anderson to come out on the verandah and to close the blinds or shutters, to see whether these people are there or not. You caimot attach too much importance, you cannot attach too much importance to the existence of these hallucinations ; they are the most dangerous in the disease of insanity ; a man who has aural or visual hallucin- ations, is the most dangerous class of lunatic, and they often lead to homicidal results. Now, on the night of the first of March, we find this boy with this heredity, as I have pointed out to you, with his history as it has been stated to you under the Irish Com- mission, with his history as it was continued in this country, with his halluncinations and delusions ; on that very night, with a severe attack of this neuralgic headache, which head- aches are the premonitions of an attack of insanity, from which he was suffering. This is the condition of the boy, and I desire to consider with you the evidence of the tragedy. Was it premeditated ? Was it for the purpose of robbery ? of murder ? or was it the act of an insane man, without premeditation and without malice ? We have considered all the evidence leading from the boy's childhood up t( the day on which he is charged with having committed the offence. On the night of the first of March he goes to this mill, and meets there those who were his friends, those whom he had known for some consiHerable period of time. The Crown will tell you that he went there with premeditation and malice, that he went there to kill, to rob. What you have to consider, because that is the vital and the all important part of this trial— is, if he went there with the deliberate intention, with the knowledge of his acts, with the desire to rob, with the purpose of killing, and with a complete and full knowledge of the responsibility of his acts. 31 and if he did, then he is guilty, but if, on the other hand, the act of killing was an act without premeditation, without malice, without knowledge of right or wrong and without knowledge ofthc(iuality of the act, then you are bound to say that he was insane at the date of the con.mission of the act. If the prisoner was sane, if he was a criminal, if he was a robber, if he was an intending murderer, then you must find that he acted in a way that a sane man under like circumstances, and w '^h like intent, and with like desire would i,. ve acted. There were fifteen thousand dollars that night in that mill. There were five men in the office- -Loye, Lowe, Wilson, I.cbceuf and Maxime Lebccuf There is no evidence in the first place of any accomplice. There is no evidence that this young boy of twenty had discussed or considered the practicability of robbing this mill with anybody ; he had no accomplices ; he had no person with whom he could advise, and he went to that mill that night as he had been accustomed to do, many days and many weeks before. He went to that mill' wliy ? For the purpose, as the Crown will tell you, of robbing it of fifteen thousand dollars, and, if necessary, killing fou'r or five of those people, because, remember this, he*" must have known-, if he was a sane man, if he was a man with the mental calibre of you, gentlemen of the jury, who know what you have to do, and the responsibility of your acts, he must have taken into consideration the fact that there were four or five men who were guarding that treasure that night, and from whom he could not take it except by slaying them. Now, what did he do ? How was he equipped for this terrible murder which the Crown tells you that this young boy of scarcely twenty was about to accomplish ? A small pistol, 22 calibre, that one shot out of 25 could not possibly kill a man, which was the only revolver he had. They will tell you he had this chisel. Now without an accomplice, with a small, little revolver, which you are entitled to look at, and take into vour jury room, could he accomplish his object ? After I have shown you, as I have thehistory of this boy, with all his defects, with his mental 32 alienation, with his heredity, with a taint in his blood, with the chances of his becoming insane, you arc to say whether, under these circumstances, when he went to that mill on the night of the hrst of March, with this little pop gun of a revolver, even giving the Crown the benefit of all the doubt about this chisel, that he went there to rob and carry away fifteen thousand dollars, with the chances of having to kill four or five people, and was he at the time a sane man or was he a madman ? It is established beyond all question that this man had revolvers with Dansercau in the hotel, with Parker in the hotel, that he could have got revolvers from almost any person, and if he had gone there with the intention of committing murder, with the inten ion of robbing that mill, and carrying away $15,000, in the name of common sense, in the name of reason, if you think that he was sane and in possession of all his facul- ties, could you imagine him going there to do this terrible deed, with a little four barrelled pistol carrying a 22 calibre bullet,, and nothing but a chisel, with four or five men guarding the treasure? The Crown may say, he knew that Lowe had a pistol there. He did not know that he could get the pistol from Lowe. Now, if he had gone there for the purpose of committing murder, when he got possession of Lowe's pistol, would he have sat quietl>' and cleaned it for a full hour. There was no object in clea..'. . the revolver, there was no purpose or reason for him sitting there one full hour, wliile they were boxing this money in small tin cans, and making it all the more difficult for him to carry away, because, whether the revolver was cleaned, or whether it was not cleaned, it was equally efficacious, so far as shooting the people was con- cerned. He gets possession of this revolver, with his insane, idiotic, boyish idea of playing with revolvers ; he goes to this desk in the middle of the room, and for one full hour occupies himself in cleaning it. Think you tiiat is compatible with the theory of the daring murderer, of the robber, of the criminal, of the man who is look- 33 in? for blood and for money? Would a murderer ,,0 there and get th,., revolver, sit and clean it for an hour e'at lit :. 7 ';,«e"erally „i.|, the boy., who were th;re ^o at all. If that man had planned a robberv, if that man had gone there with premeditation, if he intended Z n.Bht to rob that mill, he would have been ampi;provi^td v.th means of offence and defence, he v.oul I ha e had revolvers he would have had the necessary n.eans to ca^^?' out his plans and his projects ^ When he got this revolver (you know the evidence must be absolutely conclusive to your mind, that the boy wls^' avs tryurg to find out all he could about revolvers • he waTfo d ' catalogues, he wanted the names of makers,' he anttd the model numbers, he wanted the names of pistols, and when he aw th.s p.stol he asked the name of it and a terward '.! he had not taken the model number) he'.'k i ba k tr he put ,t n, the drawer, and after Lowe had loaded it and aid ' want to get the model number." The Crown wmtell vou' he got ,t back for the purpose of committing robbe forX' P rpose of committing crime. Weil, if that L so 1 e had the 80 eTo1h^'d°rf ^' "^ h"" -r^>'°PP-'"n.ty, i-e'co^ld h e ^oie o that drawer where those cartridges were and if he had gone there for the purpose of committi,^' robber ad m,„der, why n, ,he name of all that is common sen e when he once got possession of that revolver fro.n Lowe wh,ch was absolutely all that was necessary frhim ,0 omnr.t th.s crime, did he give it back to him, as he di rnot know he could get it back from him again ? Th ,1 von if T :eX::trti:"''^^''^''7"-™-"'"»""'- go e there h P"^P°^'= "^ ™"l™«h,g robbery, if he had ^■ouldtt^lr;::;x-,:L^u;"r 'r; r J:: possession of the weapon, which ws al esenia%?° mportant or him to commit this crime, toshoot 1 eoplc why d,d he return it? Would he not have kept it How easy ,t was for him to have gone - '■ ■ ' cartridfres were, and said, 3 the d IN ovv. will rawer where the go on with thij i } i X 34 thing," but, instead, gave back to Lowe the only weapon, the only arm, that was in his possession, with which he could perpetrate this deed ; he secuied it once more to get the model number. As the witnesses, Lowe and Wilson, told you, he what they called " broke " the revolver to see the model number ; he could not do this without breaking it, that is, doubling it over. Now, gentlemen of the jury, your own common sense tells you if he got it at that time for the pur- pose of shooting, for the purpose of committing robbery, if he used as a pretext getting the model number, there was no reason why he should " break it and look at it," but he got it and broke it, and without malice he turned and pointed it towards Wilson, and a shot was fired and Wilson was struck. What does he say to the medical men about it ? He had been oiling it, he had been cleaning it, he had oiled all its parts. He had asked for a screw-driver, and had taken the revolver all to pieces, and Lowe objected to that in the first place, but he afterwards said he could put it together again. It was very easy for it go off now. He turned it that way, because he was in the habit of pointing revolvers at people. He had pointed them at Miss Anderson, and at people in the Queen's hotel, and at people in Ireland, and at everybody he got a chance to point them at, he did. Why? Because he was a homicidal maniac. Well, now, when he pointed that revolver at Wilson, it went off. Was it an accident or was it intentional? The prisoner at the bar tells you through the doctors, and the statement is, that it was accidental. My learned friend will say, that tiiat is not evidence, the learned Judge will charge you not to take into consideration any statements made by the prisoner at the bar to the doctors after the commission of tl crime, but I will ask you to follow me for a few minutes to consider the actions of the people who were present at the time this shot went off. I say to)'ou, gentlemen of the jury, that every man in that room, Loye, Lebceuf and Wilson and Lowe, thought and considered that that first shot which was fired there was an accident, that it never occurred to them for one instant to suppose that 35 that first shot had been fired by the prisoner at Wilson in anger, or for the purpose of robbery, or that it was anything else than an accident. What happened? Loye says, " I will go to the telephone and telephone for the doctor "—that is Loye who was shot. Lowe runs to the res- cue of Wilson to support him, to see what is the matter with him. Now, if Loye and Lowe, when that first shot was fired, had supposed it was a shot other than accidental, would one have gone to the telephone to call for a doctor and the other have gone to the support of Wilson ? Not at all. If they had supposed that the first shot was fired with the purpose of murder, killing or robbery, they would have immediately thrust themselves upon the assassin there present, becau.se idle and useless would it have been to have gone to the tele- phone to have telephoned for a doctor, or to have supported Wilson, and let the would-be murderer and the man who it will be pretended by the Crown, had murder in his heart, free there to have shot them at his own sweet will. But all those there considered that first shot an accident, that that revolver went off and struck Wilson without intention, without the purpose of robbery, without the purpose of killing. The prisoner says it was so, the actions of every man who was present in that room bears out that theory in its entirety, and their actions are not compatible with any other theory whatsoever, but that they considered that the first shot fired was an accident. After that, then comes in the disease of the mind, then comes in that lapse of .self- consciousness, then comes in the effect of this insanity, then strikes him the taint of his ancestry in his blood his insanity takes full possession of him, and he becomes utterly irresponsible and thoroughly indifferent to what then takes place. That is his story. That is what he says. That is the history that is compatible with the theory and the knowledge of the insanity such as he is afflicted with. Now, if he h^d gone there with intent to rob, if that man was sane, if that man was in possession of all his faculties, why, when he saw the first shot fired, and that he had killed Loye, when Lowe •% 36 and Lebciiuf had got into the vault, and he must have seen then that there was no chance of getting- the money, what would have been the first motive, what would have been the first instinct to a sane man under like circumstances ? It would have been self-preservation ; he would have said : " The game is up, I have failed in my efforts, I cannot get this money, I have killed two men, I will be discovered in a few hours, the only chance for me is in flight, I must leave this building. At six or seven o'clock in the morning at the very latest, men will come here ; there are two or three men on guard who are visiting this building, and they are liable to turn up at any minute." Would he have stayed to shoot Maxime Leboeuf after he shot Loye and Wilson, and with Lowe and Lebceuf in the vault? Would there have been any object in his remaining there. If you reason out his actions on the doctrine of a sane man he would have seen the game was up ; he would have seen that his only chance was in flight, and, small as they were, he would have gone, but does he do that ? No ; he remains there, the madman he was, irresponsible, his mind deranged, his mind chaos, like a man in his sleep, like a man who walks in mid- night darkness without knowing what he does, with a lapse of consciousness, without any moral responsibility, without knowing the consequence of his act, what does he do? He goes around. He calls out there, in his madness, " Maxime ! Maxime !" as you vv'ill see when reading the evidenv.e of Leboeuf, who was in the vault, not that Maxime Lebceuf called him first, but he knew he was there. He called out "Maxime! Maxime!" and he said, "What do you want ?" and he answered with a revolver shot. He gratifies his over- ruling weakness, the over-ruling character, the over-ruling destiny and spirit of the whole man, to kill and murder. Homicidal impulse was there. He kills, he murders, he follows it up ; it is in his blood, it is in his nature, he does not know what he does. If he had been sane, would not he have gone away ? Was there any chance for him to get Leboeuf and Lowe out of that vault which had the cash in it? Would I y vv IV 37 lave seen ley, what been the ices ? It ve said : t get this in a few save this the very men on liable to to shoot and with ive been out his Id have his only aid have lere, the lis mind in mid- lapse of without lo ? He /laxime ! denv.e of Leboeuf lied out I want ?" lis over- ;r-ruling murder, ders, he loes not he have Leboeuf Would he, as a sane man, have thought for an instant that these two men would have come out of that vault and given him a chance to shoot them ? Was the following of" Wilson into the weave room the act of a sane man or the act of a maniac ? Is not the taking of the telephone receiver and smashing it up in his fury and madness evidence of his frenzied condition ? On what did he break it? Not upon the head of Maxime Lebceuf, because the doctors do not show that he had bruises Where did he break it ? The Crown will tell you it was for the purpose of stopping communication between the mill office and the central telephone office. There was no neces- sity to smash this gutta percha telephone receiver all to pieces. Then, again, why did he smash the lantern which Leb(£uf had ? This was smashed to pieces, and they cannot find the glass. The place was lighted up with electricity Why smash this lantern ? Here was a man in the frenzy of madness, without reason, without right, and without knowing what he did, remaining there until the very hour that the men who were to arrest him came, and what does he do ? He remained there until the end of the paroxysm, and he surrenders and gives himself up. He says, " I killed these men, and I do not know why I did it. I cannot tell you anything about it." Is there any remorse? Is there any regret ? If you had been guilty of this crime, if I had killed these men, if any man in this Court House, other than the prisoner had done it, would there not have been remorse ? If for a moment your moral nature had become warped to the extent that you would commit this crime, my God -s it not possible that you would feel sorrow and regret for the men you had killed? But here is none. He is arrested He writes this letter which the Crown asked Walter Cooke about. We produce the letter sent to Miss Anderson What is that letter:-" Telephone home, anticere. If Bob McGinnis says or does anything about dirty stories I will make it hot for him." Can you imagine a more insane production by an insane man than that letter. Take it into your jury room with you, look at it, written by him 38 immediately after his arrest, and then what takes place? He says, " Shoot me, I do not know what I did." He is taken to the cell ; he is put into the cell with the blood of his victims besmcarinjr his hands and clothing, with ti e blood of the men that he loved, with the blood of the men who say they were friends of his— he is taken into the cell, and like an innocent child he lies him down and sleeps. Is that the act of an insane man or is it the act of a sane man ? If that man were sane, if he realized the full responsibility of his act, if he knew, as he should have known if he was sane and in pos- session of all his mental faculties, that the scaffold awaited him, and it was only a question of working out the operation of the law until he would reach it, think you, he would have slept that night? Would any one of you, if by any chance, or would I, or any man in this Court House, other than the prisoner, if by any chance we found ourselves in similar circumstances, and saw the most terrible fate which can await a human being, that disgraces his family and brings ruin on all connected with him, and sends him to meet his God, could he have lain down and slept? Would he not, like Macbeth, who, after having murdered Duncan, King of Scot- land, imagined he heard a voice crying : — " Macbeth doth murder sleep, Glamis hath murdered sleep, Macbeth shall sleep no more." and have fancied he heard the voices of his murdered victims in the darkness of his cell ? A .sane man who committed crime, a .sane man guilty of this deed could never have slept, could never have lain down like a tranquil child two or three hours after the commission of a terrible tragedy like this, with ♦ihe blood of his victims reeking on his clothes, and his hands besmeared with it, and turned his face to the wall and slept— slept quietly, so that when his keepers came into the cell, they had to touch him to waken him up. Now, you will be told by the Crown, "Oh, but he said to Lowe, stop still or I will shoot you," and immediately shot 39 the other man. Well now, the man who is walking in his sleep, the man whose self-consciousness is gone, exercises a certain amount of precision or thought in his acts, and it is impossible to say, that because of that act alone, or of saying these words that the man was in possession of his faculties. It is no use to say that when he went to the vault and said in a whining voice, " Come out, Come out, John Loye is gone, or Hughic Wilson is shot." It is as rational to conclude that this was only carrying out the desire of this man for blood. At that time he was under a lapse of self-consciousness, not knowing what he did, because you have the evidence of that man's natural imbecility, you have the evidence before you of a diseased mind, you have the evidence of the alienists, who went into that box, who told you that that man was a natural imbecile, that insanity had supervened upon it, that he was irresponsible, and he knew not when he committed this tragedy the difference between right and wrong. Now, so much then for the tragedy. It was a tragedy which rang throughout the entire country ; it was a tragedy which aroused all right thinking men and they said " this is a terrible crime," but if it was perpetrated by an insane man, if the whole thing was done by a man irresponsible, who knew not what he was doing, who did not know right from wrong, who knew not the consequences of his acts, then so far as the act itself is concerned, it is no more than the stone which rolls " off the side of a mountain and wrecks the railway train as it passes, and kills, one, two, three, or one hundred human beings. It is the act of an inaminate thing, it is the act of an indivi- dual whom God, in his infinite wisdom, has deprived of reason and of responsibility, and how much better is it to say that this man in the commission of his horrible tragedy was not responsible, was not sane, than to think that without reason, or without right, a young man in the full bloom of his early youth, sane, as you will be told by the Crown, without any reason, heir to a large fortune, son of a devoted father and mother, no object, no purpose in committing robbery, because if he was sane, if he knew the consequences of his act. the 40 amount that he could possibly have .qrot there was only some fifteen thousand dolhirs. What \v(nild that have been to him ? He must have known that in a village like Valleyfield this large amount of money carried away in the early morning, the office strewn with the blood and corpses of his victims, "a hue and cry would inevitably have gone forth from one end of this country to the other, and as well might he have tried to escape the avenger of death as to escape conviction and arrest after having perpetrated a crime like this. What was he doing ? Sacrificing his whole future, sacrificing his father and his mother, hastening them to an early grave. For the purpose of what ? Of getting fifteen thousand dollars, when there awaited him the inheritance of a rich estate. Gentle- men, the thing is against common sen.se, against rea.son, against judgment, because there is no motive and there is no rea.son in my mind for the commission of this crime. Now, the crime is committed, and the tragedy is done, could he have carried away this money ? It was done up in little tin boxes, or nearly the half of it. Was there any provision for him to carry it away ? Where was he to take it ? Had he made any provision to go away ? W\is there a team of horses waiting to drive him across the lines, or to go any- where? Did he have a portmanteau or valise? Was there anything at all ? Was it not the act of the wildest mad man that could be conceived ? Now, he is arrested, he surrenders himself to the authorities. I have detailed, and I have gone over the details of the Irish evidence. When, on his arrest, his poor father and mother are notified first of all by cable- gram, sent by the president of the Montreal Cotton Co., Mr. A. F. Gault ; he cabled, " Shortis, Waterford. Your son must be crazy. He has badly wounded three men, and perhaps fatally too." He tells you, as you heard in his deposition, that he said he had badly wounded, and, perhaps, fatally, these men, because he wanted to break the news as gently as possible to his poor mother across the Atlantic ; but he does say, and he says in the most unequivocal language possible in that cable, " Your son must be crazy." When you read his 1 J i 1 i 41 deposition, he does not. by the language which he used or the statement that he makes; he does not say that he said he must be crazy, for the purpose of breaking the news to her but he broke the neu's by stating, that he wounded these people, mstead of telhng her that he had killed them The first idea that flashes in the mind of the president of the company, when he knows the circumstances; knowing the young man as he does, he comes irresistibly and immediately to the conclusion, that the young man must be crazy, that he must be insane, and so cables his mother. After having committed this homicide, he is arrested • he was brought before justice, and barely escaped lynchinc^ at \ alleyfield, and is finally committed to stand his trial aifd is moved to the prison at Montreal. We made an application for the examination of the prisoner by men of science, by men of experience in the study of mental diseases, and after various attempts, we obtained the order for the examination of this prisoner. Four men have been brought before you and have given their evidence as to their opinion as to hi.s mental condition, based on the evidence adduced before you in this Court, as also upon interviews with the prisoner rhis evidence, I deem of the most vital importance, and i ask your kind and close attention to me for a few min- t'ces, while I deal with that part of this case. The men who were examined are men who stand in the front rank of their profession in this country. Dr. Anglin made a study ot this ca.se, covering a long period of time, from the 25th of June or July, up to the present time ; he had a large number of interviews with the prisoner, as stated, and considered the matter, and with his experience in Verdun Asylum, with his experience in Kingston Asylum, with his experience in 1 hiladclphia, he comes before you and takes his reputation in his hands and tells you that this man is a natural imbecile is c isea.sed in his mind, and is irresponsible and knows not [he difference between right and wrong. I do not propose at this late hour, because I wish to finish my address to-night to discuss in detail the evidence as given by these men You 42 have it before you. Dr. Daniel Clarke, of Toronto ; Dr. Charles Clarke, of Kinj^ston ; Dr. Hucke, of London ; men who, with their e.xpcrience with the insane, represent alto^^ether an aggregate of some seventy years. These men arc men well known in the profession ; they are men who have made a study during their whole life of mental diseases ; they are men who, of all the men that have come before this Court and have given evidence before you, are the most competent to speak upon this question, and they tell you, after having sat from day to day in this Court, and heard unfolded from that witness box the testimony of all the witnes.ses regarding this young man, and from their own examination of him, they tell you that he is insane, they tell you that the ca.se is one of the strongest cases of insanity that has been brought before the courts of ju.stice within their recollection ; they tell you that in their a.sylums where there are hundreds, and in Dr. Bucke'.s- case a thousand poo^ afflicted humanity, that there are many of them there not so insane as the prisoner at the bar ; they tell you more, they tell you, with his poor father and mother sitting in front of you ; that the affliction which God has put upon their son is incurable, and that his mental di.sease and imbecility has so attacked his constitution that never can he be cured, there is no hope of a cure, that the only hope, that the only thing possible for these two poor parents who sat in front of that jury box, was that their son, their only child, in the event of your ving that he was insane, should be confined in a lunatic ^.^ylum for the rest of his lifetime. It is a dismal out-look for them at best. These four doctors, men of science, men who have written upon the subject, men who have made the subject of mental diseases the study of their lives, they, who, of all others, are most competent to speak of it, come before you, and they tell you that he is insane, and on the night of that fateful tragedy, he knew not what he was doing, he did not know the respon- sibilty of his act, that he was unable to distinguish right from wrong. What have the Crown done ? The Crown through this. 43 trial have insinuated that this man who bears upon his face the stamp of imbecih'ty and insanity, who has stood in that box from the hour that this trial began until now as immut- able as the rock which you see on the mountain side, who has as little realized the terrible position he is in as the wooden dock within which he stands, who is the person above all others who has the least care as to what the result of this trial may be, is feigning. I myself have seen that man I think four times in all from the time that I first entered upon this case. Since thi-^ trial began I have not even exchanged a syllable with him. I saw him four times in the Montreal jail, and there I saw that his condition mentally was such that I could not receive, and did not receive one idea or one thought which could be used for the purpose of defending him here, as he is incompetent to give it. Do you imagine that that man from what you see of him there is feigning insanity? The Crown have intimated herein this trial, they have told you for the purpose of impressing you with it from the very beginning of this trial until now, that that man was feigning insanity under the direction and study of some- body! I repel the insinuation with all the scorn that my nature is capable of, and do you as men believe that that thing that is in the box there, could have stood for four long weeks, immutable, unobservant, wn'thout even quiver- ing a muscle or turning a hair, when his father and mother's hearts were wrung with anguish, while giving their evidence in that box ? Do you think it is possible for the human heart not to give away under such trying circumstances as these ? Do you think that the vilest criminal, devoid of all natural feeling, could stand in the dock there and see the mother, her heart wrung with anguish, shedding bitter tears, and never turn his head? Do you remember the incident that took place here between Smith and his father? I did not see it, but I am told that when his father stood up and said that his mother had been insulted in this Court, that this young man never so much as turned his head to look what it was. Is it possible ? Give him credit for being the vilest criminal. Let 44 ! 'hi US say that he is feigning insanity. Let us say that he has been trained to do it. Let us say that he is a clever man, and with it all 1 say that it is utterly impossible, that the human frame and the human system could not undergo, could not stand such a strain for four long weeks, if sane? Do you think he would stand before twelve of his fellow- countrymen on trial for his life and show no recognition of what was going on, and appear as indifferent as he has done? Gentlemen of the jury, the.se experts have told you that he is insane. They have told you, and if you want evidence, if it were possible to get stronger, it is in the fact that the other doctors sat in this Court, took notes of this trial, and listened to every word of the evidence, and then they would not go into the box as medical men and express their opinion as to whether he was insane or not. There is another phase of this trial which I must refer to, a phase of this trial wJiich I refer to with regret — with regret. The Crown tells you that this man is .sane, the Crown tells you that he is responsible for his acts. The Crown have missed no opportunity to secure evidence, have ransacked this country from one end to the other, have spared no means, have done everything, have traced every act and all the con- duct of this young man, have even interviewed his barber, who could not speak his language, even to his shoemal-^r, and everybody else, to try and show that he had reason and was and is sane. When they were made aware in the early part of May in Montreal, when we asked for permission for doctors to examine this man as to his sanity, the Crown had notice then as to what our defence was. On the 79th June we went to examine witnesses in Ireland as to this man's mental condition. When did the Crown send a doctor to examine him ? When was the farce of asking to have him examined on the part of the Crown gone through ? just eight days before this trial began, and on the cross-examina- tion of the witnesses in the box an effort was made to show that in order to determine the sanity or insanity of a man it required months of study, \'(;t the Crown, for the first time in 45 fit he has ner man, that the undergo, i, if sane? is fellovv- [nitioii of las done ? tliat he is ince, if it the other i h'stcned d not go on as to efer to, a h regret. 3wn tells wn have ansacked o means, the con- rber, who !:"r, and and was arly part ision for 3wn had ?th June is man's loctor to ave him li ? — just ixamina- to show a man it t time in the history of this trial, eight days before the opening of the case, sends Dr. Villeneuvc to examine the prisoner. Did you ever in all the administration of serious criminal justice hear of a farce equal to it ? What did he do ? He goes down to the jail. He is selected as an experienced and scientific man on this question. He goes to see the prisoner. Mr. Vallee, the Governor of the jail, says he spent but five or ten minutes with the prisoner, and he askx-d him certain questions, and this poor silly maniac says, " I am told by my lawyers not to say anything." Does not this show the insanity of the prisoner ? If his lawyers had told him to say nothing, could yo. have imagined a more insane act than for him to say to the governor of the jail and the repre.sentative of the Crc .vn holding the sign manual of the Crown prosecutor, that the lawyers had told him to say nothing ? What does this scien- tific man do ? What does Dr.Villencuve do.' He did not dare to get into that box to tell you of that interview. The Crown did not dare to put him into the box, they did not dare to put him in, and ask him, and allow us on cro.ss-examination to ask him, why it was that he did not examine the prisoner at the bar. Why Dr. Villeneuve sat in this court hou.se for four weeks, accompanied by three other doctors, and the last two days Dr. Girdwood came here, and ycJu saw him sitting reading the evidence taken at the trial, and I say, with all the responsibility of my po.sition before you, that the facts of this case justify me in saying, the Crown only sent for Dr Villeneuve there to try and get a refusal or some such reason, that they might come before you and pretend that we have put up some sort of a job, so that the prisoner should not be examined. Do you believe, as .sensible men, if the Crown had any intention of examining their experts' if they had desired to know what his mental condition was, that they would have waited until just eight days before this' trial to send an expert to the jail to examine him ; and then when this poor silly fool said, " I do not want to be examined " this physician of the Crown walks off, folds his arms and makes no further attempt. If he had gone to Mr St 46 l^ierre, if he had come to myself, or if iie had gone to Mr. Foster, or in fact to anybody, if there had been any desire on his part to examine the prisoner at the bar, the mode was ea:sy, he could liave done it ; but he never said a word, lie never wanted to examine him, and when he brought these four men who sat alongside of the Crown prosecutor, and took notes day by day of the evidence that went on, and when we asked for an opportunity for Dr. Bucke to examine the prisoner, the Crown here, in the presence of the judge, asked that their expert should be allowed to go too, and when he went and examined him, when they took that evidence, why did not they put him in the box ? Why was not Dr. Villeneuve e.xamined ? Why were not the four doctors, who were put in the box by us, contradicted by Dr. Villeneuve? Gentlemen of the jury, there is only one irresist- ible conclusion for you to come to. If this man could have gone in*^o that box, after having heard the evidence here, and sworn that that man was sane, do you think the Crown would not have put him in? Do you think that if Dr. Villeneuve could have gone into that box, and said that the prisoner was sane and responsible for his actions, that the Crown would not have put him ? We dared the Crown to put them in ? We dared them to put Dr. Villeneuve in that box, because, if Dr. Villeneuve had gone into that box, as an honest man, as I believe and know him to be, he would have sworn and would have been obliged to say, froin the hearing of the evidence, and from his experience and science and knowledge, that the prisoner was insane, and that he was not responsible for the acts with which he is charged, on that fatal night the first of March last. Well now, gentlemen of the jury, do not be humbugged if the Crown tells you, " Oh, I had this galaxy of doctors around here to give me information about the prisoner, to tell me something about mental diseases." He may tell you that. You may be told that Dr. Villeneuve was not here as an expert. If he was not here as an expert, why did he go to the jail to tr\- and examine the prisoner as an expert. If he gone to been any ; bar, the I ever said when he le Crown ence that Dr. Bucke resence of ^ed to [TO :hey took )x? Why : the four ed by Dr. e irresist- ould have here, and >wn would /^illeneuvc .soner was vn would n in ? VV^e lecause, if man, as I vorn and g of the nowledge, was not I, on that bugged if f doctors ler, to tell you that. 3rc as an I he go to rt. If he ^ 47 was not here as an expert, why did he go into the prison cell with Dr. Bucke and examine him ? Why was not he called and given an opportunity to state the result of his experience and the result of all the notes of the prisoner's mental condition he took in Court here ? If there is any one incident in this whole trial, if there is one thing which ought to convince you as honest men that this man is insane, it is the fact that we have called our four experts and that the Crown brought their physicians and had them here throughout this whole trial, and they did not dare— they did not dare, to put them in the box, because their answers would have killed the case for the Crown. We are not playing with the life of a fellow being here. It is not a question as to whether a fellow being is to be executed wrongly or not. The Crown are here to do justice. The Crown are here to do right. The lawyers who represent the Crown are supposed to stand impartially between the Crown and the subject, and if the.se men thought he was insane, in the name of common justice, in the name of all that is right, in the name of everything that appeals to an honest man's heart, why were not these men put in the box ? Why was not Dr. Villeneuve put in the box ? We could not summon him. We had closed our case. We could not make our main evidence in sur-rebuttal, and ask him whether this man was sane or not. If in the consid- eration of this case, if in weighing the evidence on one side or the other, if in looking at it you should have any hesitation, you should have any doubt, then look at the facts as they arei look at the position tiiat the Crown has taken, look at the fact of their only examining the prisoner eight days before the trial, and look at the fact of them not putting their experts in the box, and say is the Crown in good faith, are they desirous of getting common right and honest justice in this case, or are they desirous of erecting a monument to their own glorifica- tion and honor, and cementing the foundation stone in the life blood of Valentine Shortis ? It seems to me, gentlemen of the jury, that were I in your place, that were I sitting in the jury box, that had I takcii my I. 48 oath to do justice between our country and the prisoner at the bar, and had I seen the Crown, armed as tliey were with their medical experts, sitting here from day to day, taking notes of the evidence, and that they did not dare to put them in the box, it wouid be to my mind as the judgment of a man who knows something of the world, and to you, gentlemen of the jury, the strongest possible proof that there was someihing wrong and that there was reason, and that the only reason was that they could not contradict the testimony of the experts examined for the defence. The Crown in rebuttal have examined a good many witnesses. They have tried to show you that he was intelli- gent. They have brought witnesses to say that they had conversations with him, and the first witness that I wish to deal with (because the hour is getting late, and I feel that I cannot go over this case as minutely as I would like) is the witness Simp.son. Mr. Simpson comes into the box, and he tells you, " I was kind to this boy, and always did what was right with him. He has no complaint against me. He tried to kill me ; he formed a conspiracy to shoot me. He was an intelligent boy." Whether he tried to form a conspir- acy to shoot him becomes of little moment if the evidence is clear and convincing of his insanity, of his imbecility. The point that bears on Simpson's mind is to show the boy's intelligence. Now, the pri.soner was in Simp.son's office for five weeks, and he (Simpson) goes into that box and says he .was intelligent ; he says he knew his business, that he did it well, and when he said so, would you believe it, he (Simpson) had not even examined the results of his labors, and he knew not whether the work had been done well or not. The quota- tion book which we went through showing mistakes, showing that all that boy had to do was to copy into this book what a schoolboy of ten could have done, and all through it he has not been able to copy a page devoid of mistakes. Simpson says, " Oh, more than that, he is a mechanical geniu.s. We wanted to get a machine for singeing cotton, and I was talking with him about it, and he says. ' Oh, I know abon^ a better i 1 .:m 49 machine than that, and I will send to Chicago for the plans ' " Mark you, gentlemen of the jury, a machine for singeing cotton. These plans came; they are on the desk here obtamed, as Simpson says, for the purpose of constructing a machme for singeing cotton, and he sends him with the plans to Sparrow. Read the deposition of Sparrow. Simpson tells you he told the prisoner to go to Sparrow and ask him how those plans wonld do as a machine for singeing cotton. The boy goes to Sparrow, and Sparrow tells you that the only question that they discussed, and what he laid the plans before him for, and what he proposed, was a machine, not to smge cotton, but to create power, to create fuel, and that he discussed these plans with him, with the idea and purpose of creating power, not for the purpose of singeing cotton • I believe that the story of those plans is made out of whole cloth, or else, if it is not made out of whole cloth, then that prisoner had not sufficient intelligence and knowledge and concentration of mind to go from Simpson's office with those plans, under instructions to put them before Sparrow, to see whether they would do for singeing cotton, but when he got them before Sparrow with an entirely different purpose and object. Now, surely, if that boy had intelligence, surely if he knew what the plans were for, surely if they were obtained for the purpose of singeing cotton, as Simpson pretends, he would have known enough to have carried them to Sparrow's office, and say "Mr. Simpson sent those here, and I want you to look at them and see if they can be utilized for singeing cotton by gas." Now this is the evidence of prisoner's wonderful mechanical genius. The Crown will tell you that this boy possesses geniirs, that this boy has intelligence, that he has knowledge, that he has a brain, that he can conceive and design, and because he can do all these, he must be sane. Why, gentlemen of the jury, the maniacs in lunatic asylums are those who sometimes design the most intricate things in machinery, but if there was an act on the part of this young man showing insanity 50 it is this. We have a large cotton factory with a large steam power, he comes with this grandiose idea of his, this mania of his, and he says to Sparrow, " Here is what you want to put in here ; you are burning coal and wood to generate your power, but here is something else by the use of petroleum, or some other thing, you can cheapen your work." Take out this machinery (which cost thousands and thousands of dollars J, he leaves the idea of singeing cotton by gas, but he has got the idea of completely revolutionizing and changing the power of this mill. Is that the idea of a sane man ? Is it not the best evidence to your mind of the shift- ing, changing, uncertain, unstable mind of the prisoner ? Now, they put in another machine, a bell. Young says, " This is a great stroke of genius, this shows his natural ability, this shows his mechanical genius." Well, now, what does Sparrow say about the plan ? He does not pay any attention t^) this scheme of his. What does Young do when he gets the plan of the bell ? Throws it into the drawer and never looks at it, considers it undeveloped, no good, and the thing is only unearthed when this trial is about to take place, and when they want to show by acts of this kind, by these small things, that this man has genius, brains and ability. Well, now, run over brief!)' the witnesses for the Crown in rebuttal. They say that he had some intelligence, but when they were cross-examined you will find that their opportuni- ties are limited to very few interviews, a few conversations but of a few minutes' duration. Well now, a man may be insane, a man may be irresponsible, a man may not know right from wrong, and he may be able to converse on some subject in an intelligent way with the ordinary individual, and I do not mean to say for one instant, or to throw any reflection on the average citizen's intelligence, but I say this, that as a man who is trained to build a mowing machine knows best how to do it, so is a man who is trained to study the human mind with the e.xterior evidences of it, is the best able to pronounce 51 an opinion on it, a.id not the ordinary person. I myself might meet a man, you might meet a man, and he might be perfectly insane, and at the same time in casual conversation we might not recognize it or know it, and the evidence of the Crown is that of a few people who have had small oppor- tunities of seeing the prisoner, and of only talking in a general way with him upon general topics, and then but few conversations, and consequently unable to judge of his sanity. Now Mr. Gault was examined. A letter was produced, written by the prisoner at the end of January last. The Crown will tell you that this letter shows thought, considera- tion, memory, judgment, intelligence, knowledge, and all those qualifications or faculties which go to make up the sane man. This letter is, to my mind, the wail of a moral unbecile. If you read it from the beginning to the end, vou will find that he starts out that it is a horrible thii that he should be accused of this conspiracy, and then he ' .ids up and says that it is ridiculous. S > that he says a thing which is perfectly ridiculous is horrible and terrible, and then he goes on to tell how le will have to leave the town and to beg and ask for protection ; and throughout the whole letted, from the beginning to the end, is evidence of a boy who had no moral force, who had no moral sense, who had no reliance on himself, and was weak, and through it all points to egoism and vanity— the prevailing vanity of the boy which comes down from his early childhood up to the present day He writes to Mr. A. F. Gault, the president of the company, one of the merchant princes of Montreal, and he signs it " Your friend, Valentine Shortis." " Your friend !" A man he is asking favours from ! He tells him how he should govern and manage Simpson, and throughout the whole letter there arc fifteen grammatical errors or words mis-spelled I cannot give the entire details. I have them here, but you take the letter yourselves, and you read it over, and you will find that the grammatical construction is bad, that the spell- 52 ing is bad, that the whole thing does not show that genius and that inteUigence which the Crown would hope you to draw from it ; but, above all, I wish to say tnat many insane men write letters. I had a letter to-day, from a gentleman in Toronto, saying that he had seen in the papers some refer- ence to this letter. Why, he says, " I was on the Grand Jury at the last criminal term in Toronto when we visited the insane asylum, and an insane man, a maniac confined in that asylum, wrote us a letter and said he was wrongly confined there. It was an intelligent letter, discussed the situation, and discussed his case. We thought there must be some wrong done, but the doctor said, "Just ask him about one question," and immediately his insanity developed itself. Well, now, the insane write sometimes intelligent letters. You must know yeurselvcs from your experience, and the books on mental science are full of it, that many of the insane act at certain times intelligently, apparently with reason and apparently with judgment. Your dog, that comes to meet you as you go to your house at night, will give you evidence of his affection and of knowledge ; your horse knows when it comes time for him to be fed at night, will show intelli- gence ; the dumb animals display intelligence, they display judgment, they display feeling ; they know something. But for all that, is a maniac, is a man who is insane, is a man who is a natural imbecile, to be so different from his fellow-men that he cannot eat, that he cannot drink, or think— that he has not to a certain extent some affection, some love, some regret, some hate, or some fear? If you ask that a being shall be deprived of all these attributes, you ask that the human mind shall be lower than that of brute kingdom, that there is nothing left but the piece of inanimate clay which lies before you. That is not the humane idea of the insane. We have men who know something and can judge somewhat, that are insane, and know not the difference between right and wrong. We have also men who can write verses, and contribute to literature, men who are insane and ^ I 53 lat genius )pe you to my insane itleman in ome refer- rand Jury 'isited the led in that y confined situation, : be some about one jed itself, nt letters. e, and the the insane •eason and es to meet u evidence ows when lovv intelli- ey display ling. But I man who fellow-men k— that he love, some lat a being k that the kingdom, imate clay idea of the can judge difference can write insane and in asylums and show evidences of genius, and I will give you ai the moment a verse that was written by an insane man :— .Shut up in dreary gloom, like convicts are, In company of murderers. Oh ! wretclied fate, If pity ere extended through the frame. Or sympathy's sweet cordial touched the heart ; Pity the wretched maniac, who knows no blame, Absorbed in sorrow, where dakness, poverty and every curse impart. This not only shows intelligence, but it shows that God- given quality, genius ; these verses are the sad effusion of Thomas Lloyd, a man-slaying maniac in Bedlam. Take those lines and put them alongside of Ihe letter that the prisoner sent to Mr. Gault, and see whether you see more intelligence in the wail of Thos. Lloyd, a man-slaying maniac in Bedlam, or the letter written to Mr. A. F. Gault by the g prisoner at the bar. Now, I have reviewed at perhaps greater length than I expected the evideni^e as given before you. The case has been a long one, and a large number of witnesses have been examined. This young man's father and mother have been before you in this Court. Can you believe that the prisoner at the bar with a father and mother who doted on him a-d were ready at all times to give him anything and everything he might want or require, would commit the crime of robbery to the extent of fifteen thousand dollars, because, forsooth, he owed a petty sum for board, or had borrowed a icw small amounts around Valleyfield ? These small debts will be held up to you by the Crown as evidence and reasons why he should perpetrate the terrible crime of murder in order to better accomplish his designs for robbery! He could easily have obtained the money from his father. He was msane. Why, to show you how this insanity was working on this boy, to show you how this blood of his, tainted as it was from the generations before him, was asserting itself through his veins, we find this boy, up to about two months before this tragedy, had written his mother almost weekly, and for the six weeks previous to the tt-agedy had not written 54 his mother a letter or a line. It shows how he was daily, hourly, weekly and month by month becoming worse and worse, the moral obligations having less hold upon him. Why, think you, if he wanted fifty or sixty dollars, yea, five or six hundred dollars, and had written to that loving mother, that it would not have been forthcoming. His father and mother, rich and wealthy as they are, would have given their life blood for him to save him from any wrong or humiliation, that mother who crossed the Atlantic last summer and lived in Montreal for two or three months, and day by day, and from hour to hour visited her ill-fated son in his cell. Picture to yourselves the terrible position of that mother visiting her only child in a cell, he indifferent, unknow- ing. Taking into consideration the terrible position in which he was, what cared he that he had broken his mother's heart? What cared he that perhaps, as the result of his acts, his mother would be sent to an untimely grave ? What cared he that that family name in Ireland would be disgraced, would be brought into ruin, would be reviled before the public and the world, and pointed at because one of their offspring had sacrificed his life upon the scaffold ? What cared he for that ? Why, this poor, silly child cared more for the color of his mother's eyebrows, the scratches on her arms, and the rings on her fingers, than anything else. His poor mother saw him from day to day, ameliorated his condition, soothed him as best she could, but with it all her heart broken, because he did not understand and did not seem to realize the position he was in. She crossed the Atlantic again and called before that commission all of these people who were examined in Ireland. The father with the mother crossed again to this country, come here and stand here day by day before you in a community that knows them not. They come here because they say you are human, because they say that you are men, because they say you are prompted by all the actions which govern good and honest men, because they know that you believe in the principle and the doctrine of Christ, 55 " Do unto others as you wish that they should do to you," and I ask you as men, I ask you, if you have any question or doubt, if there is any doubt upon your minds that this man is insane, give the benefit of the doubt, not to the prisoner at the bar, because to him it makes h'ttle difterencc whether he is locked up in a lunatic asylum for the rest of his life, or whether you take him to-morrow forth from this door and execute him upon a scaffold which you may erect behind this Court House ; he is indifferent to it all ; but I ask you, if you have any doubt, give the benefit of that doubt to the aged father and mother, that mother who at this moment is lying on a bed of sickness in the hospital of the nuns, suffer- ing with heart disease which ere morning may carry her off; but, oh God ! if you have any doubt, send these people back across the Atlantic, let them think that we are good people here, let them think that we have good hearts, and do not, do not, God forbid ! by your verdict open three graves at the same time. Oh, gentlemen, I have but one more request to make of you. I will soon have ceased speaking. The last words on behalf of that unfortunate father and mother will have been said, and to-day I feel strongly that there is perhaps no posi- tion in which a man could be placed so responsible, to my mind, as the lawyer who stands before a jury and pleads for the life of a fellow-beinc". All that I wish to ask of you is simply to follow the just dictates of your conscience and your heart, give us justice ; and in the event of your coming to the decision that the prisoner is sane, then I invite you to come with me, when the dread sentence which you will pronounce shall have been carried out, and stand around that grave in the potters field see the prisoner lying there, each one of you put a sod of earth over his grave and say in good faith, putting your hands on your heart, " This is my work, it is well done, it is well done." Let your verdict be such, that it will be to you an immortal Crown of Justice and of Right. Let it be such, that when 1 1 * i ■ 1 56 you are passing through the valley of the shadow of death, it will be possible for you, on looking back over your life's history, to feel no remorse and no regret for the verdict which you are to render in this case. Rise above all personal feel- ing, rise above all local prejudice. Do naught but justice, and if you give that justice which we expect from you, the only verdict that you can render is one in favor of insanity, which consigns the prisoner for his life to the darkness of a lunatic asylum. Strange, strange demand it is, for a man to ask twelve of his countrymen on behalf of another, to con- sign that other for life to a lunatic asylum, but such is the only request which can be made for a man like the prisoner, afflicted of God and deprived of his reason. This is all his father and mother ask of you, and they feel that their request will not be in vain. Gentlemen, I have finished. DONALD MACMASTER, ESQ., Q.C., OK COUNSEL FOR THE CROWN. Before addressing the jury, I wish to call Your Honour's attention, not by way of argument however, to two or three authorities in reference to the question of moral insanity, and to the weight that should be given to the medical expert evidence. I do not pretend to argue the point at all, but only to call Your Honour's attention to it, and I shall be very pleased to send you the books. The first that I refer to is the case of the Queen ngainst Oxford, which was tried by Lord Chief Justice Denman and two associate Justices, and which is reported in 4 Wallis, State Trials, New Series, page 552. Lord Chief Justice Denman in charging the jury said :— " With regard to the medical evidence, the professional skill of those gentlemen may enable them, perhaps, to judge in a great many matters with greater accuracy than other persons, but after all, in this case your common sense must be the arbiter of the circum- stances. You may, however, place that weight upon the medical gentlemen which you conceive the whole circum- stances warrant, and you may be guided in examining the facts by their testimony. There may be cases in which medical evidence as to physical symptoms is of the utmost consequence, but as for moral insanity, I, for my own part, do not consider that a medical man is better able to judge than a person acquainted with the ordinary affairs of life, and bringing to the subject a wide experience. From the very facts of the case it has been said that insanity is to be in- ferred, and Dr. Davis has said that supposing a person without any apparent motive should act as it is proved the prisoner acted, he would consider him of unsound mind. It would be a dangerous thing to conclude from the high and .^ 58 dangerous character of a crime that the party, unless insane, could not be capable of committing it. It is dangerous to make the crime itself a proof that the party must be exempt from criminal punishment. Although there may be no motive, no adequate motive, it cannot be said that that shows insanity. For there can be no adequate motive for any crime whatever. If a party should be charged with killing his wife or child, that is a great crime, and if no motive should appear the jury would not conclude he was mad . The learned judge read the rest of the medical evidence and told the jury to consider whether there was a real absence of the control of reason, or whether the conduct was that of a very violent and perhaps cruel disposition." Then, may it please the Court, I cite the case of the King against the Earl of Ferrers, which is reported in 19 Howell, State Trials, at page 954. I refer there to the speech of the Solicitor-General of that day, which was afterwards approved by Erskine not only when at the Bar, but when on the Bench, and later, approved in the more recent case of the Queen vs. Macnaughton, 4 Willis, State Trials, New Series, page 847, and cited as an authority there by the then Mr. Cockburn, afterwards Lord Chief Justice of England, although he was acting on behalf of the defence. Your Honour will remember that the Earl of Ferrers was a member of the House of Peers, and that he was tried for shooting his own servant, but being a Peer he was entitled to be tried before the Peers, and he was tried and convicted by his Peers and hanged. The plea was insanity. Mr. Yorke, the Solicitor- General, in addressing the Peers, said : — " My Lords, in some sense every crime proceeds from insanity. All cruelty, all brutality, all revenge, all injustice is insanity. There were philosophers in ancient times who held this opinion as a strict maxim of their sect ; and my Lords, Z/;^ opinion is right in philosophy, but dangerous in judicature. It may have a useful and a noble influence to regulate the conduct of men ; to control their impotent passions ; to teach them that virtue is the perfection of reason, as reason itself is the perfection 1) I i Kf 'H 59 ;ss insane, igerous to e exempt ay be no hat shows any crime ig his wife lid appear e learned d the jury control of iolent and r the King 9 Howell, ech of the approved in on the ise of the ew Series, then Mr. 1, although onour will aer of the g his own ied before Peers and Solicitor- Is, in some :ruelty, all here were nion as a on is right ay have a :t of men ; that virtue perfection 3 of humai: nature ; but not to extenuate crimes, nor to excuse those punishments which the law adjudges to be their due." I also call Your Honour's attention to the ca.se of lioughton vs. Knight, in the Law Reports, Vol. HI., Probate and Divorce, page 72, to which I referred before, the judgment of Sir James Hannen :— " It is essential to constitute respon- sibility for crime, that a man should understand the nature and quality of the thing he is doing, or that he shall be able to distinguish in the act he is doing, right from wrong. Now, a very small degree of intelligence is sufficient to enable a man to Judge of the quality and nature of the act and zuhether he is doing right or xvrong 7vhen he kills another man ; accordingly, he is responsible for the crime committed, if he possesses that amount of intelligence. And so in reference to all other con- cerns of life— was the man at the time the act was done of sufficient capacity to understand the nature of the act ?" Then, Your Honour, I beg to call your attention to the opinion of Lord Campbell as to the weight that should be given to medical or skilled witnesses. I cite from Taylor on Evidence, p. 79, section 58, (ist volume) : " Perhaps the testimony which least deserves credit with a jury is that of skilled ivitnesses. These gentlemen are usually required to speak, nor to facts, but to opinions ; and when this is the case, it is often quite surprising tc .see with what facility, and to what an extent, their views can be made to correspond with the wishes or the interests of the parties who call them. They do not, indeed, wilfully misrepresent what they ihj.ik, but their judgments become so warped by regarding :,he subject in one point of view, that, even when conscientiously disposed, they are incapable of expressing a candid opinion. Being zealous partisans, their belief becomes synonymous with faith, as defined by the Apostle, and it too often is but the " substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." To adopt the language of Lord Campbell, ''skilled witnesses come tvith such a bias on their minds to suppose the cause in tvhich they are embarked, that hardly any zveight should be given to their evidence." 60 Then one authority from Archobold as to the divisions of unsound mind in law. " Every person at the age of discretion is, unless the con- trary be proved, presumed by law to be sane, and to be accountable for his actions. But if there be an incapacity, or defect of the understanding, as there can be no consent of the will, so the act cannot be culpable. This species of non- volition is either natural, accidental, or affected ; it is either perpetual or temporary ; and may be reduced to three general heads : i. — A nativitate, vel dementia natiiralis ; 2. — Dementia accidcntalis, vel adventitia ; 3. — dementia affectata. I. Of the first, or dementia naturalis, is idiocy or n val fatuity. An idiot is one ivJio is of non-sane memory fro. his birth, by a perpetual infirmity ivithoiit lucid intervals ; co. Litt. 247 ; and those who are said to be idiots (Mr. Macmaster : Your Lordship will observe that the term " idiot " includes " imbeciles.") wJio cannot number tiventy or tell the days of the zveek, ivho do not knoiv their fathers or mothers, or the like ; but these instances are mentioned as tests of sanity only, and are not always conclusive ; and, although idiocy or natural fatuity is in general sufficiently apparent, tJie question ivhether idiot or not, is a question of fact triable by a Jury, and ought to be clearly made out, in order to exempt the party from punish- ment. One deaf and dumb from his birth, who has no means of learning to discriminate between right and wrong, or of understanding the penal enactments of the law, as applicable to particular offences, is by presumption of law an idiot ; but if it can be shown that he has the use of under- standing, which many of that condition discover by signs, then he may be tried, and suffer judgment and execution, although great caution should be observed in such pro- ceedings. 2. — Adventitious insanity, or dementia accidentalis proceeds from various causes, and is of several kinds of degrees ; it is either partial (an insanity upon some one subject, the party being sane upon all others) or total ; permanent (usually 61 visions of s the con- md to be ipacity, or ient of the :s of non- t is either ee general -Dnnentia called madness) or temporary (the object of it being afflicted with his disorder at certain periods and vicissitudes only) with lucid intervals, which is usually denominated lunacy. 3. — The vice of drunkenness, which produces a perfect though temporary frenzy or insanity, usually denominated dementia affectata, ox acquired madness, will not excuse the commission of any crime." Archbold's Criminal Pleading and Evidence, p. 21. or n val y fro. his rvals ; co. acmaster : " includes iays of tJie r the like ; only, and .^r natural m zvhether id ought to m punish- 10 has no ,nd wrong, le law, as of law an of under- • by signs, execution, such pro- s proceeds rees ; it is the party It (usually ■ ADIJKESS OK DONALD M ACMASTER, ESQ., Q,C., OF COUNSEL FOR THE CROWN, TO THE JURY. May it please the Court, Gentlemen of the Jury : — I promised you a few evenings ago, that when I came to address you, I would endeavor to be as brief as possible. Of course you know that this is a very important trial, and it has been a very long one, and it takes some time to gather to- gether the different facts, and to present the different views that strike one with reference to them. Notwithstanding that, I think I can keep within the time I mentioned to His Lordship — three hours — so that when you h''ve heard me for that length of time, I will take my leave of you. You have e.\perienced great inconvenience, in being practi- cally cooped up in this Court House, like prisoners, for over a month, but you must remember that yon have been, and are, rendering a great service to the State ; and, if you have suffered inconvein"cnce in being so kept, and if your health has suffered, you will remember that it rarely falls to the lot of any men to be called upon to discharge so important a duty as you are discharging, and very rarely, if ever, has so great a tax been placed upon the endurance, the attention, and the health of a jury. Now, the prisoner here is charged with the murder of John Loye, in V^alleyfield, on the first of March, 1895, and there can be no doubt whatever that there has been a murder in the eye of the law, unless there is some excuse for it. You know that murder is the greatest crime that can be committed atraiiist the laws of God and man, and the excuse that is given must be a good excuse, if the prisoner is to be relieved from the great responsibility he tak-es when he sheds his brother's blood. Hut, gentlemen, our laws, in their humanity, have provided tliat under ccrtaiti conditions a man who 63 COUNSEL I came to i possible, rial, and it gather to- rent views :hstandinGr led to His \vd me for ing practi- for over a n, and are, you have health has the lot of ant a duty so great a 1, and the er of John and there murder in r it. You :ommittcd se that is )e relieved sheds his humanity, man who slays his fellow-man may be excused, and the.se conditions are clearly specified and laid down in the law, and they are carefully indicated by precedents in the numerous cases that have come before the Courts of Justice in this country, and in the mother country. The article of the Criminal Code (i i) that relates to this subject, is not new law. The Criminal Code was enacted three years ago, and it then became the law of the land ; but, in its general features, it -simply re-enacted the old law, and it re-enacted the law that has been consecrated by decision after decision, and finally settled in England Some questions arose with regard to the law, in 1843, grov ,ng out of the Macnaghton ca.se, and the the House of Lords made an application to the judges of England for a report upon the state of the law, and the judges did make a report to the House of Lords, and the effect of that report, which I will not trouble you with now, because I read it to the Court ; the effect of that report is, that if a man knows what he is doing, if he knows the quality and nature of his act, if he knows that what he is doing is wrong, if he knows that he is breaking the law of the land, then he is answerable before the law, and is punishable for his act. That is all there is to it, and that is all you have to decide in this case, whether the prisoner at the bar knew at the time he committed this homicide that he was committing murder, that he was taking the lives of other people, and whether he knew that committing murder was an offence against the laws of the land. Now, gentlemen of the jury, a great deal of medical evidence has been put before you with a view to enlighten you upon that subject. You have had this prisoner at the bar called all sorts of names, an imbecile, a moral imbecile, a natural imbecile,a congenital imbecile, insane, atsd of unsound mind ; but mere names mean nothing. You can call him by any name you like, you can call him a saint, or you can call him a sinner, but we must always come back to the great test of responsibility which is provided in the Criminal Code, and it is this : Did he know the nature and quality of the act he was doing when he took these men's lives, and did he know that 64 it was wrong? If he did, then he is punishable, no matter by what name he may be called. You must, in your deliberations, distinguish, as Mr. Erskine said, in a spirit of humanity and in a spirit of justice ; you must distinguish between infirmities which are misfortunes, and motives which are crimes. If, in your hearts, gentlemen, on the evidence put before you, without swaying in one direction or the other,^but weighing the evidence, and giving to the evidence its proper weight — if you feel that the prisoner at the bar did not know what he was doing, did not know the nature and quality of his]act — if you feel that he did not know he was breaking the law and doing wrong — I tell you, as one of the public prosecutors, that you are bound to acquit him. The public prosecutor can have no object whatever, except the furtherance of public justice ; and, in like manner, and as a corollary to that, in an age when prisoners are defended by men of great ability ,'of great ingenuity, and of great resources^ it is important that the interests of the Crown, which is but another name for the interests of the public, should be care- fully guarded, and that everything should be conscientiously scanned and scrutinized. No man should be condemned, if it is clear upon the evidence that he had not responsibility towards God and towards man, because he was deprived of his reason. If he, therefore, was deprived of his reason, if he was not able to act as a rational man, if he had no sense of responsibility, if he did not know what he was doing, if he did not know he was murdering men, if he did not know he was breaking the law of his country, then he should be excused. I trust I have put that fairly before you. The law presumes that everyone is sane until the contrary be proved, and when a crime is committed and the plea of insanity is pleaded, the law casts the whole burden of proof upon the prisoner, of showing that he was insane at the time he committed the act. And, according to the law of the land, not only ' ; the burden of proof cast upon him, of show- ing that he is insane, but it must be clearly proved to your satisfaction, proved, as some say, beyond reasonable matter by Ir. Erskine stice ; you lisfortunes, gentlemen, ig in one and giving le prisoner t know the 1 not know 'ou, as one cquit him. /er, except :r, and as a ^fended by ; resources^ lich is but Id be care- cientiously ^mned, if it ponsibility leprived of jason, if he o sense of g, if he did low he was e excused. le contrary he plea of sn of proof at the time law of the n, of show- proved to reasonable Gn doubt : but I will not go further than saying, it must be proved. to your perfect satisfaction that he was insane within the meaning of the law. So, before you can excuse him, it must be proved to you, to your complete and perfect satisfac- tion, that the prisoner was insane. Well now, the next thing, gentlemen of the jury is: who is to make that proof? Why,' the prisoner. He makes proof of facts and circumstances,' then he calls doctors, if he pleases, to give their opinions upon the proofs. Is there any obligation on the part of the Crown to call doctors ? Has the Crown to prove his excuse ? Does not the law say that he is presumed to be sane, and that he has to prove him.self insane, and does not the law say that the burden of proof is upon him to call the witnes.se.s, whether professional or otherwise, to show that he is insane ? And if that is .so, gentlemen of the jury, how could it be argued by my learned friends here, that it was our duty to put experts in the witness box, to prove something with regard to which we had no responsibility whatever? If the learned Counsel for the defence, who are so well able to advise the prisoner, wished to add further experts to those they had, if they were not satisfied with the evidence their own experts gave them, they could have called more, they could have called a hundred' if they felt so inclined, they could have put Dr. Villeneuve, who was in Court, in the box, they could have put Dr. Lussier in the box, they could have put Dr. Girdwood in the box. There was nothing to prevent them. Because they did not do it, because they did not choo.se to do it, because the Crown did not do a thing it was not bound to do, thev make a charge of bad faith against the Crown. I think that, on a httle more reflection, my learned friends, who are men of delicate sensibilities, would not have made such a charge. x\ow, gentlemen of the jury, an attcmj)! was also made to make it appear that the Crown sent Dr. Villeneuve to the Montreal jail to examine the prisoner, and they say, " Wh\- did he not examine him ? If the prisoner refused him once, he might have gone there again, and further effort should' have been made to get an examination, and this sending him 1 GG was simply for the purpose of making an appearance, and getting the refusal of the prisoner," or, as Mr. Greenshields elegantly expressed it, " for the purpose of putting up a job on the Defence." I am going to relieve my learned friends' minds of that \i6\v. You know how our jails are organized. You know that prisoners are kept there waiting for their trial ; but there is no obligation on the part of the Crown to send doctors there to examine them as to insanity, more especially when the prisoner on petition had obtained leave to be examined by doctors named by himself. D Villeneuve was not sent to the Montreal jail to make an examination for the purposes of appearing as an expert here on the merits of this case, but I will tell you why he was sent. You are well aware that for months, as it appears from the record, it was con- tended that the prisioner was insane. Well now, if he is insane, he is not bound to go to his trial. If he was insane on the first of October when this trial commenced, and if the De- fence wished, they might have asked to have a jury empan- elled to determine that issue upon oath ; and if it had been decided that the prisoner was insane then, he was not bound to go on with his trial, because it would be inhuman that a man should be tried while insane, when he could not instruct his Counsel, being deprived of the reason he should have to "uide them and instruct them. Now, being impressed with the fact that the point might be raised whether he was sane or insane, whether he had sufficient mind to go on with his trial or not, Dr.Villeneuve was .sent b> me, as a Crown officer, to the Montreal jail to ascertain the fact, and he saw the prisoner on the 2ist of September. The trial was coming on on the 1st of October, and j'ou see, it was only a matter of the most ordinary prudence that the Crown should ascertain whether the pri.soner was competent to take his trial or not, because if not, he should not be put upon his trial, which should be postponed to a later period, until his reason was restored. That, gentlemen of the jury, was the object of sending Dr. Villeneuve to the jail ; and if the evidence that the experts of the defence have put in in this case be true, ranee, and ■eensliields g up a job led frietids' organized, their trial ; vn to send ; especially avc to be Mieuve was ion for the rits of this well aware t was con- le is insane, ne on the if the De- ny empan- t had been not bound Tian that a lot instruct Id have to ■essed with e was sane )n with his own officer, he saw the ; coming on 1 matter of d ascertain rial or not, ;rial, which reason was 2 object of idence that se be true, 67 and if Counsel for the defence believe it, then it was perfectly competent for them on the ist October, when this trial was commenced, to say, " Before we go on to try this case on the merits, we have got a special issue to try, and it is this, whether our client is sane or not. If he is found insane, he cannot go on with his trial, if found sane, he will go on with it." The Counsel for the Crown should be ready to meet that con- tingency, and that was the object of Dr. Villeneuve's visit to the Montreal jail. But the Defence, while in possession of Dr. Clarke's report, and of testimony from other Doctors who examined this man, were ready to go on with the trial, though the evidence in their possession proved from their point of view that the man was in.sane. It looks to me as if they did not believe in it ; it looks to me as if they had no confidence in their ozvn experts. How does it look to you, gentlemen of the jury ? I am not interested, however, in pursuing this point further than to show that what the Crown dio was done in good faith to meet the exigency that might have arisen on the ist of Octo- ber, namely : Whether the prisoner would claim to be relieved from his trial on the ground of insanity or not— only that, and nothing more. Now, while on that point with regard to Dr. Villeneuve, I may say this : The evidence given by Mr.Vallee shows that the prisoner declined to be examined, and that he stated that he did this on the advice of his Counsel. His Counsel appeared in the box, and have sworn that it was not upon their advice. That being so, and that being established, shows clearly what a shrewd, clever man the prisoner is, when he had wit enough not to submit himself to another doctor for examination. But this is not the first time in which the accused displayed his good sense. You will remember that the very next day after the murder was committed, he was asked for an explanation about the crime, and he answered, " Gentlemen, I cannot say anything until I consult my lawyer." Was that the act of an idiot ? Was that the act of an insane man ? Ask your common sense. Now, it must not only be proved by the prisoner, and to 68 your satisfaction, that he was insane, that he was affected with mental imbecility or disease of the mind to such an extent as to render him incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of his acts, and to prevent him from distinguishing right from wrong, but it must be proved that he was in that state at the time the act was committed. As Mr. Erskine pointed out in the King against Hadfield, (27 Howell's State Trials 13 12), it is of no account whatever that he may have been insane at an earlier period, that he may have been eccentric at an earlier period. There is no proof that he was insane. But it is of no value that he may have been out of his mind at an earlier period, if, at the time he committed the act, he was sane. So you see, gentlemen, that it becomes of the very first importance that you should inquire into the conditions of the man's mind around and about the time he committed the act. If he was sane then, it matters not what happened in Ireland, it matters not what happened in Mont- real, it matters not what happened two months before. If in the immediate neighborhood of the commission of the act in Valleyfield he knew what he was doing, if he knew he was breaking the law, then he is guilty. So that, speaking of the proof relatively, the all-important proof is that immediately surrounding the commission of the crime. In the case that was referred to by my learned friend, Mr. St. Pierre, in the French language, the case of Hadfield, who was tried for shooting at King George the Third, the prisoner shot at the King in the theatre, and he was tried, and acquitted on the ground of insanity ; but as Lord Kenyon said in delivering the direction to the jury, it was proved that on the day preceding the one upon which he fired the shot at the King, he took his own dearly beloved child, and tried to kill it by violently thrusting it against a bedpost, and that this was so markedly madness that it was impossible he should have been in his right mind the next day, when he committed the act of shoot- ing at the King. It was clearly established in that case, as my learned frietid very fairly stated, that this man had been badly wounded in battle, that he had two or three sword cuts u 00 on his head, that liis brain had been touched, that he had been carried off the field a raving maniac, and h»d been in a Umatic asykirn, and that eve:ry year, from May to the end of the dog days, he was confined in a kmatic asylum. So that you will see there is no analogy between the case of Hadfield and the case we are now dealing with here. I make these observations, gentlemen of the jury, in order to keep your minds centred on the cardinal question in the case, the pivotal question in the case, and that is : What was the state of the mind of Shortis at the time he committed the crime ? Now, before you were called upon to discharge your important duty, the pri.soner's counsel obtained a Commi.ssion to go to Ireland to examine witnesses there. For my own part, I do not attribute such importance to the evidence taken under that Commission as .some others do. In the first place, it relates to events, many of them very remote, many of them going back to the young man's childhood, many to the period when he was only nine or ten years of age. I will review very briefly some of the acts he did ; but I must first call your attention in connection with that Irish Commission to this circumstance. You must remember that this Commission was taken entirely on behalf of the defence. The Crown did not ask for power to examine witnesses, because the Crown took the ground that what the jury would have to be satisfied about, was the condition of the prLsonei's mind in Valley field while he lived there, and that it made very little difference what eccentric or criminal acts he might have performed in Ireland, — if he was sane when he slew John Loye and Maxime LebcEuf on the first of March, 1895. The Commission was issued on behalf of the defence, and with regard to evidence adduced under it, you must remember this, and it is acknowledged, that a large amount of sympathy with the parents of the accused existed in Waterford, the prisoner's native town. It is natural that this .should be so, and I do not mention it as a reproach. It is perfectly natural that there should be a large amount of sympathy with the unfortunate father and mother, and it is also natural that '^S! 70 little escapades, little pranks of youth, things that were thought notjiing of at the time, should have become greatly magnified now, in turning them over in the minds of people, and particularly when it is made to appear that in an exag- gerated form they might serve a useful purpose on behalf of the defence. My learned friend, Mr. Grcenshields, stated that the leading people of the place came to give evidence. Some of the leading people of the place came to give evidence, others who did not belong to the place, and others whom we would not call leading people in the place — at least, as I understand what the learned counsel meant — came to give evidence, and some of it was very extraordinary evidence. Some people living on the poor rates came forward to give evidence. That is nn reproach; a poor man can tell the truth as well as a rich man, and a poor man and a poor man's son and child and widow are entitled to as much consideration as a rich man's. But as I said, some of these people came forward, and gave very remarkable evidence. What do you think of the attempt to prove the prisoner insane because he rode backwards on a horse? Have not many of you, when little boys, been put on a horse, looking backwards ? Have not some of you ridden at times standing on a horse when you were boys ? I was brought up in the country myself, and it was not surprising to see a boy put by his father sitting backwards on a horse, as a joke, or even to see a boy attempt to imitate the circus people, and ride standing. And yet it is solemnly sworn to by a witness, that he had lived forty years in Ireland, had been in the United States, and that he never saw a person sit backv/ards on a horse, except the prisoner. Why, so far from that being a remarkable fact, some of the best trained Russian and French regiments are taught to sit on a horse backwards, so that they can defend the army when moving in retreat. It is an historical fact, and I have seen it myself, and my learned friend Mr. St. Pierre, who is a soldier as well as a lawyer, knows it as a fact. Then, it is mentioned as a nad prank, that he tried to upset a boat by rocking it from side to side whilst on the water. I asked the witness if ;s that were come greatly ids of people, in ati exag- : on behalf of Is, stated that ence. Some ive evidence, ers whom we it least, as I :ame to give ary evidence, fward to give tell the truth or man's son isideration as people came What do you le because he of you, when ards ? Have a horse when •y myself, and father sitting L boy attempt And yet it is id fort}' years that he never the prisoner. , some of the taught to sit le army when I have seen it lo is a soldier ; is mentioned by rocking it the witness if lie was brought up by the river side, and he said no. That accounts for it. Hecause, sitting in this town where you now arc, is there one citizen of lieauharnois that has not often seen boj's rocking boats from side to side ? My learned friend said that leading men and bankers came up and gave evidence. It is true we had one banker, a Mr. Brett, who came up to give evidence, and what do you think was the evidence he gave? He thinks this boy is out of his mind, and when he was asked for his reasons, his reason was that he tried to get into the same railway carriage one night, in which the witness and another man were, and that the prisoner proposed to come in, and insisted, saying that if they would not let him in, he would break the door in. This gentleman, Mr. Hrett, and another man were occupying the whole car, and they wanted to lie down and have a sleep, and did not want a third man. This young man wanted to get into that car with friends, in preference to another one with strangers. They were all bound for the same town ; and because he wanted to travel with his first-class ticket in this first-cla.ss car, which he had just as good a right to travel in as Mr. Brett and his companion, and insisted on his right to get in, or rather protested against the violation of that right by the unwar- ranted attempt to exclude him, Mr. Brett thinks he was insane. But that is not all. Would you believe it that when asked to give any other reason, Mr. Brett gave this? He said that on that same evening his friend and himself went up to the bar in the refreshment room at the railway station to take a drink of whiskey and soda, and that they asked young Shortis to come and have a drink with them, and that he actually refused to take whiskey and soda, and went down to another part of tnc counter and took a glass of soda and milk. Which was the more sane, the young man of sober habits who took his soda and milk, or the people who asked this young man, whom they thought irresponsible, to drink spirituous liquors ? The evidence given in Ireland abounds with like eccen- tricities, and with very grave eccentricities, too. When I 72 opened this case, I made a statement to you as clearly and as fairly as I could, as to what the facts of the case wero. I may be wron^f in my opinions, but I will try to be ri ;lu \it.'.» rcL,rard to the facts of the case. Vou had an oo') irtuni*> of checking these facts, and you know, now, whether ♦ .c" :i e in record with the statements I made, and I ma'e tl ' me remark in this comiection. I tell you frankl)-, tiiat ( am not going to tr)' and escape from the position tiken up by the Defence, that some of the acts of the prisoner in Ireland are of an extraordinar)' character, if true. Let us take the act of shooting at the Milford boat, when there were passengers on it, and when there were men working on it. He did not, it is true, siioot at the body of the boat, but he shot at the smoke-stack, lie had been long accustomed to the use of fire-arris. He was allowed to keep fire-arms in his own father's house. We have evidence, that when his tutor, Cunningham, v ^s there teaching him, he had pistols in the house, and that he fired one off in order to startle the tutor. We have evidence that the father and mother knew that he kept fire-arms iu the house. He had been allowed his own way. He was a spoiled boy. My learned friend, Mr. Green- shields, said there was no evidence to support that. I am going to call your attention to the evidence on that point, but very briefly. It was taken under the Irish Commission : (John Kiely.) O. — Was he looked upon as a spoiled boy ? A. — He was. O. — Was he looked upon as a lad who had too much liberty ? A. — Yes, people said so ic all event.s. (Jeremiah Lillis.) Q. — He was a wild young man, I suppose ? A.— Yes. O. — Too much of his own way. Too much freedom ? A. — He appeared to have that. (James P. Cunningham, his tutor.) O. — Had he any restraint over himself? A. — From my judgment of the boy, I never spoke to him % crossly. I rather yielded to his peculiarities, that is the only way I got anything at all out of him. If he said anything unreasonable, I approved of it. or silently passed it over. (Kate Cooney, a .servant employed in the hou.se.) Q. — Was he a very much petted boy by his father and mother ? A. — He was rather petted. (Mary Maher, also a servant in the employ of the Shortis family, was asked, He was petted by his father and mother ? And she answered, Yes. (L. A. Ryan, the alderman,) in reply to a question, says His mother, I think, thought he was perfect. (Kdward Thomas Murphy,) was asked. Well, was it not commonly reported, or was he not regarded in town as a boy who was spoilt by having too much of his own way? ''^- — He was so regarded that people were afraid of him. O. — But was he not generally looked on as having been spoilt because he got too much of his own way? A.— Well, some might do that, but those who knew him intimately could not regard him in any other light but as a fellow who could not be cotitrollcd. Now, gentlemen, that is the evidence with regard to his being a spoiled boy. Why was he allowed the use of the.se pistols in his room? Why was he allowed to have those knives ? Why was he allowed to have a pony to ride over the town, into the shops, and into his own father's house ? Why was he allowed the use of a bicycle, if he was in the habit of acting the way he did ? The father tells you quite candidly that he took no control and no charge of the boy whatever, but left the boy entirely to his mother, and I do not know that the father can feel quite free from responsibility to-day. This was an only son, this was an only child, anc the evidence of his own father to-day is that he took no care of his education, or practically of hir bringing up. It was all left to the mother, who petted him, and the evidence shows that he was a spoiled boy from the beginning up to the time that he left the country. Now, being uncontrolled, and get- ting out of scrapes as he did, he went on from bad to worse . ^ 74 ■ until in his conduct he practically became a self-willed monster, and nothing less. Why, gentlemen, you see that he fired at the Milford boat. Is it the act of a fool ? The Defence say so. I say it is the act of a criminal, and the law says it is the act of a criminal. He fired at the Doody child, and they say that is the act of a fool. Would that lock him up in a luna- tic a.sylum, or would it lock him up in a penitentiary for life ? What do you say, gentlemen, in.sane or criminal ? He fired at a steamer going up the river — not the Milford boat this time — when there were people upon it, and thought it a good joke. He had friends with him, yet nobody said anything about it. What do you say to that, gentlemen, insane or criminal? The law of the land says criminal. He took up a pi.stol and pointed at young Delandre once, but did not shoot. I will not hold him to too much account for that, for they do not know whether the pistol was loaded or not. He saw a man and a w oman three hundred )'ards away. He took up his rifle and said, " By God, there is a good shot and I will have it ; " but he did not shoot. The man prevented him for the moment, but the man says he moved aside after- wards, and that he might have taken a shot, but he did not. I will not hold him to too strict account for that, for the weapon may not have been loaded, and it is not sworn that it was loaded. He fired at the town clock, and he fired in halls. What are these acts, gentlemen ? Are they not the acts of a crimir.al, and do they not ear-mark the criminal ? Now, my learned friend, Mr. St. Pierre, went into a long argument in French to show that this pistol with which he fired at the Doody child was loaded, and practically argued that the bul- let must have taken a circuit along the winding of the child's arm, and left the black mark, although the skin was not broken. Well, gentlemen, I do not believe that pistol was loaded. I will say that much for the prisoner, I do not believe it was loaded, and 1 do not believe it could mark the child's arm with powder at a distance of forty-five feet. And more than that, a few days afterwards, a sergeant of police was brought up ; and he read the record with regard to it because 10 1 monster, e fired at fence say s it is the they say In a luna- / for h'fe ? He fired boat this it a good anything insane or took up a lot shoot, r they do ivay. He shot and )re vented ide after- 2 did not. t, for the rn that it 1 in halls, acts of a Now, my ument in :d at the : the bul- hc child's was not istol was )t believe lie child's Uid more olice was t because there had been an investigation, and the charge was for shooting a pistol " loaded with powder "—not one word about bullets. It is utterly impossible that there could have been bullets or shot in it. Well, then, gentlemen, there is the evidence of Mr. Moore, the old man who says the prisoner shot at him in the yard, and that the bullet struck a tree, and not a word passed between them. Do you believe that that happened, and that there was not a word said about it for two years ? It is next to impossible to believe n. It is said that many of these things were not told or dwelt upon, becau.se in Ireland they have such an aversion to being called informers. That may be, gentlemen, in cert," in respects ; but Mr. Allingham, a lawyer there, examined for the defence, said that that feeling exists with regard to political offences, with regard to agrarian crime, but not with regard to the ordinary events of life. For surely the kind-hearted, genorous Irish race would not withhold from this father the information he should receive, that his son was a bad boy, and that he was acting criminally, not that he might be punished or put in jail, but that he might be reformed, and that the father might take an interest in his reformation. But if you believe the storj- that he fired at Moore, that is a crime. If you believe the .story that he fired at Shallow at one hundred yards, with a revolver, and that the bullet struck a tree and took a piece of bark off, twelve inches by seven, and that the old man went on work- ing without taking any notice of it, or looking up, and without saying a word to his family about it when he went jiome— if you believe these things, they do not make the prisoner a fool, but they make him a criminal. The next point I wish to draw your attention to is the boy's physique. xNow Dr. Clarke, of Kingston, when he examined him in July last .says, " I found the prisoner a well built, athletic, young fellow, of probably nineteen or twenty years of age." There is his condition of pliy.sical health. Mr. Dobbyn, the first witness called for the defence, said, " The pri.soner was a stout, strong, healthy young fellow." 76 William Cavanagh said : " Shortis was a fine, active young man. James O'Donohue said : " Shortis was stroi.g, hardy, and laughing," and O'Fanell said, " He was a very athletic young man. He was full of spirits." John II. FarrcU said : " Shortis was a stronger and abler man than myself, and would throw mc just the same as a baby." Mary Maher said : " Shortis was a big, strong man." Robert Dunne said : " Shortis was a rough young lad," and (when examined here) he also said, "A fine robust boy." Thomas Phelan said, " Shortis was a good horseman." Edward Tiiomas Murphy was asked : O. — Was he a healthy young man ? A. — -Well, he was. O. — And in good health? A. — As far as I know he was in good health. All that was wrong with him was Iris manner. Now, gentlemen of the jury, I want to get the facts before you, with regard to his health, and with regard to those eccentric and extraordinary acts performed by him, before I call your attention to the question of heredity, because you know, insanity is not more transmitted than any other disease. In Ireland, Dr. Garner was examined as a witness for the defence. He is a very learned man. He is the chief superintendent of the Clonmel Lunatic A.sylum, and when I cross-examined him about this, he said, " / tmist tell you that insanity is a physical disease, and it results in a derangement, ivhether primarily or secondarily, of the nerve centres. There is nothing- mysterious about insanity. It is as much a physical disease as any other. You ask me the question, would insanity be trans)Hitted by an insane person ? I ansxver ^''-^t any bodily disease might be transmitted ! " Now, that is the characteristic of insanity, and that is the position as given by Dr. Garner, a witnes for the defence. It is just in the position of any other b: i'j!^ disease. It might be transmitted, and it might not. Whether it has been, or not, remains to be seen, as a matter of fact. That is a plain 1 1 ■ H I H I ^'^ I ■ I 5 ^" ■' ^^' H H ^m dii ■ H H CO/ ^M ha H yo m an ^L str H p>) H 1 ^m "" fl arc fl ^''' '■ tht M ac( fl ag< ^B ^tr ■H wh ^B 1 ■ bee 1 1 1 ive young ardy, and athletic iiid abler Lime as a n^ man." lad," and ust boy." Drseman." 1 that was cts before to those , before I :ause you ny other a witness > the chief d when I '/ fou that angeinent, 's. There a physical d insanity iny bodily :hat is the fence. It It might s been, or is a plain answer — that is common sense. Some of the other doctors that have been examined here said, that there would be a pre-disposition, that is to say, it would not be improbable if it re-appeared afterwards in some of the descendants, but Dr. Garner puts things plainly, and .says, that it is no more transmitted than any other disease. He says, " You ask me the question. Would insanity be transmitted by an in.sane person, and I answer that any bodily disease might be transmitted." Well, now, gentlemen of the jury, that being so, I ask him the question. Whether the tendency was n( t to work in.sanity out of the human frame, out of the mind ; whether the tendency of nature was not to chtike it off. rather than to perpetuate it ? And this is the answer that the sa.ne doctor gives. He say.s, "There is no d .ubt that if there is a pre- disposition to insanity, the weakest spot is hit as in any other disease, and if there is a low physical state, and a predisposi- tion to insanity, it will work its way in that direction, and per contra, if the individual is strong in physical health, the pro- babilities would be against it breaking out." So, gentlemen, you have the evidence of Dr. Garner, a specialist, an expert, and a witness for the defence, that if a man is physically strong, (and I proved from the evidence that the prisoner is physically strong, and that he was an athleiic boy) the tendency is to work out the predisposition, and if an individual is strong in physical health, the probabilities are against its breaking out. So, that is the condition of affairs, gentlemen, that you are not to assume that this young man was insane, because his grandfather suffered from -iLsease of the brain— softening of the bra 11. And even if hi grandfather was insane, then, according to the evidr . ot the defence, the probabilities are against the di.sease .o.^king out in the prisoner, as he is strong, active, and healthy. You can judge for yourself whether he is not a stron^^ and active man, on the evidence that has b'cn put before you. It is true, he may not have been strong, as a child, but many a one, not strong as a child, becomes a strong man ; and the evidence of Dr. Clarke shows 78 that he found him a fine, strong, healthy, athletic fellow, and this shows the condition he is in now, and was in at the time of the commission of the c.iime, which, according to Dr. Garner, rebuts the probability of insanity breaking out. But, gentlemen of the jury, there is more than that with regard to the insanity question ; it matters not who among his relatives was insane, if it is not proved that he was insane himself There is, at worst, only a predisposition ; but, in order that you can make the connection clear, and that you can say he is entitled to claim what Mr. (-rreenshields called, " the taint in the blood," you must show that the insanity existed on the first of March, show that it existed at that time, and then go back and say, " Oh, here I find it, and I .see where it came from." Hut the mere fact that his grandfather was insane will not make him insane, unless he was, as a fact, insane. Now, with regaVd to heredity, what dc we find ? In the first place we have nothing whatevei' to do with the collateral line.s. It is not their blood that runs in his veins, it is the blood of his grandfather and his grandmother, and of his father and mother. His father and mother are both healthy and strong. On the mother's side, the grandfather and grandmother are quite untainted — no taint of the blood in his mother. On his father's side, the grandmother was sane, but the grandfather had softening of the brain at si. \ty-three years of age, or at sixty-two I think, because he died at sixty-three ; he had softening of the brain — he had not epilepsy. He had not any of the ordinary' Jiseases that would be transmitted, but he had .softening of the brain, a disease peculiar to old age. Insanit)' is a disease of the body, as Dr. Garner says ; one man ma\' die of weakness in the lungs, another of disease of the bowels, another of the head, and another of the heart ; but this old gentleman had .softening of the brain, a breaking up of the mental organs, at sixty-three years of age. Now, gentlemen, in the first place that does not possess the charac- teristic of a disease to be transmitted, but even if it did, you 70 fellow, and it the time ng to Dr. out. But, 1 regard to moiig his .vas insane ut, in order ou can say illed, "the ity existed tiine, and se where it father was as a fact, 1 ? In the i collateral is, it is the md of his ith healthy ather and e blood in ic, but the ee years of -Kty-three ; . He had ansmitted, liar to old irncr says ; of disease the heart ; a breaking .ge. Now, he charac- it did, you will kindly remember that at the time he was taken wit!i that disease the prisoner's father was thirty-t\^•o years old ; so the father's blood could not have been tainted with softening of the brain, that came on only thirty-two years after the birth of the prisoner's father ; and at the time the grandfather was afflicted with softening of the brain, not only was the father 32 years old, but the prisoner himself was four years old. So, where, gentlemen, does the taint in the blood reach and affect the prisoner ? I admit this clearly, that if it could be shown that the prisoner was insane, that he did not know what he was doing, that he did not know he was breaking the law, or know right from wrong, I would say this, " Oh, he is insane, and now we see where the seeds of insanity come from, we can trace the origin of it." But you cannot say this; for although his grandfather had softening of the brain, there is no evidence that the prisoner was insane on the first of March last, or, in plainer words, the evidence is direct!}' against that. Now, gentlemen, there is another point with regard to the Irish Commission. The prisoner at the bar made a petition, and gave the names of a very large number of witnes.ses in Ireland, or at least the petition disclosed the names of a large number of witnesses that were to be examined there in sup- port of his plea of insanity. That petition was presented, I think in the month of June, in the early part of the month of June. Dr. Clark, of Kingston, made an examination in June •or July, of the prisoner, in the Montreal jail ; he told you he had a brief of the evidence then, a statement of the evidence that they expected to procure in Ireland, and he says that he asked the prisoner with regard to a portion of that evidence. Now, gentlemen, the father and the mother of the prisoner have sworn that they knew of only three of all the pranks that he committed in Ireland. If they knew of only three of all the pranks that he committed in Ireland, where did the information come from that the prisoner's Counsel had here, and that was put in the hands of Dr. Clarke in June, because you will observe that at the time Dr. Clarke examined the 80 prisoner in the jail, in Montreal, the Irish Commission had not commenced to sit, and the evidence had not been col- lected either? Where did this information come from, if it did not come from the prisoner himself? Mr. St. Pikrre, Q.C— I do not think this is fair. There is no evidence to that effect at all. I do not think it fair coming from my learned friend. If he wishes to know how the information was obtained after the tragedy .... Mr. D. M ACM aster, Q.C. — It is only a matter of inference. Mr. St. Pierre, Q.C. — If my learned friend wishes to know how the information was procured after the tragedy in March, lawyers commumcated in Ireland, they communicated with another lawyer at Waterford, and they communicated with detectives there, they communicated with the parents,, and they never received any information from the prisoner at all. We never spoke to him at all. My learned friends know we can write to Ireland, it is very ea.sy, and obtain inform- ation there, and what was the amount of information which was received by us which led to the Commission, which was obtained through detectives and a lawyer named Mr. McCoy, and how was it obtained ? By going from one place to another to all persons that had had communication with the prisoner at the bar ; but the prisoner did not ever give us any information ; he was not fit or able to do so. Mr. D. Macmaster, Q.C, continuing: — My learned friend makes a statement of fact which is not evidence. I was putting the circumstances before you, and asking you to draw your own conclusion. Now, my learned friend, Mr. St. Pierre, has undertaken to say on his word that they never got information from the prisoner, and he has undertaken to say that they got information in this way, and that way, and the other way. I will leave it to you to give full weight to his statement — I leave it to you, gentlemen, on the evidence of the prisoner's o\i'n father and mother that they only knew of three pranks, whether that information could have been got from any other source than the prisoner at the bar, with the particularity and details that are stated in the evidence. 81 Whence could this information have been collected, unless he gave the hint from whom to get it? I leave that to your own good sense, gentlemen of the jury. Now, while I am on this point, although it is a little out of order of sequence, I want to call your attention to another thing. Dr. Clarke, of Kingston, stated in his examination in chief, that this man had no memor)-, that he examined him with regard to several things, and that he could not remember anything about them ; but when I cro.s.s-examined him, he admitted that of five things he asked the prisoner about, he remembered three— a pretty good proportion— and the other two he did not remember. One of the two he did not remember was about pushing a constable over a wall in a playful manner— a joke on the part of the prisoner— and I may .say, gentlemen, that I am not surpri.sed that the prisoner did not remember some of them, because I have very "rave doubts as to whether many of them ever occurred. Now, gentlemen of the jury, the next thing I wish to call your attention to is his education, and his intellectual facul- ties. You have heard it said here that he went early to a boarding school, that afterwards he went to Brother Dunne's school, that he was about a year in Brother Dunne's school that he made no progress there, but that, if anything, he went backwards. From ]3rother Dunne's evidence, I think, gen- tlemen, you will come to the conclusion that at the time he left his school he was a perfect dunce, and that he practically knew nothing. Well, he went from there to Clongoes, another school. He was only .seven months in Clongoes, and then he left there. That is the only school or college he was at after he left Brother Duime's .school ; from Clongoes he went to his father's busine.ss. Well, gentlemen, if Brother Dunne's statement is correct that he was a dunce, that he could not write without making ever so many mistakes, that he coukl not calculate, that he practically knew nothing, what an extraordinary lot of information the Jesuit teachers must have given him during the seven months he was at Clongoes, and what an extraordinarily bright clever boy he must have been, 6 82 to have picked up in those seven months, all the information he has to-day, as he was not at school after that ! Look at the letters he writes. Look at the way he kept those books in Valleyfield. Look at the order-book, and the number of orders written up by hiin during the five weeks he was in Mr, Simpson's office. See how he performed responsible duties, si|^ned orders for goods, indexed aiul filed away letters. Where did he get the education to enable him to do this ? Was it in the two years he was in the cattle business with his father? His father says not. One of the two conclusions you must draw, either that he was a dunce, as Father Dunne says, or that he was an extraordinarily bright boy ; else, how could he have developed so rapidly in the seven months at Clongoes ? It looks as if the boy had a sound mind, and the Jesuit fathers were good teachers, when such a dunce was turned into such a scholar in seven months. Now, what was his father's appreciation of his son before he took him into the cattle business with him ? I will read it to you, gentlemen, from Mr. Shortis's deposition : — O. — Now, after that, did you have any question with his mother as to what should be done with the boy, whether he should be given a profession or not ? A. — When he came home after being there (at Clongoes) for the first time, I said to him after being home a few days, I said : " Val., my boy, when you come home next time tell me what profession or business you want to go to." He was going to answer me, and I said, " No, do not answer me, think the matter over, choose whatever profession you want to go to, and I will put you to it ; think the matter over, and if you want to come to my business, come — but please yourself; whatever business you want to go to I will put you to it." From the time he was a child he seemed to have a great taste for engineering. If we were cutting in the hay season, and if the machine went wrong, or the cog got broken, of course the men following the machines would not be experienced, but he would go to the machine along with them, and he would be the first to detect what was wrong with it. 83 O.— Did you think yourself that etifrineering was the proper calling for him ? A. — He seemed to have more taste for it than for any- thing else. Q.— Was it on account of lack of taste or interest in your business that you thought your son would not make a success of it ? A.— Yes. O.— Do you know if he brought a letter of introduction and recommendation from His Grace the Bishop of VVaterford ? A. — I heard he did. Now, gentlemen of the jury, I ask you, in the first place, as sensible men— I do not wish to pay you any vulgar compli- ment, I will not suppose that you are geniuses, but that you are possessed of a common education like myself— do you think that any father under the sun would talk about putting his son to the profession of engineering if he thought him an imbecile or an idiot? Do you think that any father under the sun would say to his son : " Now, Val., you choose what business or profession you want to go to, and I will put you to it," if he thought that his son was an idiot? It is incon- ceivable, gentlemen ; and then he tells you that afterwards the boy had made a choice to go into the cattle business, and that he did not succeed in it — he does not say from lack of ability, but for " lack of taste and interest ;" that is to say, he did not care for cows, si.eers, or pigs, and he did not want to give his interest to that business, for he had been led away by his larks and jokes, and the wild life he had been leading. No business can succeed without interest ; no man can succeed in any business unless he has a taste for it, and that is the reason the boy did not succeed in the cattle business. Then, gentlemen of the jury, when he could not succeed in the cattle business, what do they do ? They send him to this country. They get a letter of introduction from Mr. Nel-son, of Liverpool, to people in Montreal, and he is sent to Canada. They get a letter from His Grace the Bishop of Waterford, — a letter of introduction and recommendation, n 84 mark you,— with which he comes to Canada. It is proved that there was a lunatic asyUnn in Clonmcl ; it is proved that tliere is a lunatic asylum in VVaterford. If that boy was an imbecile, if he could not tell right from wrong, why is it that he was not put under restraint, and under the protection of the local authorities there, where the parents ha'l the means to see him cared for, and near to their own home? If he was an imbecile and idiot, and could not tell right from wrong, why did the parents turn him out on the cold world of the western continent, alone and friendless ? Can you conceive of such inhumanity? Can you conceive that this loving mother and this father, with his fine business capacities, would have sent their son, if an idiot, bereft of his reason, without moral principle, lacking the moral ballast which is the first essential to a man fighting the battle of life, away from his own home, among strangers — there to fight the battle of life? It is inconceivable that any man could do it, but it is doubly inconceivable that a man of Irish parentage, with his warm heart, and his mother with her warm heart — because there are no warmer hearts than Irish hearts — would send their boy, their only child, away from his Irish home to fight the battle on the western continent — an imbecile among strangers, and in a far land, to be buffeted by every adverse wind and circumstance that might overtake him. Is it con- ceivable, gentlemen? Do you think that boy was an imbecile? Do you think his parent' thought him an imbecile ? I hope you will do them the justice to believe, not- withstanding the doctors, that they did not quite think their son was an imbecile. If they did, then indeed there came to our shores : — " There caine to the head) a poor exile of ICrin ' in a much more disconsolate and friendless state than ever exile left the Green Isle before. If he were an imbecile from his youth, as the doctors say, incapable of knowing right from wrong, lacking the rudder of life— moral principle— how does it happen that Dr. Mackesy, Dr. Connelly, and Dr. .sr, Morn's, all of whom are named as witnesses to be examined under the Commission, did not appear before the Commission in Waterford? Do you not thinU that the medical evidence of the men who lived in the small town of prisoner's birth would be better than the idle speculations of Dr. Ikicke ? That Commission j^ives notice to the Crown that Dr. Mackesy and Dr. Morris and Dr. Connelly, all doctors of Waterford in hij^h standin^^ will be examined before the Commission. Nc^t one of them was called. Dr. Morris had attended the boy some four years before. . . . Mr. Gkkkxsihklds, Q.C— For an accident that happened. Mr. Macm.ASTKR, Q.C.— No matter what it was. It shows he was in contact with the boy. He never attended him for insanity, that is sure. But there was an ojjportunity for the Doctor to see the boy. And what did Mr. Shortis, the father, say in the witness box? lie said that he and his family and Dr. Mackesy and his family are friends, and have been friends for years. If that is so, it is simply crushing,' that Dr. Macke.sy was not called to prove that this boy was an idiot and imbecile, if he were an idiot and imbecile, and why was he not called ? Oh, gentlemen of the jury, the defence reproached the Crown for not callini^ experts, when the Crown felt that they did not need experts, when they found that the defence's experts pulverized them.selve.s. I now ask them, in retort, " Why, if this boy was an imbecile and idiot in Ireland, did you not put the doctors of the town in the box, and give us the benefit of their medical opinion ?" We have it not, and why ? And again, gentlemen, what do you say to His Grace the Bishop of Waterford, the Roman Catholic Bishop, giving a letter of introduction and recommendation to this young man coming to this country ? Do you imagine that a high dignitary in the Roman Catholic Church, a Church whose dignitaries have such a knowledge of the world and its affairs, who are not merely strict in morals as ecclesiastics, but are politicians in their shrewdness, do you imagine that a high dignitary in the Roman Catholic Church such as His Grace the Bishop of Waterford, woulci have given a letter of ^ ^^. A^ <^ %-^ /}. ^3 / c* l*^ '■''>* ^ / .■K^ w ^ .T^F ^ CW 0% V -^^.v oj;m. 4 w 'f IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 ^ I.I !i^ l.i£ IP.O 1.25 1.4 1.8 1.6 Photographic Sciences Corporation A i.% €< ^. ^ iV ,v \\ \ 9> ^ 'c\* %^ 'ij.^ 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14S80 (716) 872-4503 1 ^ P"~TW« w 86 introduction and recommendation to Valentine Shortis to bring to this country, if he were an imbecile and a fool ? No, gentlemen, do you not think that in such case the good Bishop would have said to his father and mother : — " This boy is not able to go from home, he needs his father's and his mother's care. If you do not wish to place him in an asylum, get some one to guard him ; but in Heaven's name do not allow him to go about with pistols, do not allow him to go about with guns, stop his waywardness ; the way of the transgressor is hard, and he will come to a sore end. Send him not away among the stranger, because you may never have even the consolation of the father who welcomed back his prodigal son." Yes, we know what the good Bishop would have said. No ! gentlemen, you cannot, on the facts, come to the conclusion that this boy was an imbecile, if one hundred thousand doc- tors said it by way of speculation. All the circumstances, parental affection, education, religious influences, point to the fact that the boy was not lacking in intellectual ability, though he was a bad boy, and of criminal instincts. They sent him away because he was wild, as Mr. Nelson's letter expressed it, expecting that he would get that taken out of him in the new world. Now, I will quit the Irish Commission, and I leave it to you to say in the depths of your hearts whether this boy could have been put down as an imbecile when he left Ire- land, and whether he could have been put down as anything else than a spoilt and wayward boy, uncontrolled from boy- hood upward — a reckless libertine — regardless of life ; in a word, a criminal, and a criminal all the same although he had not been punished in Ireland. You can easily forecast the result, for " Headlong liberty is lashed with woe." Now, gentlemen, I will next take the evidence that has been given for the prisoner in Canada. First, there is the evidence of the two Mulcaheys. The husband came forward 87 and said prisoner was a very "genteel young man," and that he knew nothing against him. Then Mrs. Mulcahey came for- ward and said slie knew two things about him : he tried to explode a lamp, and he put cartridges upon a hot stove. Well, gentlemen, the lamp story completely exploded itself, because, instead of exploding the lamp, the poor boy was trying to blow it out, and instead of the cartridges being put upon the hot part of the stove, they were put on the back part. But I leave it to you whether you believe that the cartridges were ever put on the stove at all, because Mr. Mul- cahey was examined a week before his wife ; and, if those cartridges were put on the stove, or if cartridges were all around the kitchen, do not you think that Mrs. Mulcahey would have reported that to her husband, and tha*: when he came here to give his evidence he would have said when he spoke about the boy that he did not know anything against him, if he knew that he had placed cartridges on the stove ? How are you going to explain the difference between the husband and wife ? How are you to explain the presence of the "two strange gentlemen" who.se names she did not know, at her house, the night before she gave her evidence here, a week after her husband had testified ? Now, gentlemen of the jury, the next evidence is that of Mr. Bury. Mr. Bury said the prisoner was an eccentric young man, that he did unmannerly things, that he spat upon people in the street. That was very rude and wrong, and he deserved to get his ears well cuffed for such misconduct. But it does not prove a man crazy. Then, Mr. Bury says in addition that he was a very nice young man, he was a well educated young man, he was a gentlemanly young fellow, and he came to our house and dined at our house, and met other people there, and he went out as young gentlemen generally in Montreal do, and the Irish evidence says that this young man had very nice young friends for companions in Ireland, gentlemen's sons, and Mr. Bury tells the same thing happened in Montreal. So you have got to take it on the evidence of Mr. Bury and of the Irish witnesses, that he had HH a fair amount of education, and was a nice gentlemanly fellow. He showed some eccentricity in wearing Indian moccasins, and a belt around his waist. These were new to a young man from the old countr}-, and he showed a criminal instinct when he wanted to smuggle diamonds across the line in a tire of a bicycle, a pretty " cute dodge," to say the least. I have myself defended, and m}' learned friend has too, a great many cases of the Customs where crime was alleged ; but I will confess, and I think perhaps my learned friend will agree with me, that I never heard a more ingetiious proposal in my life than to smuggle diamonds, which are highly dutiable, into the United States, concealed in the tire of a bicycle. It shows keenness of intellect, and it also shows the criminal instinct of the prisoner. The next is the evidence of Mr. Roe ; and you will remember that when this young man first came to the country, he went to the Windsor Hotel, and, almost immediately after, to the Cadillac Hotel. He was only a short time in the country — he was just out from the old country. He thought our ways here strange, and I have no doubt the Cadillac Hotel people thought his ways strange. Our ways are different from the ways of the people in the old country — we all know that. Now, it is quite probable that he saw that the people were amused by his ways, and, seeing that, he took means to amuse them. Mrs. Lewis, whom we saw in the box, is a somewhat eccentric lady herself, and she gave us a representation that might be the presentation of a />nwa donna on the stage, in reference to his acts, a somewhat light demonstration, not- withstanding that she was at the time wearing her widow's cap of not over six months' standing. She told us a few things about him, how he ate his ice cream out of order, how he bowed to her profoundly when he met her in the hall, how he was so gallant to the ladies in the drawing-room, and how he even assisted one of them to the piano by putting his hands to her waist. I suppose this young man saw that this somewhat interested Mrs. Lewis (I mean nothing to her disparagement) and that he probably indulged her and her 89 friends. As to commencing at the bottom of the bill of fare, and going to the top, there is nothing in that. He may have liked ice cream. Ice cream is a rare dish in the old country, and so is corn— particularly corn on the cob— and I am not surprised that, coming fresh from the ohi country, he was greatly delighted with the ice cream, and I am not surprised that he criticized the custom of eating corn on the cob, because they do not eat corn on the cob in the old country. All these little eccentricities amount to nothing. We have all done foolish things in our lives. We have don^'e things that we would not like to have raked up : we have committed our own pranks, and perhaps if one of us got into trouble to-day, and if these things could avail us as an excuse, we would be astonished at the amount of information that our friends, and particularly friends of our youth, could tell about us. But I trust that will not occur, for two reasons— first, be- cause I hope we will not get into trouble, and secondly, because I lope that these pranks may not come up against us. Now we have Mr. Roe, and what does Mr. Roe's complaint amount to? Why, he remarks the way he walked into the dining room, and that he took fruit in with him. I suppose this last was a great offence to that hotel-keeper, because it implied that the prisoner was not satisfied with the fruit he got there, and he says he saw him throwing pea-nuts out of the door, and one of them nearly hit a " nigger." This is serious. Well now, gentlemen, if this kind of evidence is going to show that a man is crazy, it is becoming extremely ridiculous. In regard to his table manners, and general manners, have you not it abundantly esiablished that these were good ? If anything else occurred, it was the exception ; or he would not be dining at Mr. Bury's house, and he would u.A have been dhihig at Mr. McShane's house, and he would not have been dining at numerous other places in Montreal, unless he dis- played gooci table manners. And if he did play the eccentric iti regard to pea-nuts, ice cream, and corn, or was over poH<-e 90 ! 1 in the drawing room, depend upon it, it was for a joke, and he was fond of jokes. The next we come to is the evidence of Malabar — that extraordinary evidence of Malabar, the night-watchman from the Queen's Hotel. I will not say anything more with regard to that than this, that there was a recklessness about that evidence that was hardly compatible with a true state- ment of fact. Now, this young man, the prisoner, was two or three days in February last at this hotel ; he was about three weeks visiting his mother in June or July pre- ceding, and that was all ; and yet Malabar comes up and tells you that he was two or three months boarding at the hotel. That is one instance. Then he tells you this extraordinary story about turning down the light, anci about the scene with the pistol, about his falling down stairs, about his jumping about the hotel, about his acting like a lunatic, and yet this man was only on duty at night. And what have you got ? You have the manager of the hotel, Mr. Matthews, you have the chief clerk at that time, Mr. Fraser-Crierie, now the manager, and you have the man in the washroom where it was said some of the things were done, and they all come before you and say, each for himself, " I have never heard anything of the kind : I never saw anything of the kind : no report was made, and if anything of the kind had been done, it .'-■houid have been reported." Now, which are you going to believe? Are you going to take Malabar's evidence aga' st that of those three other people? You will also remember that during the three days prisoner was in the hotel, Mr. Kendrick.a farmer from Shcrbrooke was there, and he states that the young man behaved himself as a gentleman,, that he saw him there with ladies, and talked with him, and that he took an interest in music. Are )-ou going to believe Malabar, who comes up with a history we know nothing about, or are you going to believe this testimony of the four witnesses with regard to what occurred at the Queen's Hotel ? Now, there is another man ; there is this Mr. Mackay who comes and tells an extraordinary story about Shortis flour- II 91 ishing a pistol at 9 o'clock in the evening on that great thoroughfare of St. James Street, and at the door of the Queen's Hotel, and about his taking the pistol from him, and coming in and giving it to Malabar. Now, gentlemen, if that is not a story made out of whole cloth, there is nothing that I ever hoard of, or r-ad of, which looks more like it. In the first place, at 8 or 9 o'clock in the evening there was a crowa pas- sing there, nobody spoke. It is proved there were people passing each way, yet nobody stopped, nobody spoke. Do you think it possible that a scuffle could have been going on in the street for the possession of a pistol, and nobody would have remarked it ? Mackay went home, and never mentioned it to any one except Malabar. Then, Malabar has a different story from Mackay himself with regard to the pistol. Malabar .says he did not .see the .scuffle him.seif, but he says that Mackay told him his story a'oout it ; and when Mackay comes to tell the story here, it is a different one altogether from that told by Malabar. It is a little thing, but it looks exceeding- ly like .something manufactured out of whole cloth. But if it did occur, what docs it show ? A man may carry a pistol without being a fool. I have carried pistols, and I am sure my learned friend, Mr. St. Pierrre, has done it ; I have heard it said here that it was remarked that a man is a fool for having fire-arms in his room. I have, for years of my life (not lately) slept with fire-arms in my room, and good reason for it too. A man is not put down as a fool for these things, but a inan is put down as a reckless coward who goes about in a civilised community with a revolver in his pocket. There may be times and circumstances when a revolver is a Q-ood friend, even if you do not intend to use it ; but even if the prisoner did the things that Malabar says he did, what do they point to? They point to the criminal — again, the criminal. Then we have the evidence of Captain Matthews. That is not important. And the evidence of Miron and Sauve with regard to what took place after the killing that nieht the evidence of Cunningham and Mr. Dunne, w ,ch I have already referred to, the evidence of Leon Leduc and TP 92 Walter Cooke. Now, Walter Cooke is the young man that took down the letter from Shortis's dictation on the niorninef after the murder. You will remember, gentlemen, that Walter Cooke took down this letter under circumstances of great excitement, just after the arrest of the murderer. It is not Shortis's writing. It is taken froin his dictation. He was under arrest at tiie time, and my learned friend, Mr. Greeiishields, endeavored to make quite a point out of these first words, " Telephone home, anticere," or something like that, in the letter to Miss Anderson. He said these words were inexplicable. They may be explainable, but we do not know the explanation. This young man Shortis came from Miss Anderson's house just before the murder, and she is the first person lie writes to when he is arrested., " Telephone home." We do not know what that refers to. There may have been an understanding about that ; there is no explana- tion about "anticere." What is that ? Is it a cable word ? Is it the name of some person ? Is it an assumed name of some person, or is it a pet name, or what is it ? We do not know. Or is it a mistake in taking it down, seeing that it was taken from dictation under circumstances of excitement. But we do not know. If we had it written in his own hand we might know more about it, but what comes after it ? " Do not fret. If Bob gives any dirty talk you tell him to mind his •own business, or I will make it bad for him. Send Jack to me immediately. I remain, \-ours lovingly, B. Shortis." There is no ambiguity about these words, gentlemen. And then here is the answer, acknowledged by Miss Anderson in the box : — " My dea:- Bertie. Keep up heart. All ivill come right soon. I loill ahvays be true. Your 07vn Millie." Now, gentlemen of the jury, what is the meaning of all this ? You know when a great crime is to be committed, the criminal tiies to cover up his tracks. But there are some tracks left, or innocence and justice would never be able to assert themselves. Crime has not that intellectualitv that will permit the criminal to wipe out all the traces of his ii 0'^ iniquity. There arc some tracks left. Do you remember that this young man, it is so sworn, spent tlie evenini; before at Anderson's house, that he was with Jack i.nd Miss Anderson^ tliat he was with this young Jack Anderson at tiie same house, the night that he proposed, or a very short time before, to kill Mr. Simpson ? Do you remember, that it is proved by Mr. McGinnis that at that very house to which that letter was sent, and from which the reply came, a conspiracy to murder was hatched ? Do you remember it was proved that as Mr. McGinnis came in one night. Jack Anderson and Shortis were in the drawing room together, and young Jack went out into the hall and asked Bob McGinnis to come into the drawing room, and took him in. and Shortis made a proposal about thrashing Simpson, and supplemented it by .saying he would "fill him full of lead ?" There you have McGinnis, Jack Anderson, and Shortis together in the parlor of Anderson's house, or of McGinnis's hou.se, with a proposal from the prisoner to take the life of a human being, upon the condition that McGinnis would become a perjurer, and prove an a/idi, that is, prove that the prisoner was .some- where else at the time he filled Mr. Simpson with lead. Now, when you look at this letter that was .sent by the prisoner to Miss Anderson, and at her reply, you must con- sider this, the Andersons had the knowledge in that family, that a few weeks before, this young man had propo.sed to take Simp.son's life. Mr. McGinnis told it to his wife. He swears to it. Young Anderson was present, and Shortis was al.so present, and is it po.ssible that Miss Anderson did not know that this man proposed to commit this criminal act.? She had a revolver in her room herself, by the testimony of her step-father. Is it possible that Miss Anderson, when she spent the evening of the first of March with that young man, was ignorant that a few weeks before he had proposed to take the life of Simpson ? And yet, with that knowledge, she re- ceives his visits night after night in her own home, up to the very night of the tragedy. Is it possible that she could have been dissociated from him in regard to this act, or have no 94 knowledge of it? Now, let us look at it for a moment. He leaves her house. To Miss Anderson he says he has a head- ache ; he is going home to write to his mother. He does not go. He goes over to the mill. I will not lefer to it now, but the first person the next morning he writes to is this young lady, to " tell Hob to mind his own business, or I will make it bad for him." What business? What but the business that he himself proposed to Bob before, to take Simpson's life, because he realized that if that came out, it would put him in a bad position with regard to this murder? Mr. St. Pikrre, Q.C— It had come out already. Mr. Macmastkr, Q.C— Not before the public. Now, gentlemen, we have the young lady's reply with that know- ledge. Let us grant it was out that he proposed to murder Simpson. " I will always be true. Your own Millie." No surprise about anything, no enquiry. Nothing to suggest surprise. We can imagine an innocent girl saying : " How in the world did this happen, my dear Bertie? I will never believe you guilty. I hear you killed two men. I will never believe it. I am your own true, so and so," whatever it may be, " but I will not believe this crime." No ! Miss Anderson did not need any explanation of that kind. " All will come right soon. I will always be true. Your cwn Millie." Now, gentlemen, when we come to consider the evidence of young Jack Anderson and of Mi.ss Anderson, we must remember that they stand close to the prisoner ; Jack Anderson was a co-conspirator with him before the law, on the proposal to take Simpson's life, and Jack Anderson and the prisoner are open to an indictment for a conspiracy to murder on that proposition. What weight are you going to give that young man's evidence in th s case ? What weight can you give to the evidence of a young woman who was ready to say ' I will always be true," and " I am your own Millie," after she knew that he proposed to kill Simpson, and after she had the news brought to her that he had killed two men ? Now, gentlemen, there is more than that. She says that he pointed a pistol at her — " in fun," it turns out. There is no 95 proof that a pistol was ever pointed by him at anyone else in Valleyfield except her, saving on the night of this tragedy. She says, he had those bad headaches. There is no proof given by anybody else in Valleyfield of these. Do you believe, or does any sane man believe, that if he had had these neuralgic headaches in Valleyfield, they could not have been •easi.y proven ? Do you not think, that if he had had these neuralgic headaches in Valleyfield, Dr. Sutherland, who was his medical adviser, and who prescribed for some other com- plaints, would have known something about them ? Or, are these headaches a mere invention, like the hallucinations and delusions ? And yet this young woman swore, that he had this terrible headache, and her brother, with parrot-like fidelity, confirmed the story ; and yet, although it was only a step, — less than a five minute walk, — from the Anderson's house across to the mill, where he went, there was not a word .about headache in the hour he spent there before the tragedy, ibut on the contrary he went ahead eating an apple, a very ,'bad thing for a headache, and he never complained about a Jheadache to any of his associates. This headache, therefore, I suggest to you, is also manufactured out of the whole cloth. Now, Mr. MacVicar came up in the early stages of this ■case, and swore that some time at the end of January, or beginning of February, the prisoner at the bar said to him, that it would be an easy matter to rob the office of the mill, and that he had suggested that to him on two occasions. Mr. MacVicar did uot take it kindly. How do you know, gentlemen, that the prisoner at the bar had not an accomplice ? How do you know that he did not suggest the scheme to somebody el.se, who would take the bait a little more readily than MacVicar? How do you know that he wanted an accomplice very badly ? How do you know that he had not some place arranged in which to put the money, or if he did not have accomplices on the spot, that he had not them where he could find them, and where the money could be hid, and that he had not people who were ready to swear to an alibi, whose conscience would be "sufficiently II, 9G I elastic," as he expressed it, to swear an alibi? lUit,. gentlemen, when Miss Anderson came into the box, she swore that this young man heard noises and voices, and thought he saw faces at ihe windows. By the proof, he never saw these at any other place except the Anderson house — not one word of proof that he saw these at the hotel, or at any place where he ever lived — all at the Anderson house. Are you going to believe that story from these people ? And I tell you more, gentlemen, we proved by young MacVicar here that he had been several times in that house between the first of January and the first of March. Me had gone there with Shortis in the evening, and out again with him, I think at least twice a week during that period, and he says that in all that time the prisoner at the bar never spoke about hearing voices, or hearing sounds, or seeing faces — never heard voices and sounds when there was anybody there except Miss Anderson or young Jack Anderson. Now, did MacVicar tell the truth when he made that statement? You will remember that Miss Anderson went into that box and swore to you solemnly that MacVicar had not been in that house since the 1st of January last ; MacVicar was called here, and said, " I was in the house since the ist of January. I was there about once or twice a week, from the first of January to the first of March. I remember a particular occasion especially when I was there, it was the night of a carnival, and I was there about the carnival affairs ; and when I was there Shortis came to the door with Miss Anderson and Miss Asselin from Mont- real, and I saw them there at the house," giving day and date, as an instance. Why does Miss Anderson undertake to swear that MacVicar was not in that house from the ist of January to the ist of March? Simply because these manufactured hallucinations were put in in that period, and she wanted to exclude anybody from having been at the house, and to show that she was the only person who heard them ; and if MacVicar did not speak truthfully before you, how is it that Mrs. McGinnis, the mother of this young lady, who must feel more for her daughter than anybody else,. ibi ? Hut,, box, she :iice.s, and f, he never 1 house — , or at any use. Are ? And I MacVicar itvvecn the ;onc there m, I think ys that in ut hearing ard voices cpt Miss :Vicar tell remember ire to you J since the d said, " I lere about he first of ly when I was there ortis came om Mont- ■ and date, Icrtake to m the 1st Luse these ;riod, and en at the rson who illy before ;his young 'body else,. 07 and how is it that Jack Anderson, the brother, never came forward to contradict MacVicar and .say that he is mistaken, that he was not there from the ist of January, and how is it that Miss Assclin was not called by the defence to contradict MacVicar? Not one of the.se was put in the box. and MacVi-ar's word stands true, and Miss Anderson's word stands false ; and if it stands fal.se there, why does it not stand fal.se in other particulars, which arc so inherently improbable as not to be worth credit for a moment ? Now, gentlemen of the jury, it has been stated that Mc- Ginnis was the enemy of Shortis. What proof is there at all of that? You remember that the defence applied for a Commission to examine him. Did they want to examine hi.s enemy? They dropped it. Then it came oul that an extraordinary statement had been made by McGinnis to Simpson, and in order to probe that statement, the Crown asked for a Commission to examine McGinni.s. We aske-:' , about ten or eleven o'clock in the day, before this Court ; and as quick as lightning Mrs. McGinni.s, the mother of Miss Anderson, appears on the scene, is in consultation with the counsel for the defence (I got their admission to that effect), and although the Commission went to Huntingdon that very night, and by the first train, and by driving across the coun- try to catch the train, Mrs. McGimiis was on the train and got to her husband an hour before the Commissioner arrived. Presto, change, gentlemen of the jury. What is the meaning of this ? Do not you see that the whole ring was one, and united in respect to this matter. McGinnis in the main' was honest. He could not deny the fact of the proposal to shoot and kill. That had got out. He had already stated that to Simpson ; that had to stand. But he had to interlard it with some remarks as to whether this man was in his right mind or not. However, he did state that the prisoner was quite capable of distinguishing rigiit from wrong. Now, there is just one more thing with regard to Miss Anderson's evidence. Can any reasonable man doubt that this young woman was engaged to the prisoner? Her letters show it. His letter 7 I V"^ '. ■ ! 1 ii \ \ I 1 !)S to her shows deep affection, " Yours loviiij^Iy," and her letter to him shows the extreme of affection, " I will always be true. Your own Millie." It is impossible, treiitlemen, for any girl of self-respect to have wiitten that letter unless she was engaged to the prisoner, and felt she was actually his ; and that being so, gentlemen, you must take her evidence with that bias by which it is affected, and you must, in taking her story, consider how far she is not merely making the case out for the prisoner, but how far she may be making out a case for herself. Now, this is the evidence, gentlemen, that is submitted on behalf of the defence, with the depositions, of course, of the father and the mother of the accused, but I do not again intend to refer to the depositions of the father and mother ; 1 had occasion to refer to the father's appreciation of his son's talents, and may later have to make a necessary reference to Mrs. Shortis's deposition, but I will offer no comment on the evidence of the father and mother whatever. You will remember ! asked the father but very few questions, and I declined to cross-e.xamine the mother. It is a painful situation for them. There is no father or mother but will almost go to any length, even as the mother said, to the length of her life, for their son, and there is no doubt that the best view was put forward in their evidence towards sustain- ing the plea of insanity ; but even taking it as it is, I submit, gentlemen, that it is far from sustaining that. Now, gentlemen, that is the evidence put in for the defence. It is the Irish Commission, and it is this trifling amount of evidence that has been put in in Canada, and I ask you as sensible men, does that show insanity on the part of the prisoner? Does that show he was so insane that he did not know what he was doing? Upon the top of that they put the evidence of the four doctors, and I must uo\,' refer you to the doctors' evidence. In the first place, gentlemen, you remember with regard to the doctors, that, as Lord Campbell said, they are experts, and extremely little weight is to be given to their opinions ; they come so biased on the side that they are called for, that they become practically partisans, n 99 1 her letter ays be true, for any girl ss she was ly his ; and idence with I taking her :he case out out a case :ien, that is :)ositions, of d, but I do 3 father and ippreciation a necessary /ill offer no er whatever. :w questions, ; is a painful her but will said, to the )ubt that the irds sustain- is, I submit, ■ the defence. g amount of [ ask you as part of the it he did not hat they put refer you to itlemen, you )rd Campbell ght is to be on the side lily partisans, I and you could see it yourselves when some of these doctors were in the bo.x here. 1 was not so much astonished to see it in Dr. Anglin, for he is a young man, and perhaps over zealous in commencing life as an expert. He has probably been taught a lesson that it is dangerous to play the lawyer in the witness box. He has a good education and good abilities, and it would be much better to answer directly to the questions put, and have an end to the matter. But I was a good deal astonished at a man like Dr. Bucke trying to play the partisan to such an extent. Why, you remember gentlemen, he went ahead like an oracle, telling you all about this case, as if you did not know anything about it ; he was all " I find, I find, I find " in his examination-in-chief, and he was nothng but " But, but, but " in his cross-examination. You will remember the appearance that he made ; you saw for yourselves the truth of what Lord Campbell says, that tiiese men become partisans, and that hardly any weight can be given to their evidence. You will remember, too, the passages I read to His Lordship this morning, the deliverance of Lord Chief Justice Denman in the case of the Queen v.s. Oxford (4 VVallis, State Trials. New Series, page 582), that in some cases the opinions of medical men might be valuable, as for instance, in poisoning cases, where it is necessary to search for the deposits or effects of the poison in the body ; but in other cases, such as a shooting case like this, he says a man of the world, of common sense, and of experience, is just as well entitled to an opinion as a doctor is, and especially does he say that with regard to moral insanity. So that, gentle- men, when these doctors try to teach you that two and tv/o make five, and that three and three make seven, you can have your own opinion about it ; you can judge of the affairs of the world as well as they can. I asked Dr. Anglin in that box if it was not as feasible for a gentleman like His Honor, or a juryman, to judge of a man that he met from day to day in the ordinary transactions of life and say if he was a fool or not, and could not he see if he knew the differ- ence between right and wrong as well as a doctor could, and N ^00 he said " No, he could no:." Well, now, gentlemen, that is a little bit of conceit on the part of the doctors, or rather of some of them. All the doctors do not think that, but there is a certain class of doctors that have been brought so much in contact with the insane that actually they become more or less insane themselves, so that it has passed into a proverb now that these doctors have been so tinged with insanity, that if you even mention insanity, they arc ready to pick it out of everybody that comes in their way. These men are now universally called, " mad doctors "—or extremists. Now, you are not bound to take their opinions, you are not bound to take them, on the high authority of Lord Campbell, of Mr. Taylor, and Lord Chief Justice Denman, one of the greatest Judges that ever sat on the English bench, whose opinion I handed up to His Lordship this morning. I tell you, gentlemen, if you are overwhelmed with any idea that doctors have a right to come to you and dictate to you what you are to think as to whether a man knows the difference between right and wrong, they have no right whatever to do so. They simply come on your territory— that is your function. Perhaps you may be aided by their opinions ; if so, good and well, but I ask you, in all candour, have you o-ot one particle of information from these doctors, that would help you to come to a correct conclusion, as to whether this man knew the difference between right and wrong? There is nothing so unsatisfactory as expert medical testimony. Let me review it very rapidly. In the first place, gentlemen, you know that Dr. Clarke, of Kingston, said that this man was a moral imbecile, and he described what a moral imbecile is. Dr. Bucke came into the box and said the same thing, that a moral imbecile had no morals, and he could not distinguish with regard to morals, and he put the prisoner down as a moral imbecile. Hut what did I do ? I picked up the lecture that he had delivered at McGill College in Montreal, and I sl-.owed him where he had put down a man of the same description, and with the same il len, that is a , or rather of lat, but there i"ht so much ome more or to a proverb ith insanity, dy to pick it lese men are mists. Now, re not bound Campbell, of one of the 3ench, whose rning. I tell ny idea that to you what he difference hatever to do hat is your ;ir opinions ; our, have you rs, that would ) whether this pert medical :he first place, ;ton, said that ibed what a box and said norals, and he id he put the did I do? I d at McGill 2 he had put ith the same 101 characteristics as he ascribed to the prisoner, as a criminal, and I read this passage from his own lecture " : — " A criminal (speaking broadly and roughly), is simply a person who was born with a defective moral nature, just as an idiot or imbecile is a person who is born with a defective intellectual nature, just as a person who is colour blind, is an individual who was born without colour sense." Now, there, gentlemen, we have the definition frc i Dr. Ikicke, of what a criminal is, and we have also a definition of what an imbecile is, and according to him, an imbecile is a man with a defective intellectual nature, and, according to him and his book, a criminal is a man who has a defective moral nature, .so that according to his book, gentlemen, the prisoner at the Bar, with hi.s characteristics, being defective in moral nature, which is the ground on which they put him down as a moral imbecile, is a criminal, according to Dr. Bucke him.self And not only that, gentlemen, he tried to make out that this was a popular lecture, and said, he would amend that next time. Afterwards he took back the amendment that he made. Gentlemen, when a doctor comes down from London and delivers a lecture, an inaugural address before the learned men of McGill College in Montreal, and .says that a man lacking in the moral sense is a criminal, not an imbecile, how can he come into this Court and say he is an imbecile ? Not only that, but he makes the other distinction, and says that an imbecile is a man that is lacking in intellectual sense. Well, gentlemen, in order that I may show you that he was not depending just on his offhand, carefully prepared, lecture, I called his attention to a book that he has written entitled " Man's Moral Nature," and I drew his notice to this sentence in that book : — //it is the moral nature ivhich is deficient in drvelopinent, lae ivould say the man is a criminal, if not in act, at least by nature!' According to Dr. Hucke's own book, the prisoner at the Bar being deficient in moral nature, is a criminal, if not in act, at least by nature, and that rules him out of the imbecile class, becau.se he told us the 102 imbecile was a man deficient in intellectual nature. So much for Dr. Clarke, of King'-ton, and Dr. liucke, of London Now, what was the next stage ? Dr. Anglin told us that the pi-i.soner was an imbecile. I read a definition to him of an imbecile — I read a definition out of a book, you all heard that definition read, and I asked him if it was correct. " The idiot has not even the animal intelligence ; the imbecile is a step higher in the plane of instinct and knowing, but is little, if any, higher than the dog, elci^hant and chimpanzee, and is Jield not to be accountable because of mental deprivations." I asked him if the prisoner at the bar would come within that definition of an imbecile, and he said, " No." Well, then, gentlemen, if he does not come within that description, he is not an imbecile according to that definition, and my learned friend, Mr. Greenshields, interrupted me and said, " That is the doctrine of the wild beast, and that idea was exploded one hundred years ago." I had to retort by telling him it was not, but that it was the written authentic opinion of Dr. Clark, of Toronto, one of the experts for the defence in this case, an opinion expressed as recently as 189 1, in his published writings. According to that definition of Dr. Clark, of Toronto, the prisoner at the bar is not an imbecile unless you put him down with the dog, elephant, and chim- panzee. Can you do it ? If you cannot class him with the dog, elephant, and chimpanzee, he is not an imbecile, and Dr. Clark's own book rules the prisoner out of the imbecile class, just as Dr. Bucke's book rules him into the criminal class. But there is more than this, gentlemen. Dr. Clark, of Toronto, and Dr. Clarke, of Kingston, are in conflict with Dr. Bucke in another and most important respect. Dr. Eucke says there are two natures in man, there is an intellectual nature and a moral nauire, and the moral nature may exist perfectly independent of the intellectual nature ; one may exist without the other. One may develop by itself Dr. Clark, of Toronto, and Dr. Clarke, of Kingston, both say that they cannot exist independently, that the moral nature is founded on the intellectual nature, and if the intellectual i io;j ^ So much :)ndon :old us that to him of an 11 heard that igence ; the nd knowing, L'ly/iant and ise of mental e bar would : said, " No." within that at definition, Dted me and id that idea to retort by sn authentic )erts for the ntly as 1 89 1, initionof Dr. an imbecile it, and chim- him with the icile, and Dr. Tibecile class, riminal class. V, of Toronto, h Dr. Bucke Eucke says intellectual nature may :ual nature ; elop by itself ton, both say moral nature c intellectual nature collapses, the moral nature goes with it ; and I think they are right. Ikit, gentlemen, when I confronted Dr. Bucke with that, he said, " I know I am contrary to another doctor i.i this matter," and here with regard to the very matter in controversy in this case, as to this distniction between the two natures, and the co-existence of them, and how much one is affected by the decline or absence of the other, here we have the very doctors in the case at war with one another. Well, now, gentlemen, that is not the only difference between these doctors. You know the story that was brought out here for the first time, that the first shot was an accident. It was very peculiar how it was brought out. Dr. Anglin was examined and cross-examined "he whole of one day. We heard his story. He told us that the pri.soner did not rt.nember anything at all about the tragedy, the first day he was examined. You remember that, gentlemen. Now, here are his words : — " Moreover, he remembered nothing what- ever about the tragedy on that night, and I asked him if it seemed like a dream, and the reply was, ' it was like nothing, all I remember was cleaning a lamp chimney.' " That is the story he gave the first day, not one word about an accident, not one word about him remembering anything, " only clean- ing a lamp chimney." Now on the following day — the first day was a pretty hard day's examination, and the doctor was in a number of pretty tight places — on the next day he appeared in Court and I further cross-examined him as to whether he had a consultation with the other doctors since he left the box on the preceding day ; he did not admit that they had very much consultation together, but he appeared in Court with a brand-new and revised version of his former statement. First version : — O. — Now, is there anything in the crime itself which sug- gests the insane nature to jour mind ? A. — There are several points about it Q. — Well, now, would you just state them, Doctor? A. — Well, one strong point is that the men who were killed i 104 by the prisoner were not his enemies, or indifferent to liim, but, it has been emphasized, his best friends. Q. — Anything else ? A. — In the second place he had no accomplices ; in the third place there was neitlier prcineditation nor motive to prove it ; there was no attempt at flicjht after the deed had been done, and then his conduct in ijoinc; to sleep, or at least as good as sleep, in the cell with the blood of iiis victims on him. Moreover, he remembers nothing whatever about the tragedy of that night ; I asked him if it seemed like a dream and the reply was, " It was like nothing, all I remember I was cleaning a lamp chimney. Second version : — Witness was asked what connection he found between the crime and the delusion, and says : — Witness. — You are asking whether there is any connec- tion between the crime and the disease ? Mr. M ACM aster, Q.C. — It is for you to answer, not to argue. Witness. — I say there might be a reason for it, which no sane man would give, and there is this much proof that the first shot he fired was an accident. In his imbecile way of pointing pistols, as he often did, he pointed it at the lad, and it went off by accident, and after that tlie thought came over him, " Now I am in the hands of Simpson," and then the impulse to shoot the victims ; after that he remembers nothing, it is a blank. He says he was cleaning a lamp chimney, so that to my mind there ma\' be a connection. Q. — Shortis said that to you ? A.— Yes. Q.— Where? A.— In the Montreal jail, last August. O.— Last August ? A.— Yes. There was not one word of proof that the first shot was an accident, and there is not one word of proof now ; the accident theory is simply a magnificent afterthought resorted to in desperate circumstances. 105 ver, not to Now, you see that Dr. Anglin, though he said the first day that he had asked the prisoner about the tragedy, and that he told him he did not remember anything at all about it, admits on the second day and almost volunteers it, that the pistol went off by accident, and that when it went off by accident he thought he was in the hands of Mr. Simpson, and after that he does not remember anything about it, that it was a blank, and he says he was told this last August by the prisoner. Well, gentlemen, all I will say is this, with regard to that, if he was told that last August, and if he was in contact, as he was, with the prisoner's Counsel here for fully two weeks before he was examined in the case, it seems a most extraordinary thing to me that he should have gone through his examination-in-chief the first day and that he should have gone to the end of my cross-examinat'on the first day, and that he never mentioned these circumstances until the second day. It is an e.vtraordinary thing that he professed to give a full report of the prisoner's statement to him in regard to the tragedy, and should have taken the pains to tell you that the prisoner remembered nothing except cleaning a lamp chimney, when in truth and in fact, accord- ing to his statement on the second day, he had it in his mind and memory that the prisonf ■• had told him in August last the first shot was an accident, and that then he thought he was in the power of Simpson, and then he remembered nothing. It may have been forgetfulness ; it has a suspicious look. It is at least unfortunate that it has not the look of candour that Dr. Anglin did not mention it on the first day, when he professed to give the prisoner's full sta*:ement with regard to the tragedy. Even with regard to the tragedy itself, the doctors are at variance with each other. Dr. Anglin says it arose from impulse. Dr. Clark, of Toronto, says it was impulse. Dr. Clarke, of Kingston, says it was impulse. Dr. Bucke, of London, says it was a lapse of consciousness. Mr. Greenshields, O.C. — That is the same thing. Mr. Macmaster, O.C. — My learned friend says it is the 106 i : same thing. I say it is nothing of the kind ; for lapse of con- sciousness means a complete severance from consciousness, while impulse would drive a man on to do it, whether he was conscious or not. And not only that, but ]^r. Clarke, of Kingston, has told us that he and Dr. Metcalfe were attacked by a man who stabbed and killed Dr. Metcalfe, and in cross-examination I asked him, " Do you think he was con- scious of doing it ?" and he says " Yes, I do." Now Dr. Bucke's lapse of consciousness means a complete state of not knowing. Dr. Clark, of Toronto, has a different idea ; his idea is quite different, whereas Dr. Clarke, of Kingston, puts it down as an uncontrollable passion, in which intelligence plays no part at all. Dr. Clarke, of Toronto, says there is a double consciousness, mark you ; so among the three doctors, you have one with a double consciousness, one with no con- sciousness at all, and another with nothing but impulse. And now, gentlemen, how much information do you collect from all these with regard to whether a murder has been committed under compulsion or not ? To test the absurdity of these theories, I put this practical question to Dr. Clarke, of Kingston : " If you see two men standing there, and held at bay by a man armed with a loaded revolver, who says to these two men, ' Stand there, don't move, or I will shoot you,' and he turns around and shoots another man, is that murder in the ordinary affairs of life?" And he says " Yes, that is murder." That is Dr. Clarke, of Kingston. Are you going to allow these vagaries of the medical men, differing one from another upon a thing tl at is unknown and unknowable, to influence your judgment on a matter of common sen.se? Are you going to put aside common sense and accept their specula- tions — their vague and unsettled theories ? Reject them, gentlemen of the jury — it is a matter of common sense. Common sense is the arbiter, their opinions are mei a conflicting speculations, and conflicting opinions should play no part whatever in deciding what is reasonable by the rules of common sense. Now, gentlemen, another thing I asked Dr. Clarke, of 10/ Toronto, " Do you consider that a headache plays any part in connection with insanity ?" " Oh, yes," he says, " a most important part." Then I turned to his lecture delivered before a public association, and I took his own book and put it in his hands, and showed him where he said twice that headache has nothing whatever to do with insanity, and then he goes off and says it is " neuralgia." Flies away to neuralgia, to some other will o' the wisp, of which we have no evidence whatever. Then, gentlemen, they come before you, and like oracles tell you that this is so, and that this man felt so and so at this time or that time, and when Dr. Clark, of Toronto, is driven to bay, as to whether he could tell what wa iissing in another man's mind, he said, " No. No one but the Almighty could tell that" ; a. id no one but the Almighty could tell what was passing in that young man's heart, and there is no rule on earth by which his actions can be judged, except by the actions themselves, and his words in respect of them. Dr. Clark, of Toronto, is a very able man. After delivering his opinions in the box with regard to insanity, he was cross- examined by me with regard to a particular kind of insanity called ''folie circiilairc" or intermittent insanity, which is the insanity which comes in a very aggravated form for, say, six weeks, followed by a lucid interval for, say, six weeks, and then a period of excitation for another six weeks, and so on, so that it is a sort of circulating insanity. I found that Dr. Clark had delivered a lecture in Washington upon circular insanity before a great convention, and that there were present a representation of the leading Doctors of the United States, England, and Europe, and that this lecture was criticised by those present, and I asked him to show me from the offi- cial report if one doctor in all that great assembly accepted his ideas with regard to animal magnetism being a potent force in respect of circular insanity ; because that was the idea he started. He wriggled on the question for a while, but ultimately had to say that the doctors put down his idea as " a stumbling-block," that although one of the doctors — 108 (11 Dr. Blaiidford— admitted there were some good things in the lecture, another leading man— Dr. Savage of London— said, I' I cannot accept Dr. Clark's idea in respect of circular insanity," and that every man who expressed an opinion as given in the book, expressed a contrary opinion to his, and that the only person who agreed with him was a d(Jctor'from lirussels who delivered a speech in the J^ench language, which was not reported. I gave him full credit for the fact that thc.-e may have been such a speech delivered, which was in his favour, but which, however, was not reported. J^ut there remains the fact that on such a fundamental matter as circular insanity we find this doctor, this great oracle, in con- flirt wiMi the leading men of the profession. Gentlemen, what \ eight are you to attach to the opinion of these men? Well no;v, th it is not all, but Dr. Clark, of Toronto, says it was impulse hat did this, and Dr. Clarke, of Kingston, .says it was impulse, and Dr. Anglin,of Montreal, .says it \/as impul.se, and then I picked up a book containing the lectures delivered by Dr. Clarke, of Toronto, as a university profes.sor to his students, and I read him his own statements out of the book, ridiculing the idea of impulse being the ground for commit- ting murder, and ridiculing the idea of moral in.sanity being set up in justification. I will read you the three .sentences :— " It was a common thing years ago for a guilty man to escape under the plea of impulsive insanity. No man becomes in.sane for a few moments to accomplish a specific act." And, again, .speaking of impulsive insanity, he states in this same book, page 45 : " This is sometimes called temporary insanity. It has been used in the United States Courts of Justice for many years to shield criminals from receiving the just deserts of their crime. . . The plea for there being such a form of insanity is absurd in the highest degree." Again, in the same course of lectures, he says (page 59) this in regard to moral insanity : — " Pritchard calls this moral insanity— The insanity of morality is a better name. The term as used in the Courts of Justice has allowed many criminals to go unwhipped of 100 lings in the itloii — said, of circular opinion as to his, and ioctor from 1 language, or the fact wiiich was rted. But matter as cie, in con- jentlcmen, hese men ? ito, says it ton, says it as impulse, s delivered sor to his " the book, r commit- iiity being iitences : — :y man to n becomes iCt." tes in this temporary Courts of eiving the 3eing such (page 59) isanity of :he Courts hipped of justice." So the very cause designated by three doctors for the homicide forms a subject of the fiercest condemnation by one of 'he trio. If this man became insane for a few minutes to accomplish this act, how does it happen he became afterwards like any other ordinary person, seeing that he would say nothing until he had .seen his Counsel ? Dr. Clark, one of the experts, says, " No man becomes insane for a few minutes to accom- plish specific acts." Mr. St. Pierre. Q.C— You ought to give his answers as well. Mr. M.acma.ster, Q.C— The doctor gives no explanation. He said he agreed with them. Mr. St. Pierre, Q.C— First of all, he said the book was not his, that he would not take that as part of his evidence, and consequently that what he meant there is, that a man will not turn crazy all at once, unless there were signs of insanity before that, if he was a moral imbecile before, and if there was heredity, then the matter is quite a different one. Mr. Macma.ster, Q.C— Very far from it. He said that although that book was written by a student, he agreed with it. Mr. St. Pierre, Q.C— No. Mr. Macmaster, Q.C— He gave no explanation with regard to that. It was in regard to moral insanity that he gave an explanation, and, more than that, I would not be guilty of misrepresenting him. Mr. St. Pierre, Q.C— I do not say you would do that, but I say you only give one part of it. Mr. Macma.ster, Q.C— I am quoting with regard to impulsive insanity, and the exact part in this connection 1 quote is this, under the heading of" Impulsive insanity." " This is .sometimes called temporary insanity. It has been used in the United St?ces Courts of Justice for many years to prevent criminals from receiving the just deserts for their crimes. The plea for there being such a form of insanity is absurd in the highest degree." Now what Dr. Clark quarrelled with was this, it was not no uitli the words " iinpiilsivc insanity." but il was with the transitory insanity, "temporary insanity;" and he objected that these words were introduced into his lecture, and that they were not the proper words at all, and he never withilrcw his words about impulsive insanity, but on the contrar)- adhered to the view that the plea for "impulsive insanity" is ibsurd in the highest de^nee. Now, I have the deposition of Dr. Clark before me. Mr. Fraser has handed it to mc, and I will read what he says :— Q- — Now, did you, in one of your writinj^s, one of your books, .say this: "It was a common thing years ago for a guilty man to e.scape under the plea of imi)ulsive insanity ; no man becomes insane for a few moments to accomplish his specific acts? " A.— Exactly. I agree to that yet. Insanity is a disease, and however sudden the invasion may be, it has got to go through its course of .symptoms, and terminate like an'^ other disease, but the book you arc reading from is not my book. Q. — It is not your book? A.— No. O. — Are you not Dr. Daniel Clark ? A. — It is Notes by a Student ; I would not like to be responsible for its contents. Q. — Are not they your lectures ? A. — Yes, but I would not like to acknowledge them with- out revising them. But I agree with what is staged there. What does his explanation amount to ? You may depend on it, gentlemen, that when Dr. Clark comes into this box and swears that this crime was committed from impulsive insanity, and when I take up a book, reported by one of his students, of his nub'ic lecture ■;, and he agrees with him that this is a correct statement, although he did not write it him- self, you may depend on it that he finds he is in contradic- tion with himself, and will try to wriggle out of it. I will do him the justice to believe that the opinion deliberately ex- pressed in his lectures is the more correct. This is the sum and substance of it, that Dr. Clark of Toronto puts the sign Ill and seal of condemnation on moral insanity, and on impul- sive insanity, just the same as Lord Chief Justice Denman did upon the same two ihinjT.s .n the passage I read to His Lordship this morning. If that is so, how can Dr. ClarU, of Toronto, and Dr. Clarke, cf Kingston, and Dr. Anglin, come into this box and attach any weight to these two things ? You and your families, and everybody connected with you may be the victims of any villain who will put up a scheme to murder, if the prisoner is to be let off oti the plea of impulsive insanity and moral insanit}-, if he can sa\' that sudden impulse drove him to murder, or that the "devil drove him to do it, or that he got an order to do it." What .sort of an excuse is that for tramplin,!^ on the laws of the country ? As Mr. Justice Stephen .said in one case, " If a man tells me that he should be excused for committing murder becau.se he got an order from Heaven to do it, I would not c.vcuse liim. I would hang him, ur.!c:,.s I got another order from Heaven not to carry out the sentence." And as for moral insanity and moral imbecility, what does all that mean ? Does that mean that you are to excuse him because he has not morality enough to obey the law ? The law takes no cognizance of such a defence. You are to allow the man with a fair average amount of intelligence and morals to be punished, but the biggest scoundrel— the man who is utterly criminal, and who has put himself in defiance of .he laws of God and man — is to be spared. The idea is outrageous, and society could not be h-jld together for one day on such terms. I want to refer to the evidence of Dr. Bucke on another score, with regard to this man being a moral imbecile. He .said in my cross-examinations on the last day, when con- fronted with the characteristics that this young man had, that if he had just one characteristic more, " affection for his mother," he would take him out of the imbecile class. Then I went to work, gentlemen, and I tried to persuade Dr. Bucke that there was ample proof in the record that the boy was affectionate and loved his mother, but he would not acknowl- edge it. Here are Dr. Bucke's words : " If it could be shown 11 mU' to me that the boy really loved his moth er, I would at one say that he is not a mora! imbecile." Here are the mother's words :— to^cc^rT' !i"'r'^"^ ^■"^^' "P 'o the time that he left to come to Canada, was his temper increasing,, was his passion mcreasing or not ? A.-Increasing very much from about the time he was about sixteen. ^^^ six?e;^'? '""'"'"' ""'' '"""' '''■°'" "'^ "■■"= '>^ >"» «bout chitlTj^' ''f ' '" """ '■* '"°'' '"^■'■"- "''""='". =">'< 'iood cniici to me always. Q— Did you try to teach him his religion ' A._He was a very pious ciulcl, the most so I ever Icnew He used „ go to mass every morning, and used to pray Z peatedly dur„,g the da,-, and I never saw a child that had such devotion as he had. A.-He wrote me-I think-well-he migiu once have m,ssed a day or two, but he u-rote me once, ttice, and three .mes a week- I used to think he used to spen. ius wlfc evemngs wn.„,g to me. He used to send s ch long le ers such long, long letters. " 'ctieis. Now, iJr. Ducke said, if he could only .,et evidence or affection, that he would rule him „„t of the'^mtecile dl and when , confronted him with this, he would no t.: 'm ' would no take the word from the sorrowing mothers l^art for the affec„o„ of her child, because it would de.eat h , la of putting the prisoner down as a moral imbecile. ,!,'.' It o you. .gentlemeu, if all he wanted was affection, wa th'e e not affection proved by the mother > Is it not there J Mlss Aiuersoi, said he loved, his mother alwavs, uu| e wrote to her and spoke affectionately of her. He , .J , '^ words : ^ cm, uci Q.-Did the prisoner use to talk about his mother in aa aftectionate way ? ^'^ A.— Yes. li: Q. — He was fond of his mother ? A._Yes. Do not you find proof of affection there? If you do, put it in where Dr. Hucke would not, and rule this boy out of the imbecile class. Now, gentlemen, there is another branch of the medical evidence that I must refer to. The doctors told you that he was an imbecile for certain reasons, and they gave you the reasons. I do not intend to go into that at any great length : they said that he was indifferent, egotistic, had marked delu- sions, was cruel to a cat, attempted to burn an hotel, a fatalist, had deficient memory, had eccentricities of dress, conduct, and specially in eating and drinking. Those were the principal reasons that they gave for his being an idiot or imbecile. How do they know that this boy was indifferent ? Does it seem like indifference, that he wanted to have the advice of Counsel immediately after the murder? Does it .seem like indifference or callousness that he refused Dr Viileneuve an examination ? Or does it not show wise prudence ? Dr. Clarke, of Kingston, says that he got an illustration of cruelty, in the fact, that the accused told liim that he threw a cat into the fire. Is there one word of proof in regard to that cruelty? The prisoner told him that he threw a cat into the fire at Valleyfield. Dr. Clarke took that without one word of question. Is there one word of proof before you on that? Dr. Clarke said, the prisoner told him that he had set fire to an hotel in Belleville. Is there one word about that in proof? Not a word. Dr. Clarke was rendering his opinion on fixhe and foundationless premises. But even, if the prisoner had set fire to an hotel, what does it point to ? Not the lunatic, but the criminal — again the criminal, always the criminal. Dr. Clarke says, " prisoner thought he had a right to shoot people." On cross-e.xamination, that turns out to be^ he thought he had a right to carry a pistol for purposes of defence. Fatalism : The t)risoncr thought that things which are to be, will be. Is there anything peculiar about that ? Wh}\ 8 114 one of the greatest of the ancient philosophers accepted that as his creed, and a second, perhaps exceeding him in elo- quence and learning, adopted and elaborated this belief. And to-day there are many men in the world who believe in fatalism, and one branch of it (not the branch without God, but the branch with God) is imprinted upon the Calvinistic Presbyterian Church, by the terms of whose catechism it is declared that " God hath fore-ordained whatsoever comes to pass." Fatalism is not to be put down that way. It is one of the recognized systems of thought in the world to-day, and it will be so as long as the world lasts and men think. So, if this boy betook himself to thoughts of fatalism in his desperate .straits, why, there was nothing more natural. Dr. Clark, of Toronto, when pressed, explained how he put him down as an imbecile. He says he was only a child, he could only talk of childi.sh things, like a child of ten years. I asked him "What did you talk about?" and he replied " Fatalism." Well, gentlemen, imagine a doctor commencing to talk to a child of ten years of age about fatalism. I said "that is too much for me." But that is where the doctors have gone wrong. The doctors have been stuffed by the prisoner, the prisoner had his story well in hand, and he had it well settled. He put on a chirpy air, he put <,n a la-di-da style of indiffer- ence, which is quite different from the style he has in the Court House. We are told when they visited him in the cells that he received them with smiles, that he gave them cigarettes, that he was cheerful and quite indifferent, and spoke of the different qualities of cigarettes and about this thing and the other thing, that he was quite at ease. It is not in keeping, gentlemen, with the appearance of the prisoner in Court here, and when I asked Dr. Clarke, of Toronto, " Is it possible for a sane man to feign that appearance?" he re- plied, " Yes, it is possible for a sane man," and I put it to you, gentlemen, since the appearance of this prisoner has been called attention to — I would not have done it otherwise — whether it is possible for an insane man to have preserved Hi the attitude and composure that the prisoner has during this trial ? Oh, the doctors say, he has eccentricities about clothes. What eccentricities ? He said to Dr. Anglin that he did not like to live in a large city because he did not like to keep up the fashions — silk hat and frock coat, I suppose. Is it not natural for a young man to prefer to live in the country where he would be free from these restraints, where he could put on his knicker- bocker suit or plain checks? Arethere not sonsof noblemen who prefer the life of farmers in this country and the North-West to keeping up the style of St. James's street ? Men have their tastes, and is this man a fool because he expresses a preference for some particular style of dress ? Surely nothing could be more absurd. They say he has peculiarities of eating and drinking, or rather of "smoking and drinking," Why, gentlemen, it is put down as one of the marks of his insanity that while living in the midst of temptation, and coming from Ireland, where there is something taken occasionally from the cruiskeen lazvn, this young man, not- withstanding all these temptations, remained sober and did not d<"ink ! So that even the boy's virtues (and goodness knows, he has vices) even the boy's virtues are brought to his condemnation to mark him down as a fool. Well, gentlemen, any man, it seems to me, whether he be a doctor or whether he be a lawyer, or anything else, who puts sobriety in a man down as an indication of imbecility, stamps himself as an imbecile. Then, they say he has a defective memory. Why, gentlemen, some of the ablest men who ever lived have had defective memories, and one of the greatest lawyers of the American Bar had such a bad memory that when he proposed the health of the American President, he always kept the chief magistrate's name on a card before him. Many able men have bad memories. A bad memory is not characteristic of insanity. But had the prisoner a bad memory ? Where is the evidence of it ? Look at the events that happened in Ireland which he remembered, Look at his recollection in regard to the crime itself, if for a moment we are to credit Dr. 116 .■ \'\ if 1 |H 'I: Anglin's statement. He told him in August what happened months before on the !st of March, how the accident happened ; look at the interviews with the different doctors, though they are not evidence, they may be taken as admis- sions against him, and they certainiy are evidences of recol- lection. He gives them different particulars of different things. Do you think, gentlemen, that this man can be set down as a fool for want of memory ? Wanting in affection ; another reason. Where has the boy been lacking in affection ? Has not he been affectionate to his mother? Is it not proved by his mother? And what higher or better proof do you require ? If there was another proof required of affection, why were not these " long, long, letters" written to his mother from Valleyfield, two or three per week, produced ? They would have told the double story whether he had real affection and education, as nothing else in this world would have done. Why were they not produced before the jury? They would have told the story, and have shown the operations of his mind and heart. But we hav/e them not. And where are the letters vritten to Miss Anderson by the prisoner ? Where e they, gentlemen ? Handed by Miss Anderson to the )risoner's Counsel, Mr. Foster, and destroyed by him. If we only had these, would not we have some evidence of his intelligence? Would not we have some evidence of the relationship between Miss Anderson and the prisoner- that might throw some light on this matter? But they are gone, and we will never see them more. Thev were destroyed by the Counsel for the prisoner. Before I pass away from the medical evidence, I must call your attention to the grounds on which they put this young man down as insane. They say that after being a noral im- becile, he became insane, that he had some disease of the mind. They cannot mention any, but they give certain symptons, and say these are symptons of insanity, and what are they ? They are that the prisoner at the Bar had certain delusions, that he had delusions with regard to Simpson, and 117 with regard to certain events in Ireland, and they say he had also certain hallucinations. Now, what are the delusions they say he had in Ireland ? They say he had delusions ^vlth regard to being attacked there, and that he carried a pistol HI consequence, that he thought that the cattle-men might attack him, and that he carried a pistol to defend him- self; also that his father took mad fits, and he carried a pistol to protect himself against his father. These are the delusions that they speak of Now, let me speak to you gentlemen for a moment, with regard to these delusions. In order to con- stitute a delusion, it must be that the prisoner has some mis- conception of fact, that is to say, he must believe that some- thing exists that does not exist. If I believe that I am the Governor General of Canada, and I issue orders with regard to public aff:Jrs, and cannot be reasoned out of the idea- contrary though it be to fact-that I am the Governor Gen- eral—then I am under an insane delusion, and my mind my reason, is eclipsed to that extent. [Here an adjournment was made for half an hour after which Mr. Macmaster, Q.C., resumed his address to the Jurv at 1.35 p.m.] •' ^ May it please the Court, Gentlemen of the Jury :_ At the adjournment, I was proceeding to discuss with vou the question of delusions, and how far the prisoner at the Bar was under a delusion, or under hallucinations, so as to affect his mmd. You know that the doctors said that he was suffer- ing from moral imbecility, and that to that moral imbecility there supervened, there came an addition on the top of that insanity, delusional insanity. When I asked for the indi- cations of delusional insanity, they said that there were certain symptoms, and it is now necessary for us to consider what the symptoms were, and what the hallucinations were in order t- see if these were real delusions, and real hallucin-' ations, or only improvised for the occasion. You know that a delusion is a complete misconception with regard to 118 a matter of fact. I gave you an illusuration of that before the adjournment, and I gave you an illustration of that during the course of the cross-examinations. F'or instance, I gave you the illustration, taken from Mr. Clous- ton's recent book on " Mental Disea.ses," of an old man in the Morningside Asylum who " thought he had lived a thousand years, that he had known Noah rather inti- mately, and found him a most sociable man, but a little too fond of his toddy, that he once went out snipe shooting with King David, who was a crack shot, and one day gave St. Paul a lift in his gig on the Peebles road." Mr. Clouston, who is the author of the book from which I read this extract, .says, "This is a sample of delusional insanity, or monomania." The doctors that I cross-examined all agreed to this being a good illustration of delusional insanity, and you will .see that that lunatic who was confined in that asylum had those mi.sconceptions of fact. He thought he had lived a thousand years, that was not so ; he thought he was on intimate terms with Noah, that was not so ; he thought that he had gone snipe .shooting with King David, that was not so ; and he thought that he had given St. Paul a lift on the Peebles road, that was not so. None of the.se things were facts. Now, in order to have a delusion, you must believe in a state of things that is not fact. When you believe in a thing that is not a fact, and cannot be persuaded or reasoned out of it, that is a delusion. Well, now, they sav that this young man had delusions because he carried a revolver -.i Ireland, but he said the reason for it was that there were some rough characters among the cattlemen in Ireland, that he carried it for self-protection, and he also said that his father sometimes took " mad fits," and that he carried it for protec- tion against his father. These are the two instances of delusion that are referred to in Ireland. Well, iiow, in order to test whether there is any delusion there or not, the first question you have to ask yourselves is, Was it a fact that he carried a revolver on account of their being rough characters the cattlemen ? Was it a fact that he carried a among no revolver because he feared some violence from his father? If it was, there is no delusion. It is not proved that it is not a fact ; it is not proved here that there were no rough characters in Ireland among the cattlemen ? It is not proved here that he may not have had reason to protect himself against his father ? So that, gentlemen, these are no delusions at all, they are simply opiin'ons that the boy had. You know in the western country here, the cattlemen, the cow-boys, nearly all carry revolvers. And it is not improbable at all that in Ireland, as elsewhere, there are rough characters among the cattlemen as here, and it may be that this young man simply carried a revolver because he had an idea that he might sometime be attacked by them, or that he might be attacked by his father ; or he might have held the idea that the cattle dealers, as Mr. Morrison said, might some time attack him and his father, and therefore he carried the revolver as a protection for his father and himself. Until it is shown to you, and shown to your perfect satisfaction, that he was wrong about the fact, there is no delusion with regard to his carrying a revolver in Ireland. You know that Morrison came here and told us two or three things about carrying a revolver, and among other things he said that the prisoner's father had some differ- ence with the cattle dealers, and with the men of Ballyb'icken, which is a suburb of VVaterford, as proved in the Commission, and that the prisoner carried a revolver to protect himself and his father against the cattle dealers, and against the Ballybricken people. May that not be so ? Is that a fact ? Is it proved not to be a fact? His father was present in Cour^ here, and if he wished to prove that that was not a fact, if he wished to prove he had no difference with the cattlemen, and that there was no reason for carrying a revolver, he might have gone into the box and proved that it was not a fact. But he did not do so. On the other hand, gentle- men, in that same conversation with Mr. Morrison, the prisoner at the Bar made some other statements to him that showed his intelligence, showed that he was a man of reading, showed that he paid some attention to English politics. He 1 20 M = !4^ ili said he was a Conservative himself in Engh'sh poh'tics, and as between tlic two Irish parties he preferred the I'arnellites, and he expressed the opinion that the McCarthyites were " no good," which shows that he was able to reason on political matters. Suppose that this was a wrong statement made by the boy ; suppose that he was in error in saying that he carried a revolver to protect himself and father against the cattlemen ; how eas\' it would have been for Mr. Shortis, the father, to have gone into the box and .said, " I never had any difference with the cattlemen ; we never had any trouble about competition ; there was no reason why my son should have carried a revolver. That ciuestif)n never came up, and moreover, my son is not a Con.servative in English politics, and he was not a Parnellite in Irish politics." There is not one single word of contradiction to the state- ment that the boy made to Morrison in that respect, and I respectfully submit to you that the boy honestly, though possibly mistaken 1>-, did carry a revolver in Ireland, for part of the time, because he feared the cattlemen, or becau.se he thought his father had mad fits, or because he thought his father was liable to attack from the cattle dealers and the rough characters of Ballybricken. Another thing, gentlemen of the jury, you must not place too much stress on the expression that his father had "mad fits," for you know that in common language we say a man is " mad " when he is angry, we say he had a " mad fit ; " and it may be that the story retailed through a number of people who heard it years ago has not suffered anything in growth and stature in the descent. And besides, vve have the authority of Dr. Clark, of Toronto, who said that the Greek word for " madness," namely, " mania," in the Greek lan- guage, does not merely mean madness in a legal sense, but that it also means " excitement." So in our common language we talk of a man being " mad " when we do not mean he was mad in a legal sense, but simply angry ; and this tale is fairly open to the construction that this boy carried a revolver as a protection because his father got very angry with him at 121 times, as I have no doubt he did, and perhaps for good reason. So much for the delusions in Ireland. Dr. Clarke, of Kingston, says that " the most marked delusion that the prisoner had " — and he puts it down as a s\m[)tom of insanity — " was with regard to Mr. Simpson, of Valleyficld." He thought Simpson had done him an injury, and he became very excited when he spoke in regard to that, and the doctors discovered that this was a clear deldsion. Well now, gentlemen, let us examine and see if this was a delusion. In the fir.st place, the boy was dismissed from the cmi)loyment of the mill. Me was not dismissed from Mr. Simp- son's office, but he was discontinued there, and he went into another department of that mill. In addition to that, Mr. Simpson told him he was not to go to the Andersons' house — the Anderson family and the Simpson family were not on good terms— and Mr. Simpson, for reasons of his own, prohibited young Shortis from visiting the Anderson house, and Shortis disobeyed him. Shortis told this to the Andersons and to McGinnis ; and after he left the employ of Simpson, and went into tho mill, and was dismissed from there for kerping irregul-u- hours and going to the Anderson house, he very naturally felt aggrieved and injured. He practically .said Lo him.self, "The whole cau.se of this business is because I am going to the Anderson house, and Mr. Simpson is trying to control my local relations outside of the mill. It is wrong. 1 feel hurt by it ; I love this young lady; I want to go to the house, and I feel that I am injured by him." Well now, gentlemen, was that a fact or was it not ? Was it not true ? Was it not true that Mr. Simpson had forbidden him to go to the Anderson house ? Was it not true also that Mr. Simpson discharged him ? Was it not true also that Mr. Simpson had him discharged at a later time for not keeping regular hours, and al.so for going to the Ander.son house? .All these things are true ; so, where could the delusion be with regard to that ? I just now pointed out to you that a delusion consists in believing in a state of facts that does not exist. But you' >)0 know Shortis believed in a state of facts that did actually exist, and we are not coir.pellcd to rely upon the opinion of what he told the doctor in the jail at Montreal, or anyone anywhere else, because we find that he wrote a letter to Mr. Gault, and in that letter, gentlemen, he stated what his trouble was with regard to Mr. Simpson. I will now read that letter : Mr. Lomax read the letter to the jury at Mr. Macmaster's request. It is as follows : — " Private. " Vallkvfikld, P.O., Wednesday morning, " January 30th, 1894. "DiiAR Mr. Gault, "It was with the greatest horror and indignation that 1 heard last evening what kind of stories Mr. Simp.son has been circulating about me, in Montreal, viz., about a conspiracy being on foot to kill him. Certainly I was told that he would use every method in his power to put me out of this town, but I never for a moment thought he would resort to a ridic- ulous, improbable story, about my entering into a con.spiracy to kill him. " Poiricr, who was the chief of police here formerly (but owing to habits of intemperance lost his position) told me this evening that Mr. Simpson told him to tell me " that if I did not leave the town, he would have to put me in jail for conspiriing to take his life." The reason Mr. S. is so anxious to get me to leave is, he hates Miss M. G. Anderson and her brother, because their mother, now Mrs. McGinnis, and him are very bad friends, ana on the 24th, or thereabouts, of last month, he told me I .should not speak to Miss Anderson or her brother in the future, because he made up his mind that none of his friends or any person in the mill should have anything to do with them. Is not that as great a piece of high handed boycotting as ever you heard about ? I certain- ly think by such conduct Mr. S. displayed an awful amount of petty spite, to say the least of it. I would not insult any acmasters 1 2:^ tViciid of mine by behaving in such an unmannerly way,* and notice the result ; first I am told I must leave the mill, and then a trum[)ed up charge is brought against me. In Canada such a story cannot fail to be ridiculous. Are you not astonished, Mr. Gault, at any man doing such things as Mr. S. to vex a person whom he dislikes? Rather iiard on the person that he selects to use as the punishing medium. Will you please tell me what to do? Here I rm all alone without one to advise me. I shall see this morning Mr. S. and will tell him that he shall have my answer within a week. Such nonsensical thoughts as my prowling about the mill waiting to kill any person. I am too young to right away decide my conduct, but pray to our good God that you will tell me what you think best for me to do, and in the mean- time tell Mr. S. to stav proceedings for a week. You have been formerly so kind to me that I feel that you advise me in my hour of trouble. If I will be permitted to stay here, 1 expect to get a position in the office of one of the lumber mills here. Should I be forced to go away what am I to do? (ioodness only knows. Should you like to hear an impartial account of my conduct whilst here, I feel confident that you will receive a good report about me if you write to anyone who knows me. There are more ways than one, you know, to tell every story. Won't you piease try and get an impartial one before you judge me ? Thanking you from the bottom of my heart in anticipation for your advice, and former kindness ; also hoping you, will forgive my giving u so much trouble. " I remain, "Dear Mr. Gault, •' Very gratefully your friend, (Signed) " F. V. C. SllORTls." Now, you will see from that letter what sort of memory the prisoner has, and you will see that he states what his trouble is. and he states a fact. He states, that he has been pro- hibited from Gfoing to the Anderson house, and he states, he ill 124 has been (lismissed from the mill ; he states, in addition a lie, VIZ.. that Mr. Simpson is circulating a ridiculous sf.ry about his attempting to shoot that ^^entlcman. That shows the cruTiinaiity of the man. As a matter of fact, at that time the story that he i-.tended to shoot Simpson had become known to l>oirier.and Poiricr had -o„c to the prisoner, and the prisoner evidently feared that Mr. Simpson would carrv out his threat, and would arrest liim if he did not leave the town. This y„un- man shows much cunm-n^r, wit aiul ability m writinj,^ this letter to Mr. (iault, who was Mr Simpsons senior, pretendin- that this was a ridiculous story about wishing to shoot him. and asking Mr. Gault to stay Mr. Simpson's hand for a week-, ik.t he states in th. t ctter what his grievance is with regard to Mr. Simpson, and his grievance as stated there is that he was prohibited from going to Miss Anderson's hou.se, and that he was dismissed from the mill. Now. arc these facts, gentlemen ? Are they not facts ? They are facts. His grievance is a grievance, and therefore there is no delusion. It is simply thi.s, gentlemen. It IS simply a case of a man estimating the injury that has been done to him. It is a (piestion of measurement. This young man thought, and. perhaps, with .some reason, that it was a very hard thing indeed, that he should be prohibited from going to the Anderson house. I do not make anv reflection on Mr. Simpson. Mr. Simpson may have had perfectly good reasons for not wishing his private .secretary to go to the house of the And( sons, who were deadly enemies of his. But this young man was a stranger to all these feuds He was an outsider ; he loved this girl, and it may have seemed to h.m a great injury and grievance that he could n..t go to that hou.se. He also had been dismissed, and he com- plained of that. He complained of two things to Mr Gault. They are not delusions at all. they are facts, and not delus-ons ; and, as Dr. Clarke, of Kingston, acknowledged to rne. if a thing is a fact, it is not a delusion at all. Well, now, gentlemen of the jury, this is not the first time that this important question with regard ;J 125 t(. (ielusioivs came up. In the case that I rcferretl to, and that Mr. St. Pierre rcfened to, the other day— the case a<,Minst the I'larl of Ferrers, a member of the Mouse of I'eers — the same (juestion arose. The Karl had a (lii.irrel with his wife, and his wife instituted divorce procccdinfjs against him, and she ^'ot a divorce. There wa.s some tjuestion about his estate and a coal mine, and his for- mer agent, a Mr. Johnson, had taken a i>articular course, atlverse to the Earl, in regard to the coal mine, and he had also taUcn part against the Karl of Ferrers and in favor of Lady Ferrers, when the divorce proceedings were going on. riie result of this was that the l^arl of Ferrers conceived a terrible hatred to Johnson, and put John.son down as his enemy who ti ied to interfere between him and his wife. That is to say, he had a grievance. Now, that is a fact, he had a ^rricvance ; it was a reality. Later, he sent for John.son, and Johnson came to his house. Johnson was practically in the position of his steward, and he deliberately slew him. The man did not die immediately, he lived for some hours, but he (lied soon afterwards ; and that I'eer, Peer as he was, was brought before the House of Lords, and a full hearing was <,Mven to his case. His plea was in.sanity, viz., that he was under a delusion in regard to Mr. Johnson. Mr. Yorke, then .Solicitor-General, who afterwards became Lord Chancellor, argued the case for the Crown, and in that argument it was pointed out that what the Earl of Ferrers complained of was not a delusion at all, but a fact, a grievance ; and that a griev- ance could not be treated as a delusion, that a man could not pretend that because he had an extreme ill will against another he had therefore the right to slaughter him. Much less had the prisoner a right to slaughter Simpson's clerks and subordinates, for, even if there were a delusion, there must be a connection between the delusion and the killing. And there is none here. The grievance was against Simpson, no*- against John Loye and Maxime Lebteuf. This principle was recognized by Erskine in the case of Hadficld, and i^ now universally accepted. The House of Lords refused to recog- 126 I n.xe a grievance as a justification for killing, or as a symptom of uisanity, and unanimously decided that the Earl of Ferrers should die ; and die he did, on the public scaffold. I only refer to that, gentlemen, in order to show that u'hat is complained of here ,s not a delusion at all, it is a pure and simple matte- of gr.cvanc. and the doctors are entirely wrong in treatin- it as a delusion. They say a delusion is a symptom of insanity but if this symptom fails, where is the insanity? Now gentle ' men, very far from this being a delusion, what do we find= VVe find that young Shortis goes to the office of Mr. Simpson, after Mr.bimp.son had heard about the attempt to kill him He goes in there, and asks him for a character. Mr. Simpson says " I cannot give it to you." Hut Sho-ti.ssaid," You promised me one when I left you the first time." ' Yes, I did," said Mr. Simpson . "but times have changed since then." Simpson had heard o this design to kill him, and he refu.scd a character, and Shortis turned around and said, "You are no gentleman-my day will come, every dog has his day, and my dav will soon come. Now, gentlemen, that conversation took place in the early part of February, some time about the fifteenth of February, as near as 1 can recollect. On the ^otl of February, Mr. Simpson left Canada to go to the Southern States, and he remained away until about the 3rd or 4th of March, so that Mr. Simpson was not Jiere at the time of the tragedy We have a side light -own on the remark that was made by the prisoner to Dr. Clarke in the Montreal Jail It is an admission against the prisoner, and what did he say to Dr. Clarke in the Montreal Jail ? The prisoner said to Dr. Clarke that he went to Mr. Simpson's office that day for what purpose? To get him to insult him, in order that he might have an e.xcu.se "to clean out himself and his clerks." That is the prisoners admission, that is- his own statement to Dr. Clarke, which is proved on behalf of the defence ; and here is the most explicit admission that possi- bly could be had, that the prisoner had it in '-is mind not merely to kill Simp.son, but to kill Simpson and his clerks Simpson fortunately was out of the country in the Southern 127 States until the 3rd of March, but his poor unfortunate employees received the fell blow in a way that is sad to relate. Now, even Dr. Bucke had to admit that the pri.soner's statement to Dr. Clarke indicated premeditation. He and the other doctors said with regard to the general robbery that they saw no motive and no premeditation, and of course they saw nothing except what pleased them. But I suppose nobody else but the experts would have said that ; still that is what they all said. Dr. liucke was compelled to admit, when confronted with the fact that the prisoner at the Bar said he went to Simpson's office with a view to make him angry, so that he might clean him and his clerks out, that that indicated premeditation and desire for revenge. If at a later time the prisoner was able to unite that revenge to the motive of money, to the tune of fourteen thousand dollars, it does not lessen in any degree the enormity of his crime. I trust I have disposed of the delusions, and to your satis- faction. Why, gentlemen, just imagine for one moment what would be the consequence if what is here set up could con- stitute a defence. Now, I will take the case of a dispute •between Mr. McHardy and Mr. Cunningham. Suppose that the first juror conceived a terrible hatred to the twelfth juror, and that Mr. McHardy had, from his point of view, a very grievous complaint against Mr. Cunningham, and that he took it into his mind to go to Mr. Cunningham's place some day, and finding him away from home, drew a pistol and slaughtered two or three of his family. He would be in exactly the same position that the prisoner at the Bar is to-day, barring, in this case, the added motive to acquire a large snm of money. Would it be an excuse for Mr. McHardy that he went to Mr. Cunningham's, and because he had some complaint against him, drew his pistol and shot two or three members of the family ? Can you admit that doctrine, and if you cannot, how can you distinguish it from the doctrine contended for on behalf of the prisoner at the Bar ? I say, gentlemen, it would ruin social order, and it would destroy the peace of the 128 community, if that could be recognized, and I trust, with your sound judgment, and your common sense, you will never put the stamp of your authority on the proposition that, stripped to nakedness, just amounts to this, that this young man should be excused for killing the clerks of the Cotton Com- pany, because he hated the General Manager. Now, this is what this delusion business comes to. It is no delusion at all Ask your common sense. You ean measure it better than I can. You know what it was. It was simply a piece of hatred and spite against Simpson, that might have been more or less well founded from the prisoner's standpoint • but in the name of all that is sacred, are you to recognize the fact that because a man may take an extreme view of a difference he has with another man, he can arm himself with loaded weapons, that he can go and slay that man, and those under him? If you c ). gentlemen, you put a rapier into the body politic of social order. The only real delusion here is the marked delusion of the doctors. There only remains, in connection with this question the subject of hallucinations, and I partially dealt with them before. What do they consist of? Simply hearing and seein.-x certain things at the Anderson house. Hearing certain noises, saying he heard certain voices. Do you think he ever saw faces, or heard unnatural noises? Or, if he did, do you thmk the Anderson house was the only place in which he heard them ? How are you to account for the fact that he never spoke of them to his friends, never saw strange faces at the hotel, or in Ireland, and only saw them in the very family with some of the menbers of which he was hand in hand in a deep-dyed conspiracy to murder Mr. Simpson p Do von beheve that, gentlemen of the ju-y? Can , .u believe that > Is It rational that you should believe that? I will tell you there ,s another view with regard to these hallucinations' and that is, that they are not halluci.iatio.is at all The young man may have wanted the window-blinds closed • he may have wanted that they should not be overlooked in 'the house, for more reasons than one ; but not to su'-^est my 129 other, voices could be heard from the road, Mr. McGinnis tells us so in his deposition. The window could be overlooked from the road : Mr. McGinnis says .so in his deposition. And this )-oung man, when he went to the house first was forbidden to '^o there. May he not have wanted the blinds drawn in order that he might not be looked in upon or seen ? Mr McGinnis had d.vulged the scheme of killing Mr. Simp.son. Simpson had gone to Poirier, the constable, and Poirier had gone to the prisoner, and said to him in his room in the hotel : " Now 1 want to tell you that you are in a scheme to kill Simpson' and Simpson says that unless you leave town within a week you will be arrested." What does the prisoner say ^ " Who IS the witness to that ?" Does that look like a fool ? " Who IS the witness to that ? Bob ? Is it Bob ?" " Yes Bob " (meaning McGinnis) Poirier answers. And then the prisoner turns around, and exercising the mind and understanding that he undoubtedly possessed, said to Jack Anderson, who was present, " If Bob comes against us, it will be bad for us " How is that for intelligence? How is that for ability to distinguish right from wrong ? How is that for knowledge that he had broken the law of the country ? How is that for comprehension of whether he should be punished or not ? I he prisoner says he will give an answer in the mornin- to Simpson, and Poirier goes away. Let us pass that by He continues to go to the Anderson house after that, to be with this young lady and her brother. He knows what Simpson has said, that unless he leaves he will be prosecuted He tries to get that stayed, but still there is a state of uncer- tainty. Is it surprising, gentlemen, if that man, knowing he uas liable to be prosecuted for conspiracy to commit murder IS It surprising if he should not want his whereabouts to be' known ? Is it surprising if he should want the window blinds drawn, so that Poirier might not come there and see what was going on ? In addition to this, if he was capable of liHving in his mind the shooting of Simpson, he was also m apable of havinj if he had that in 1 in his mind the shooting of his clerks, and lis mind on that night, and I submit to you K> that he had, is it not natural that on the eve of the commission of a great crime he should be uneasy and nervous and excited, and even if he were not nervous and excited when going out to commit that crime, what is more natural than at the hour of lo o'clock at night, he should say to Jacl- Anderson, "Did you hear something outside? Is there anybody passing?" and that they should both go out together, scan the street carefully, look to the east and look to the west to see that nobody was looking on, so that when the prisoner left that house, and went into the mill, there should be no eye upon him to mark his going forth? What more natural than that? what more natural than that Jack Anderson, who was h.is accomplice in the other crime, should be his accomplice in this? I go no further than' that, though perhaps I might ; but certainly, [ may go that length, for he was the accomplice in the other. What more natural than that he should wish to take precautions that the house was not overlooked before he sped to the mill ? He leaves. He .says he has a headache. He is going home to write a letter to his mother. Where does he go? He crosses to the mill. I leave the question of what happened there for a moment, and I will take the last thing that I have to direct your attention to in the medical evidence. It is the deposition of Dr. Garner, the gentleman to whom I referred in the forenoon, the gentleman examined in Ireland by the Defence on the medical question, the gentleman not referred to by Mr. Grecnshields, the gentleman not referred to by Mr. St. Pierre. Mr. St. Pierre, O.C— I did. I referred to him, and I will again, if you will give me five minutes. Mr. Macm aster, O.C— Five minutes. You took three days, and I think you had enough. Well now, I did not know that Mr. St. Pierre referred to this gentleman, but I am always quite willing to give my learned friends credit for having done a good thing. I am going to call your attention to Dr. Garner's evidence. He is asked by me this question ill cross-examination : 131 Q.— Supposing that a man had killed another, and that there was no evidence of any ill-will between the parties, no delusion, no enmity, nothing but friendliness between the slayer and the other party, but that there was the presence of a large sum of money that could be taken possession of by the slayer — in other words, would an obvious motive of that kind have an influence on your mind ? A. — Oh, decidedly. , Q. — Is not Dr. Maudsley a very high authority on lunacy? A.— Yes. O.— And he says that the presence of a motive of that kind, as, for instance, the acquiring of money, goes far to rebut the probability of insanity ? A.— Yes. Q. — Do you agree with him in that view ? A. — Yes, I do. He is one of our greatest authorities. Well now, gentleman of the jury, out of the mouth of the Doctor called in Ireland for the defence, the head of the Clonmel Lunatic Asylum, a man of great ability and distinc- tion, you have this : If you have the presence of a sum of money as a motive, if you have a man kill another in the presence ^of a powerful motive like that, it goes far to rebut the idea of insanity, and he agrees with Dr. Maudsley in that statement of the case. Now, gentlemen, what have we got when we come to the end of the medical testimony ? VVe have not only got the four doctors that appeared in Canada in conflict with one other, but we have got Dr. Garner, called for the defence in Ireland, and Dr. Maudsley, in agreement with us, with the Crown, that the presence of a sum of money supplies the motive, and goes to rebut the idea of insanity. So when you come to consider your verdict you will see that the Crown is not depending here on experts that it might call ; because the Crown did not feel that it was bound to call them in a matter of such common sense, and more particu- larly when they found such support for their views in Dr. Alaudsley, and in the witness Dr. Garner, called for the defence in Ireland. There arc only two more points that I 132 m rii| ^ 1? will refer you to. One is the case of Lady Mordaunt. I read it to Dr. Clarke. I put it to Dr. Anglin, but he did not know anything about it, and I am not surprised at that,for it is a very modern case, and it may not have been sufficiently venti- lated yet ; but I read the report of that case from the book of Mr. Pitt- Lewis and Dr. Smith, to Dr. Clarke, of Kingston, who is a very able man, and a very eminent man, and I called his attention to the fact that there was a question in that case as to the sanity or insanity by reason of a delusion, and what was the delusion there? All of a sudden, Lady Mordaunt stated, some eight days after the birth of her child, that the child was not her husband's child ; and of course a great scandal was created in society in England, and it became a highly controverted question whether this excellent lady was labouring under a delusion, or whether she made the state- ment as a mere matter of spite, or out of pure maliciousness. The doctors were called in, as appears by the report, and out of eleven doctors, five were one way and six were the other. So, gentlemen, when you come to make up your minds on the opinions of doctors, you must take into account the old proverb that doctors differ among themselves, and you may say to them in a matter of common sense, and wjiere they have nothing to bring from science as an addition to the common stock of knowledge, "Doctors, settle your differences, teach yourselves, and when you have settled among your- selves, come to us and teach us." That is, in a matter of common sense. Then one more point with regard to the doctors. It was most extraordinary to me, gentlemen, that these doctors should be asked whether that man could distinguish right from wrong on the ist of March last, whether he had such a consciousness of his acts as to know what he was doing on the 1st of March last. In the name of common sense, how could the doctors, who only came upon the scene four or five or six months afterwards, tell whether that man knew the difference between right and wrong on the 1st of March last, or knew the nature of his acts, or knew that he was hreakinf^ 133 the law ? What a hazardous thing it was for the doctors to say anything of the kind. Yet they said it. They pretended to pry into his heart, to find out what was passing in his heart on the first of March last, until Dr. Clarke, of Toronto, closely pressed to the wall, had to admit that it was only the Almighty Himself who could go into the human heart and tell what was passing there. But everyone had to come to the common brook to drink, every one of the doctors, because I put to them the authority of Dr. Maudsley, the head and front of the whole profession on this subject, I put to them this, whether he does not speak truth when he says : — '' No person, hozvever acute, can dive into the depths of another person's mind and knoiv zvhat he does not knotv himself, how far his consciousness of right and ivrong is vitiated on a par- tiadar occasion . ' ' Now, gentlemen, once they agreed to that proposition of Dr. Maudsley, and they all agreed to it, they gave their case away. Dr. Maudsley tells us there in plain language that no man, no matter how acute, can pry into the human mind, and find, what is passing there ; no one except the Almighty Him.self So it all comes to this, gentlemen, that they do not know, they do not know any more than you do. As Lord Chief Justice Denman said, in a matter of common sense an experienced man of the world knows just as much about these matters asa doctor. You are not bound to take their opinion, and I ask you to put it aside, as Lord Campbell says, as entitled to scarcely any credit whatever ; and, in the face of the evidence here, you will be perfectly justified in doing it. If it has come to this, gentlemen, that through the power of money, through the ability to get doctors retained on one side or the other, the grand old rules that regulate the trans- actions between men, the grand old standards by which men's actions have been judged in the past are to be set aside, then, gentlemen, there may be grave questioning of the use- fulness of the jury system. But I rely upon your common sense. Say the prisoner is insane if you will, acquit him if you will (it m.ay be better to acquit him. if you have grave doubts) lU on your own jrood judgment, if in your hearts and souls you feel that it is just to do so. But I ask you in the name of common sense and justice, law and order, all of which you represent in that box, do not do so on the mere speculation of experts. Now, gentlemen, that closes my review of the medical opinion, and you will see that that evidence is only given on one half of the case — on the evidence produced on behalf of the defence. What might be the opinions of the doctors to-day if given on the whole case ? Suppose that that young man, instead of being a child of ten years, as they supposed— .sup- po.se that instead of being an imbecile, at they .supposed, when he came from Ireland— suppo.se that instead of being a dunce, as they supposed, when he left Father Dunne— sup- pose that instead of being an ignoramus— it turns out that he is a young man who showed culture, ability, and education, and that he is up to the standard of intelligence of young men in this country of his age, how could these doctors put him down as a fool ? How can they put him down as incapable of distinguishing right from wrong ? How could they, having given their evidence as they did, in the first instance ? Now, gentlemen, our system is very wrong with regard to that, if I may be permitted humbly to say so. In France, the law provides for an examination, an official examination of the prisoner. Doctors there are appointed to examine those alleged to be insane before going to trial. Those doctors have no interest in going to the right or to the left, they are paid out of the French treasury a hand.some income annually, and when there is a a question about the insanity of anybody they go and make a report, not merely on the condition of his mind, but they make a report on all ihe circumstances, so as to enable the Judge to appor^on the punishment. Their position is semi-judicial, they are not partisan expert.s. So long as the doctors appear in the witness box, not in a semi-judicial capacity as in France, but as partisans on one side or the other, you will have their evidence characterized as Lord Campbell, Taylor, and Lord 1 135 Chief Justice Denman characterized it, and as I, in my com- paratively humbler position, characterize it to-day. Now, .t,rentlemcn, I call your attention to the fact that the opinion the doctors gave was only, after all, half an opinion, or rather an opinion on half the case, and if I may be permitted to use an expression that maybe slightly Hibernian, "the smaller half" of the case at that. Let me call your attention to the Crown's rebutting case. First, I ask you, ditl the prisoner maUe out a case of insanity so as to relieve him ? Did he satisfy you on the evidence he put in that he did not know the quality of his acts and what he was doing? I submit, gentlemen, that he did not. But so as to leave no doubt, so as to make it sure in the interest of justice, what did the Crown do? We called witnesses from Valleyfield, we called witnesses from Montreal, and we called witnesses from every place where this ma.i lived in the country, and what do they prove ? I do not wish to particu- larize, because I do not wish to take up much more of your time, as you have been indeed kind and indulgent, and most attentive too, to me. They prove that this young man is as sensible and rational as the average young man of his age in this country. He is eccentric, there is no denying that. He delights in eccentricity, and he is fond of pranks. But when it comes to .^ense, ratiocination, exercising his mind, and doing his work, he is just as sensible as the average young man in this country. Why, gentlemen, let me ask you one thing. You heard his letter to Mr. Gault read. Now I want you to ask yourselves a question. You have been brought up in one of the best sections of the Dominion of Canada — 1 know it well, and I know what I am talking about. The people in this section of the country, in these united counties of Huntingdon, Chateduguay, and Beauharnois, are as intel- ligent as any you can find in any part of the Dominion of Canada, from one end of the country to the other. You have only to see the evidences of intelligence — the buildings, the roads, the churches, the state of advance- ment of your agriculture, and your respect for law i;io U i and order. Now, we have twelve representative men of these United Counties in the box. I do not wish to offend you, but I ask you, fjentlemen, of the twelve of you, now, how many could write a better letter than that young man wrote to Mr. Gault? A more intelh\ you would injure the chisel on the nails, and in the second place, if you did get the heel off, you would still be in a difficulty, because you would have to file the nails, or to drive them in, and the nails, if driven in, would go up in the inside of the boots, and you would be in a worse difficulty than in the first instance. So instead of taking them to a shoemaker, where they had been before to get the bottoms taken off, this young man, we Hre seriously told, took tnis chisel over to -\ndcrson's, to take 144 a portion of the heels off the boots. Now, gentlemen, I ask you if you do not consider that this story should be put where a number of other stories in this case are put? What ever degree of credence you may give to it, you will find the fact that this young man turns up at the mill with this arm and the pistol, in his pocket. My learned friend said that it was a mere toy pistol, ana would scarcely kill a cat if I understood him right. ' Mr. St. Pierre, Q.C.-Ye.s, but I did not say that ex- actly. I stated that the pistol was of twenty-two calibre • that this p.stol was unlikely to kill a man ; that, if there was any predisposition in his mind to kill when he left his room he would certainly have taken a more deadly weapon than this Mr. Mac-master, Q.C.-VVell, now, gentlemen, what is the proof before you ? I will deal with the question how effici- ently he was armed, in a moment. Mr St. Pierre, Q.C.-I said there was no proof that this chisel ever came from him. Mr. Macmaster, Q.C.-It was taken out of his pocket Mk. St.Pierre, O.C.-There is no proof that it was brought with hmn, because it would have shown when his coat was taken off and thrown on the counter. Mr. Macmaster, O.C.-That may be, but at all events that chisel was found in his coat pocket, inside of his clothes that night, after the murders. I do not wish to strain the argument beyond the facts. Well, now. gentlemen, you have it proved that two shots from that pistol were fired into the body of Leboeuf You have it proved that one shot from that pistol was fired into young Wilson, entered the right side of his body above the shoulder, and came out on the opposite side below the heart, traversing his body some eighteen inches. What saved the boy? Had that bullet touched his heart would he have been here to-day, or would not the people of Valleyfield have had to mourn three deaths instead of two^ You can see yourselves, when that pistol had the capacity to send a bullet through his body from the top of the shoulder to the lower left side, that it was a dangerous weapon 14.-) Mr. St. Pierre, O.C— There is proof that the wound was' produced, but not by the small weapon. The only proof that the small weapon was used was that a bullet fitting it was where ? On the floor, not in the bed ; if it had been found in the bed, it might have been different ; but it was found on the floor, and there is no proof that the wound which was inflict- ed was inflicted by that small weapon. Mr. Macmaster, Q.C— My recollection is this : that the small bullet came out of his inside shirt, and dropped on the floor when they were taking his (Wilson's) clothes off the next morning, and the small bullet undoubtedly belonged to the small pi.stol. Now, he came to the office and you know perfectly well that he spoke about robbing the office to Mac- Vicar. He did not speak about robbing it himself, but how easily it could be done. He comes in, goes up to the table, takes up the office pistol— the thirty-two calibre pistol— (he knew there was a pistol there). The same drawer that the pistol was in was full of cartridges of both kinds, cartridges for the small and the big pistol. He en^srs into conversation with these young men. He then takes this large pistol, saying he wants to look at it. T'.rst, Lowe takes the charge out of it, and gives it to the prisoner, who looks at it for quite a while, and then oils it. Then he returns it to Lowe, and Lowe loads it again. Then Shortis wants to see it again, he wants the name of the maker, and Lowe holds it and gives him the name of the maker. Lowe puts it loaded in the drawer where the cartridges are, and proceeds with the process of putting the money in the safe. Now, do you understand well that the place where Smith's desk was, and where Shortis stood when he commenced the attack, was at such a point that standing there, he (Shortis) had command of the whole room. There was Lowe, and there was Arthur Leb(euf — here you have young Wilson near the low part of tiic counter — there was Loye near the high part. Maxime LebiEuf in the meantime was out of the room on his rounds. Now, standing here, when he came over from the drawer, over which there was a good ligiit, and where he might have 10 i| iiii 14G I ; : : < looked at the model number when he took the revolver out of the drawer the second time, Lowe asked him what he was doing with it, and he said he wanted the model nuinber. Me had had it long enough before to get the model number ; he was oiling it for quite a while, he had it for an hour, and if he simply wanted the model number, why, when he took it out of the drawer (did he not use the light that was right over the drawer) and look at the model number there? That would not have been a strategical position ; so he goes back to his original position at Smith's desk. There he sees Loye with the high counter behind him, and there he sees Wilson with the low counter, three feet high behind him, and there were Lowe and xArthur Lebttuf on the next side to the vault. What does he do when he gets back to his position > He pulls the revolver apart. Why ? To see whether it was in working order or not, to see if it was sufficiently loaded or not. When he got it and went back to Smith's desk, the position was this : here was this man with an enormous chisel in his coat, or under his clothing, with a four-barrelled revolver loaded, and a five-chamber revolver loaded. Takine it apart, he could easily see whether Lowe had properly loaded it or not, and then in that position he immediately commi nces action. What does he do ? He does not fire at Loye first, for if he fired at Loye there, the chances are that Wilson would have jumped over the low place in the counter and escaped. But immediately after taking the large revolver a[)art, and seeing that it was properly loaded, he fired at Wilson like a flash, and the bullet strikes him. Wilson raises a cry, and Lowe runs up to catch him. Well, now, Mr. Greensiiields calls attention to that, and says that they must have regarded it as an accident. It is pos- sible that they did. It is impossible to conceive that these four young men, who were friends of the prisoner, thought this was a deadly assault on their lives. But their minds were soon disabused of such an impression. Dr. Bucke admitted to me that the prisoner had consciousnsss when the first shot went off, but thought that it was an accident. There is no 147 evidence it was an accident, but there is that it was not. Well, now, gentlemen, iftcr he fired at young Wilson, like a flash — as poor Loye made a race by to get to the telephone, possibly thinking it was an accident— like a flash the prisoner turned upon the others, and said. "Don't move, or I will shoot you," to Wilson and Lowe, Lowe having gone up to take hold of Wilson ; and then immediately, with perfect design, the prisoner turns around and shoots and kills Loye in the telephone box ; after that, he turns back and shoots at Lowe and Wilson, standing together, and then Lowe jumps under the table, grasps the money from the table, and goes into the safe, whither Arthur Lebceuf had just preceded him. Lowe was fired upon in his transit to the safe, but the bullet missed him. Then this poor boy Wilson, who was stunned, and almost shot unto death — because the bullet went into his face, and narrowly escaped his brain, passed down, striking his teeth, breaking four of them out, and dividing into two parts, one part going into the tongue and the other part passing out of the inside of the face — this poor boy is standing alone. He pleads with the prisoner not to shoot again, and moves in this direction ; but seeing that Wilson is moving in the direction of the telephone, the prisoner fires at him there and misses him, and then, as he goes back, fires at him again. In the mean- while, no doubt, Maxime Lebceuf, while making his rounds, heard these shots ; he comes around to the office entrance. What does the prisoner do ? He calls out, '"Maxime, Maxime! come here !" and poor Maxime opens the door, invited by a friendly voice. He might not have gone in, if it had been the hostile voice of a burglar ; but hearing a friendly voice, and knowing it was Shortis's voice, he goes in, and goes to his death — for he is immediately shot, and falls to the floor, though, no doubt, not wounded fatally then. Young Wilson, in the meantime, runs around to the door of Mr. Simpson's room. The prisoner, after having disposed of Lebceuf, fol- lows Wilson into Simpson's office, to put him out of the way. He kicks in the door: there is evidence of a struggle — a bone in the young boy's neck is broken — there is evidence of his ' ,u I I i«i 148 having been throttled, and, after some sort of a fight there, poor young Wilson gets away from him, runs along the hall, sees a form or some sort of shadow in the passage, supposed by him to be the body of Maxime I.ebci.nif, crawling along the floor. Wilson passed through the door leading into the weave-room. Just as he passed into the weave-room, a shot is fired at him ; it misses him. He goes into the weave-room and falls prostrate on the floor, after he is ten feet in. Then the prisoner returns to Maxime Leboeuf, and Wilson hears pistol shot.s, and sounds of a struggle going on in the passage where Maxime Lebceuf was. Next, the prisoner returns with a lantern — Maxime's lantern— and goes up, like a sleuth-hound, with his pistol in his hand, and stands over the body of that unfortunate boy, and fires a shot into his body as he is lying prostrate on the ground. Gentlemen, in warfare there is honour among the greatest enemies, and, whether it be a whole consciousness, or whether it be a half con.sciousness, it certainly is the consciousness of the devil, that could have promi)ted the fiendish act of firing that pistol shot into pcxjr young Wilson's body, while lying on the floor. If the first shot was a mistake, wliy in the name of everything that is sacred, and in the name of common .sen.se, did not he sav it was a mistake? There is no proof that it was a mistake — but take it on his own statement now. Why did not he say it was an accident, ; why ditl not he say at once, " It is an accident," and everyone of those persons there would have said, " Well, he was handling a revolver, and a terrible mistake occurred, but he w^as not to blame, if it was a mistake." That was his course, and tliat was the course of an innocent man, but the excuse made by him, through the doctors, is this, that he thought he was in the power of Simpson, which Dr. Clarke, of Kingston, interpreted to mean that he would be prosecuted before the law. Ah ! gentlemen, if it was a mistake, he need have had no fear of prosecution. It it was a mistake, his friends and companions would have explained that it was a pure accident. But, gentlemen, the very fact, that he says he felt he was in the power of 149 Simpson, shows that he thought he had fired, and would be [)rosecuted for it, and taking his own version of it, what does it amount to? To this: "I have put myself in Simpson's power ; now, I must proceed to exterminate the witnesses of the crime, and kill everyone." I am leaving out the vulgar idea of stealing monew The impulse came on him, and what was it, to blot out every person in that place, so that there would be no one to give evidence against him ? He was capable of that, because a few weeks before, he had pro- posed that he would shoot Simpson, if McGinnis would swear he was in another place. Obliterate the witnesses. That is the rational consequence of the theory that has been set up by the Defence. If it was an accident, why did not he say it was an accident? That was the course of innocence and truth, and the confession that he felt himself in the power of Simp- son was this : he said, " I fear that I shall be prosecuted now, and I must go ahead and slaughter every witness to the crime." Well, gentlemen, it is for you to weigh that, and it is for you to measure that. What do we find, gentlemen ? He returns to the safe after shooting Wilson. He returns through the halls to the safe, and holds a conversation with Lowe from the inside. He wants Lowe to open the safe. Lowe tells him they are locked in, and cannot open the safe. The prisoner asks for the combination, Lowe pretends to give it to him ; he tries to work the combination, they had given him the wrong combination, and he locks the safe instead of open- ing it. Why was he trying to get the men out of the safe ? The money was in that safe then. And when Lowe said : " For God's sake go away, you have done enough for one night," he goes to the front door, opens the door, making a pretence of going out, closes it with a slam, and then comes back on tiptoe to the safe — always the safe — always the safe -never very long away. He must sentinel the safe. There stood between him and fourteen thousand dollars only the two men in the safe, and if the safe had been opened, armed as he was to the teeth, with the chisel and these two : t.l ir.o revolvers that were taken from him loaded, these men's lives would not have been worth a minute's thought. Now, what do you think of his destroying the telephone ? What do you think that was done for? Have you made up your minds about that, gentlemen ? Maxime Lcbceuf was seen crawling along the passage. He was shot near the pas- sage, he was found at the bottom of the stairway, with braces tied around him. He had been carried or dragged down the steps. What do you think that was for ? When Dr. Suther- land and Napoleon Delisle came along, there was no body in the way. It had been removed from the passage where it had fallen, so that if anyone had come along the passage, there would be no body to obstruct the course, and to gk-c notice of the conflict and death, while Shortis was sitting in the office armed. Nothing to give them a note of wann'iig. because the body of Maxime Lebceuf was carefully carried down to the foot of the stairway ; and when Dr. Sutherland and Delisle came along, they did not see the body of Maxime Lebteuf. Now, gentlemen, it is said that he remained in the office, waiting for the police! Waiting for the police, gentlemen! In a small town like Vallcyfield, do you imagine that there is a policeman at every corner? How were the police to know that he was there ? The people of that quiet town were in their beds at eleven or twelve o'clock at night. If he wanted the police, if he had the consciousness that he was remaining there waiting f^ the police, and he knew there were only two or three policemen in town, why did he not go forth from the office when he re- gained consciousness? Why did he not go to the Mayor? Why did he not go to Poirier, the constable? Why did he not go to Dr. Sutherland, his medical adviser, or some lead- ing citizen of Valley field, and say : " A terrible thing has happened this m'ght, and I have make a frightful mis- take?" But, gentlemen, he was not waiting for the police, and did not exi)ect them. He had every reason to believe that young Wilson was dead. He went into the weave-room a second time, and did not see him. He took matches and lighted them, and held them over his own head. This- poor boy was lying behind a bench ; he had not the strength to move, and it is well he could not, but he heard the prisoner cry out, " Wilson, for God's sake Ilnghie, where are you?" No answer fr(jm Wilson. But no, he had shot him twice, once in the face, and once again through the body. He had reason to think that Wilson could not be far away, and must be lying down in his own gore, dead. At all events, he must have supposed that he could not get out of that large room, and that he was dead. But there is no time to wait there bothering with Wilson, it was, " the safe, the safe, the safe," because the money, and the two men guarding it, were in the safe. Gentlemen, the outstretched hand of I'rovidence raised that young man Wilson, and enabled him to crawl along the passages to get down to where the firemen were — a long dis- tance, nearly three hundred yards — and then from that, the alarm was sent to Dr. Sutherland and others. Dr. Sutherland who came first, like a brave man, thinking he might be of some assistance to those wounded in the office — and Napoleon Delisle, with cool courage — knowing that they were going to fight with a monster armed to the teeth, proceeded on their way to the office, one armed with a piece of zinc, and the other with a piece of heavy pipe. They started off, followed the dark passages, and came gradually up to the office door. Lowe and Arthur Lebceuf heard the sounds, and shouted to them, and they came up to the door, and one stood on each side of it, on the outer side — the dark side. The prisoner then started from the safe, and came along the passage with a pistol ; it is true it was in his left hand, the other pistol was under his shirt, or tied around his neck. He may not have expected to meet them there, or so soon, but just as he ap- peared, — came near the door, outside which stood two brave men— Dr. Sutherland shouted "hands up," and the strong arm of Napoleon Delisle caught the prisoner around the body. Two rude, but effective improvised weapons were levelled, and awaited his response. His hands went up, and he said " I give up my pistol, I do not know why I killed those men." W2 Gentlemen, there is a time in the career of every criminal and every prisoner, when he reco<,r„i/es that he is overpowered by superior force. Tlie spleiuh'd moral coura<,re of these two men, who went forward at tlic risk of their lives, does them infinite credit. .\s Napoleon said, " in war, even, the moral i^ to the physical as ten is to one." I have no doubt the superb wom/f of Dr. Sutherland and Xapoleon Dclislc over- came Shortis, and he readily succumbed when he .saw the game was up. Me saw two men -he did not l^ and could have put this money in the enormous coat he had. for we have proof that the bills were of the denominations of five dollars and ten dollars, and a package was on the table of one hundred of five dollar denomination, and one hun- dred of ten dollar denomination, making fifteen hundred dollars. It would not have been a difficult matter for him to have taken at least some ten thou.sand dollars in the large overcoat he had on that night. Ah ! but had he accomplice's ? Where would he go with the money, or what would he do with it ? In answer to that I would say, who would suspect him ? No one saw him go there ; nobody to this day has come for- ward to say that he saw Shortis cross the street and go in there. He was safe—Jack Anderson and he had surveyed the country well over, when they went out. He was safe. If he, in the depth of the night, at two, three, or four o'clock in loM the morning, had got out of that office with that money, and fired the builchng, who ever would have suspected Valentine Shortis ? No one. Well, now, gentlemen, we have him just on the morning of the homicide. He gives his pistol to Dr. Sutherland ; that was a piece of deceit, he had the other pistol thcii under his clothes. Still the criminal ; still the criminal. If he did not know why he had Idlled these men, if he had done it in a fit of frenzy or anything of that kind, and had come to consciousness, why didn't he deliver up both pistols ? Then Smith comes to him, and asks him if it was he who did this, and he looks up defiantly, and says : " Yes, it was ; shoot me, shoot me." What does that mean ? Is not that conscience's recognition of wrong doing ? Did not he feci that he had offended the law, and that life was due for life ? He had only one to give against the two or three taken, but did not he feel that he had broken the laws of his coun- try and forfeited his life ? Did not he have contrition ? Mr. Smith tells us that the prisoner also said, " Give me a revol- ver and I will shoot myself." He had a revolver all the time, and he had one at that time. He did not want to shoot him- self, until after his capture. Why did not he shoot him.self five minutes before Dr. Sutherland came ? He was .sentinel- ling the safe, the work was not done, it was not time to leave, it was better to stay. He was watching the safe. It was his best policy to stay, because, if he had gone, it would have been an acknowledgment of guilt, — the two witnesses were in the safe ; if he stayed, they might be suffocating and have to come out, and then he would get the money. Why, gentlemen of the jury, when he was sitting there on a chair that morning, if it was a mistake why did he not .say to Dr. Sutherland, to Smith, to all, to all the friends about him, " Oh ! this was a terrible mistake ; I was oilinsf the revolver, I took it up and pointed it at young Wilson, and it went off; it was a mistake, and I got so excited afterwards I could not control myself." Why did not he say it was a mis- take? He did not say it then or before. Why did not he, \\hcn he met the Herald reporter. ]\Ir. Burgess, the next 154 morning, say it was a mistake, a terrible mistake, as an inno- cent man would have said ? But he said, " I do not care to say anything at all, until I have consulted my legal adviser." Now, he did not have the benefit of my learned friend, Mr. Sr. Pierre's advice that morning — that was the second of March and Mr. St. Pierre did not arrive on the scene till the fourth, so this man was not a fool by half When he was in the post- office difficulty he .said, " I will go and see my lawyer," and when he was taken red-handed from the scene of death he said, " I have no explanation to make, until I see my lawyer." When the doctor goes to examine him in the jail he said, "Oh ! do not think me rude, but I mu.st decline to be examined. I am advised by my legal advisers not to allow myself to be examined." Now, gentlemen, taking that as a summary of the e\'idence-in-chief, I ask you now what does the case for the Crown present? The ca.se for the Crown presents clear and unmistakable proof that the prisoner killed John Loye. Is it excusable? What do you find, gentlemen of the jury, to excuse him ? Do you find that this man was insane, or do you find that he acted intelligently? Do you find that he acted with premeditation, malice, design, and thought, or is his killing the mere indiscriminate killing of a man that is caught with a sudden frenzy, and without any mo- tive whatever? You must remember that the law always presumes sanity until the contrary is proved. The first de- duction, gentlemen of the jury, that I will make for you from the evidence submitted on behalf of the Crown is this: The Crown's evidence in rebuttal shows clearly that at the time of the murder and before it, the prisoner was a youg man of intelligence, education, and manners, beyond his years, and that lie was in his normal state of mind, with no indica- tion of insanity, at the time he commenced the attack. That is the proof; that is the proof, too, of his condition of mind immediately after the murder, and later on next morninof after the murder. That is the proof on the night of the tragedy offered by all the young men that were there, who saw him later than Miss Anderson did. That is the pro(jf for months MPS .--am^- Ljiiifiissa 155 before, while he was in Valleyfield. There is a clear and un- broken chain of evidence of his intelligence and education, and absence of any indication whatever of insanity. That is the first point. Now, the second deduction I make from the evidence is thi.s. There is evidence that he meditated the robbery. There is evidence that he had a double motive, revenge on Simpson, and desire to get the monej'. There is evidence that the tragedy was executed with that motive and design, and the.se go to repel the idea that it was a mere sudden out- bi ^:ik of temper or frenzy. There is evidence that he was in c :■ erate circumstances, because he was four months in arrears for his board at his hotel. He had some little bills that he oweti, but he did not commit the murder for them alone. There is evidence that he was getting small pittances from home, as for instance, the one pound, and three pounds ten shillings post-office orders. There is evidence that he was in love with Miss Anderson. It is a fair inference from the correspondence between them and the evidence, that they con- templated marriage, and this may be another illustration of the desperate lengths to which a man will go for a woman. The French have a proverb, " In difficulties that seem insolv- able, chcrcJiez la fe miner You may have to do it here, gentle- men. It may be that to accomplish the desires that were near and dear to his heart, he resolved to enrich himself in this way. It does not follow because his father was a rich man, and worth very much more than one hundred thousand dollars — a fact that I did not see the necessity of flaunting before the Court and jury — that the son was incapable of com- mitting a crime. It may be that though his father was a rich man, he still was very niggardly with him. There is no evi- dence of any great expenditure on this young man in Canada. There is evidence that he was in close straits, although he was a sober young man. There is evidence, in addition to this, that he stated himself that he would clean out Mr. Simpson and his clerks, shortly before the cleaning out was attempted. Then, in addition to that, there is the clearest evidence before 156 you that he knew the nature of the crime he was committing, that he Unew it was murder, and that he knew murder was punishable. There is the unmistakable evidence of McGinnis on that point. There is the evidence of his statement to Jack Anderson and Poirier together, that if Bob went against him and Jack, it would be bad for them. There is evidence that he knew what a breach of the law was, because he pleaded guilty to carrying a revolver. He knew what the law was, for he applied for a license to carry a revolver. There is evi- dence that he was desirous of knowing what the law was, because he discussed the question of the hotclkeeper's liability with Mr. Simpson, and there is evidence that he knew he was liable to punishment for the post-office fraud, because he asked Mr. Brophy not to explain the real character of the transaction to Mr. Hatchett. Now, gentlemen of the jury, I have gone over the whole case as carefully and as impartially as I am able. How far you may be able to agree with me I do not know. You have a duty to perform, gentlemen, just as 1 have a duty to perform, just as my learned friends have a duty to perform, and just as His Lordship, who presides over this mo.st important case, has a duty to perform. As public prosecutor, I do not ask you to find this man guilty unless you honestly, and in your con- sciences, feel that he knew what he was about on that night, and that he knew he was breaking the law. That is as plain as it is possible for me to put it to you in words. I am not pleading for a verdict from you. You will apply your own good understandings to the case ; and if you are convinced that this man is not responsible before the law, as it will be explained to you — and you have some idea now of what consti- tutes responsibility — wh\' then release him. But if, on the other hand, gentlemen, you think he is guilty of murder, you must find the fact. Do not be under any misapprehension. My learned friend, Mr. Greetishields, told you there were only two po.ssible verdicts, one was "guilty of murder," and the other was " not guilty of murder, on the ground of insanity ; " and my learned friend proceeded to tell you what the consequence I 'I 157 of the latter verdict would be, namely, that Shortis would he kept in custody during the pleasure of the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor, which, in this case, he said, would mean for life. I do not wish to refer to that remark further than to say this to you, gentlemen, that imprisonment during the Lieutenant- Governor's pleasure does not necessarily mean for life. It means during the pleasure of the Lieutenant-Governor, and if his Counsel chose to advise him at any time that the prisoner should be released, then the custody would be for a shorter period than life. The other verdict, as Mr. Greenshields truly told you, is "murder"— the higliest crime known to the law. My learned friend invited you to go to the :afifold of this unfor- tunate man if you found the fact of murder against him, and to attend the funeral obsequies. Let me tell you, gentlemen, that you are not bound to accept that invitation. You have nothing to do with the scaffold. You are not erecting his scaffold. If he is condemned, he has erected his own scaffold. You are only performing your part of duty, if you condemn him for sufficient cause. You are here representing public justice. If you find the fact that he is guilty, His Honor will pronounce the sentence which the laws of your-country im- pose. The responsibility is divided between you. Then, after that, whether he is executed, or whether he is kept for a period in the asylum, or whatever may happen, is regu- lated by the laws of your country, and is a matter altogether outside of your functions. You have nothincr to do with that. Let me tell you, gentlemen of the jury, you must be very careful to remember, in coming to your conclusion, that what you have to think of is public justice, that the law may be properly administered, that the prisoner should get an absolutely fair trial, and that your verdict will inspire respect for law and order. You are not there to consider the terrible grief that has come over Mr. and Mrs. Shortis. You are there to do your duty as men, bound and sworn to bring in a verdict according to the evidence, without regard to the feelings of anyone. For, gentlemen, if you allow sympathy to sway you from the path 158 of duty, how would you distribute your sympathy ? You must feel for this unfortunate gentleman and his unfortunate wife, the grief-stricken parents of the prisoner, whose hearts must bleed for their son's unhappy co:idition. Everyone in this Court House, everyone in this country and in Ireland, must feel sympathy for them ; but, gentlemen, do not you see that if your hearts are carried away, and if your heads are unmanned, and if you are asked to go aside from the straight path of duty— the sworn path of duty— for the sake of Mr. and Mrs. Shortis, you might equally be asked to think of those who are dead and gone, never to return, and to extend your sympathy to the father and mother of that bright boy, who was their great hope and joy, who was stricken down on the threshold of manhood, without one moment to make his reckoning with his God ? Think not of him, for, if you do, " His virtues Will plead like angels, trunipet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking oft." Think not of them. And think not of the sorrowing widow and fatherless children in that humble Valleyfield home, of her who has lost for ever the support and succor of her hus- band, or of the children who can never know how great their loss is. No more will the orphan children of Maxime Leboeuf feel the gentle caress of their father's strong hand. Think not of the sadness in that humble home. Put that aside, gentlemen — you have nothing to do with it. Put the case of Mr. and Mrs. Shortis aside — you have nothing- to do with that. Let the law be truly and honestly adminis- tered above every consideration. Be firm. Be strong Be just. Your only duty is to find the fact,— is the accused guilty, and if .so, is he to be excused on account of human infirmity? Mercifully spare him, if the compass of life,— God-given understanding,— was absent. Justly condemn him, if he maliciously slew his fellow men. Remember, gentlemen, that the jury sy.sten- is the .safeguard of the liberties we enjoy under the criminal law ; and I tell you that it cannot be successfully and efficiently administered in any 159 country except by men possessing the genius for justice, the! strong, practical sense, and the love of liberty, of the great people that created and maintained it. Therefore, gentle- men, whatever your verdict may be, let it be a verdict according to justice, a verdict according to your consciences, and a verdict in accord with the evidence. Perform that duty honestly and faithfully as men, and you can leave those who mourn in Valleyfield, and those who mourn in Ireland, out of your present consideration. Leave them to the succour and comfort of another Power, leave them to the God of infinite justice, of infinite mercy, and infinite truth — to that God " who bindeth up the broken hearted, and comforteth those that mourn." 2 3rd Day of Trial— October 28tli, 18^5. MR. MACMASTEFi'S ARGUMENT UPON TflE POINTS OF LAW RAISED HV MR. ST. PIERRE, Q.C. D. Macm ASTER, Q.C— I beg to say, with regard to the law that should govern in this case, that it is not being tried under the law of the State of New York. For my part I do not know what that law is. It is not being tried under the law of the State of Maine, or under the law of the State of Virginia, nor yet under the law of France or Germany, and many of the authorities referred to by my learned friend, although interesting from an academic standpoint, have little or no weight as authority. Under the law of France there is a special article in their Penal Code, making provision for madness and delusion being a defence. Our law, in my view, does not make like provision. The law we have to be governed by is the law contained in Article 1 1 of the Criminal Code, which is as follows : — " No person shall be convicted of an offence by reason of an act done or omitted by him when labouring under natural imbecility or disease of the mind, to such an extent as to render him incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission." And the provision hereinafter contained in section y^G of our Criminal Code, and then the third provision of section 1 1 is : "That everyone shall be presumed to be sane at the time of doing or omitting to do any act, until the contrary is proved." Now, the first proposition that I will submit to Your Honour in reply to my learned friend is this : that the pro- visions of the Code must be construed as a Statute. It does not matter whether we call it a Code or a Statute, the words must be interpreted by themselves. I do not think it is necessary to cite any authority upon that point, but there arc two leading cases, and one is the case of Vagliano and the J OF LAW 101 Hank of Engla.Kl, a.id the other is the case of Robinson against the Canadian Pacific Railuay. In the former case Lord Herschell stated-in the latter case, the case of Robinson and the C .P.R., tlie Judge who delivered the judgment followed Lord Herschell and adhered to the same view-that it was luimaterial whether it was a Statute or Code, we must be governed by the words in order to ascertain the intentions of the legislature. I can give Your Honour the exact reference to these cases. I was citing them from memory. Robinson and the C.P.R. is in L.R. ,2 Appeal Cases, 1892, at page 487. The case of Vagliano and the Bank of England is in Law Reports Appeal Ca.ses, 1891, page 145. These are the highest , authorities. Now, I will not trouble Your Honour with any- thnig more about that. Now with regard to the meaning of this section of the Statute in relation to in.sanity ; Your Honour asked the question of the learned Counsel-I am not prepared to say that there is any very material difference between the law as put down in this Code, and the law as put down in the answer ol the Judges to the House of Lords in the Macnaughton case (4 Wallis, State Trials, New Series, p. 847), but there is this about the Code, there is special provision in respect of delusions of a particular kind, namely, specific delusions, and these are the only delusions provided for, and therefore upon principle where specific delusions are provided for the others are excluded. Rr/>ressw unius est exclusio alterins Only the delusions that are referred to here are such as could be recognized under our law. Now what are they? The oil))- delusions that could be recognized under the provisions of the Statute would be such a delusion as, if it was a reality would justify the prisoner in taking the life of the man he killed. Hv THE Court.— The Defence has admitted that para- i^raph of the Section has no application to this. Mr. MacmastER, O.C— The precise words are: "Unless the delusions cau.sed him to believe in the existence of some 11 102 state of things, whicli, if it existed, would justify or excuse liis act or omission." Tlic next question is as to the burden of proof, and upon that I do not see how th<,re can be any doubt, for the Statute says : " I'Lvery one shall be presumed to be sane at the time of doing or omitting to do any act until the contrary is proved." Therefore the prisoner here is presumed to be sane, until the Defence completely removes the presumption of law, and establishes to the satisfaction of the jury, and, I submit, bex'ond a reasonable doubt, that the prisoner was not capable, in the words of the Statute here, of understanding the nature and quality of the act, and of knowing that his act was wrong, that is, contrary to the law. Now, it is rather important that there should be no doubt about that, for in an ordinary criminal case the whole burden is on the prosecutor ; here the burden is shifted, and unless the jury can find clearly and to their satisfaction that the man was so insane as not to know what he was doing, not to know the nature of his act, not to know it was against the law, I submit, as a proposition of law, they must convict the prisoner. Harris, at page 22, Criminal Law, says : " The law presumes sanity, and therefore the burden of the proof of insanity lies on the defence. Even in the case of an acknowledged luna'ac, the offence is presumed to have been committed in a lucid interval unless the contrary be shown. It is for the petty jury to decide whether a case of insanity, recognized as such by the law, has been made out." Mr. St. Pierre, Q.C. — It is for the petty jury to decide. Mr. Macmaster, Q.C. — Yes, unquestionably. The Judge instructs the jury as to what the law is, and upon whom the burden of proof is, and with that instruction of course it is for the petty jury to weigh all the facts and cir- cumstances, and to take the law from the Court. In the same way Roscoe says at page 945 : — "To amount to a complete bar of punishment, either at the time of committing the offence, or of the trial, the 163 or cxcu.-ie insanity must have been of such a kind as entirely to deprive ^ the prisoner of the use of reason, as applied to the act in question, and of the knowledge that he was doing wrong in committing it. If, though somewhat deranged, he is yet able to distinguish right from wrong in his own case, and to know that he was doing wrong in the act which he committed, he is liable to the full punishment of his criminal acts. The onus of proving the defence of insanity, or, in the case of lunacy, of showing that the offence was committed when the prisoner was in a state of lunacy, lies upon the prisoner; and for this purpose the opinion of a person possessing medical skill is admissible. The insanity may also be inferred from the behaviour of the accused and other facts in the evidence." Now, may it please the Court, in estimating whether the act was committed from insanity or from some other motive, Roscoe says at page 948 : — " It has been justly observed that the plea of insanity must be received with much more diffidence in cases pro- ceeding from the desire of gain, as theft, swindling, or forgery, which generally require some art and skill for their com- pletion." Archibald says the same thing with regard to the burden of proof, and with regard to the motive, and I do not think I will take up Your Honour's time with much more on that subject, particularly as my learned friend (Mr. Laureudeau) is going to refer to Russell on Crimes. I call Your Honour's attention to the section that was read by Your Honour from Taylor the other day, during the dis- cussion with regard to the burden of proof in insanity cases ; it is the section on pages 215 and 216 of the first volume of Taylor on Evidence :— It concludes in this way : " In like manner every man is presumed to be of sane mind until the chether or not the man is very different from other men.'' Then, may it please the Court, he i:^oes on to speak about another branch of the case, and lie finally comes to distin- guish the civil capacity to make a will under the English statute from the crinn'nal responsibility in a matter like that we have to deal with here. 1 Ic says, at page 72, « // is essen- tial to constitute responsibility for crime, that a man should understand the nature and quality of the thing that he is doing, or that he shall be able to distinguish, in the act he i^ doin^ right from wrong. Xow, a very small degree of intelligenceli sufficient to enable a man to Judge of the quality and nature of the act, zvhether he is doing right or wrong when he kills another man; accordingly, he is responsible for the crime committed if he possesses that amount of intelligence:' What amount of intelligence ? "A very small amount of intelligence." So that here we have not only the distinction drawn between capacity to contract under the English Statute and in respect of e.xecuting a will, or in the other case a Power of Attorne)-, because in one of the other cases referred to in Taylor the question is in respect of the cai>acity to execute a Power of Attorney and the amount of intelligence that is suf- ficient to make one answer for a crime. And the argument was this : — A man knows perfectl\- well when he is commit- tmg a crime. It does not require much intelligence for him to know u hen he commits murder ; but it retpiires a ver\' much larger degree of intelligence for a man to understand the complex provisions of a comi)licated will. Now, having left that question of the burden of proof, and having made this distinction, I will be very glad to send these books to Your Honour, because the distinction is very well and ably defined. Bv The Colri-.— I do not see that it makes any differ- ence as to what I ruled the other day. I will submit to joii 1G9 what I understand, that when you prove a man is insane' before the crime, then the jury can infer from that evidence that at the time of the crime he was insane. Mr. Macmaster, Q.C— I do not think that at all. The Court. — It does not follow because the Defence does not bring in evidence at the moment of the crime that the jury cannot infer that he was insane from the evidence of cer- tain facts anterior. Mr Macmaster, Q.C— I misunderstood, Y ur Honour. TiJE Court— I go that far, and if you prove that a man is insane before the crime, by facts anterior to the crime, and if still the presumption exists that he must be considered as insane if you do not prove at the moment of the crime that he is insane, but I am not ready to admit that, but the jury can infer against that presumption of law that exists when there is no evidence — can infer that he was insane at the very moment he committed the crime by the evidence of mere anterior acts. Mr. Macmaster, O.C— I agree with Your Honour to that, but they must consider all the acts, all the anterior acts, and the acts immediately surrounding the crime. ]^V THE Court. — If there is no evidence of insanity at the very moment the act was done, that then the presumption exists although there is proof of insanity before, well I do not a-rce with that, but if you sa}- the jury can infer insanity at the moment the act is committed by the evidence of anterior acts, they can all be taken together, well, then, I agree with that. Mr. Macmaster, Q.C— I cannot agree to that proposi- tion; I thought I was with Your Honour, but I am not. ^'<)ur Honour will find that the law says the moment he commits the acts he is supposed to be sane. The Court — Supposing that nobody had seen the man l bell, " Skilled u'itnes.ses come with such a bias on their minds to support the cause in which they are embarked diat hardly any weight should be given to their evidence." That is one reason wh}- the Crown has not thouii-lit it necessary to call ui)on experts, because that is the usual appreciation of them, especially when they go (nit of their way to sui)port their cause. The next point to which I call Your Honour's attention is, that there is no recognition given in the law to " moral in- sanity "—no recognition given b>' any of the legal authorities. Bv TilK Court.— Not if you distinguish it from natural imbecility. Mr. AL\(•^r..\.sT^:R, Q.C— Yes, Your Honour; but there is no recognition given whatever in any one case to moral in- sanity. I cannot find one case, in the whole course of h:ng- lish decisions, where a Judge has charged that moral insanity would be ,1 defence for a man. Suppose a man had no morals at all, th ne was a black criminal, could he set that up as a defence, and could he doctor some Court and say 173 LJRT. — He has no moral principles because he is Thk Co insane. Mr. xMacmastek, Q.C— He could have just as good an intellect as the Judge on the Bench, or . . . Till': Court. — Then that would not excu.se him. Mr. Macma.ster, Q.C— No. He is not insane, .so in that scn.se moral imbecility and moral in.sanity are no defence whatever in law, and I do not trouble Your Honour to cite aur'orities on that, because no authorities can be cited where moral imbecility or moral insanity ever excu.sed a man. Then, in addition to that, is there anything in the law, which recog- nizes that a mere impulse — ^impulsive insanity — will excuse a man ? Is there any recognition of that in the law ? I submit, a.s .1 proposition of law, that there is no authority in any case in the English or Canadian Law Courts recognizing impulsive in.sanity as a justification for crime, I fail to find any; doctors set it up, doctors set up moral insam'ty ; but where are chey recognized in law ? I can find no recognition whatever ; con.sequently it is difficult for one to put his hand on a case. The only thing that can be recognized is the general term of the law — "natural imbecility and disea.se of the mind." And what is " natural imbecility " under the definition of the law ? VVc do not care for the meaning of words, for this man has been called more words than would condemn a man to a thousand years' punishment ; but what is the meaning of "natural imbecility" as interpreted in Roscoe and Archibald and all the authorities ? Why, they say it is the case of a man that does not know his father and mother — a state of idiotcy ; of a man who cannot tell tlie days of the week — a man who cannot count twenty. That is the definition given by the law. That is not the ca.se of this pri.soner ; but that is the definition of natural imbecility given by the law. Then we come, may it please the Court, to the case of disease of the mind, and in that connection there is a good deal more room for contention ; but it is contended that the disease of the mind in this case is delusional insanity, that is, a species of insanity coming on afterwards, and that that insanity 174 was symptomiscd (if I may use that word) by certain delusions and certain hallucinations. Now, I will not discuss that now, I will discuss the facts re_i^ardin<^ that to the jury, but I sa)* that in order that this should have a foundation the prisoner must have had a complete misconception of fact. We had two or three illustrations of what a delusion niiijht be ; we had one read to you rnd approved of by Dr. Anglin during his cross- examination. One was the case of a man who was in the asylum and imagined that he lived in the time of Noah, that he was so many thousand years old, that he had travelled with St. Paul, and that he gave St. Paul a lift on Peebles Road in Scotland. Well, that was a complete delusion, and we have tlie other case of a woman who imagined she was one of the persons of the Trinity. There is a complete mis- conception as to fact, and to be a delusion, the mind must be upset and paralysed by the individual imagining a state of things that is utterly incompatible with fact. P^jr instance, a lunatic thinks he has a glass leg, and he cannot put his leg on the ground. Another thinks that he has rats in his inside, and that he cannot eat, though dying of starvation. These are delusions, and when we come to submit the facts to the jury we will find how far these principles are in consonance with the delusions mentioned in this case. I was ver\' much pleased when my learned friend, Mr. St. Pierre, discussed this question, and I do not think Your Honour will take it amiss if the Counsel in the case makes some reference to the subject, and what has been done before, for it is no disparagement to Your Honour's great learning and great experience. This is a difficult question, and this is an important trial, and I am sure that everybody connected with it wishes to do the right thing. If we refer to these cases and these authorities, I am sure it will not be ill-received by Your Honour at all events. I refer to a very celebrated case decided since the Macnaghton case. It is the case of the Queen against Burton, and it is cited in all the books and in HI. P^oster and h'inlaj'son, at page 780. Now the charge was delivered by Mr. Justice Wightman, and it is very short. It M4 17.^ t'> is only a page, and I shall take the liberty of reading it to Your Honour : — " As there was no doubt about the act, the only question was whether the prisoner, at the time he committed it, was in such a state of mind as not to be responsible for it. The prisoner's account of it was, that he had done it from a morbid feeling ; that he was tired of life, and wished to be rid of it. No doubt, prisoners had been acquitted of murder on the ground of insanity ; but the question was, what were the cases in which men were to be absolved from responsibility on that ground. Hatfield's case differed from the present, for there, wounds had been received on the head, which were proved to have injured the brain. In the more recent case of Macnaghton, the Judges had laid down the rule to be, that there must, to raise the defence, be a defect of reason from disease of the mind, so as that the per.son did not know the nature and quality of the act he committed, or did not know whether it was right or wrong. Now, to apply this rule to the present case would be the duty of the jury. It was not mere eccentricit}' of conduct which made a man legally irresponsible for his acts. The medical man called for the defence defined homicidal mania to be a propensity to kill, and described moral insanity as a state of mind under which a man, perfectly aware that it was wrong to do so, killed another under an uncontrollable impulse. This would appear to be a most dangerous doctrine, and fatal to the interests of society, and security of life. The question is, whether such a theory is in accordance with law ? The rule, as laid down by the Judges, is quite inconsistent with such a view ; for it was that a man was responsible for his actions, if he knew the difference between right and wrong. It was urged, that the prisoner did the act to be hanged, and so, was under an insane delusion, but what delusion was he under .^ So far from it, it showed that he was quite conscious of the nature of the act and of its consequences. He was supposed to desire to be hanged, and in order to attain the object, committed murder. That might show a morbid state of mind, but not delusion. 170 Homicidal mania, again, as described by the witnesses for the defence, showed no dekision. It merely showed a morbid desire for blood. Delusion meant the belief in what did not exist. The question for the jury was, whether the prisoner, at the time he committed the act, was labouring under such a species of insanity, as to be unaware of the nature, the character, or the consequences of the act he committed, [n other words, whether he was incapable of knowing that what he did was wrong. If so, they should acquit him. If other- wise, they should find a verdict of guilty. Verdict guilty." I desire, out of respect for my learned friend. Mr. St. Pierre, to make a brief reference to the case of Had field. That, of course, is a very leading case, and naturally so, because the attack was made upon the King by Hadfield, and it attracted an enormous amount of attention, and the greatest lawyers of the day were engaged in the case. That case is reported in full in 27, Howell's State Trials, p. 1288. Now, what was proven in that case? I have a full report in the State Trials before me, but I will not take up the time of Your Honour and the jury by reading it, but my learned friend will correct me if I am wrong. This man had been a soldier in the army, he was wounded in battle, he was taken off the field in an unconscious condition, he was seven days in delirium suffering from the blows he had received on his head, he was ev'cry year from the month of May until the end of the dog-days (that is, about the first of August) in a lunatic asylum, and ultimately, partly through the effect of his wounds — and no doubt the brain had been damaged — and partly from other causes, he became periodically insane. He had at one particular period conceived certain ideas with regard to the Almighty and with regard to our Saviour, and the most extravagant and b;;'sphemous ideas. On the very day before he shot at the King he attacked his own child, an infant that he dearly loved, and tried to kill it by forcibly thrusting it against a bedpost. He then jumped into a cup- board, and, when overpowered there, he spilt a little dish of water and, looking at the water, said, " Look at the blood run- t I ning from my leg." Under these the fact that thi rred circumstances, and owinff to '■■" occurred just the day Octore he shot at inc Kmg, Lord Ken)-on, uho tried the case, asked the Crown after this evidence was put in by the Defe.icc, if it was possible to rebut the facts. The Solicitor-General of that day, and Mr Garrow with him, b.^th said they could not rebut thi.s, it was an actual fact ; whereupon Lord Kenyon directed the jury, that, under the special circumstances of the case, they could bring in a verdict of not guilty, but that he hoped some steps would be taken by the Government to keep this man per- fectly safe, and the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty, on the ground of insanity. Now, that celebrated case is not only interesting in this respect, but it is also interesting in regard to some of the remarks that were made by the leading Counsel for the defence and the leading Counsel of that day, who afterwards became so eminent on the Bench. The law laid down by Mr. Erskine, then .speaking for the defence, has never been '^eri- onsly controverted to this day, so much so that in a recent great trial, Lord Chief Justice Cockbnrn cited the law in England, stating " this is the law as put down by this distin guished man. Lord (then Mr. Erskine), and it is the indis- putable law to-day." Now I take the liberty of reading from it one or two sentences. Mr. Erskine, speaking for the Defence, says, " I agree with the Attorney-General that the law, in neither civil nor criminal cases will measure the degrees of men's under- standings. .-/ rcw?/- wm^, however much bchnv the ordinary standard of human intellect, is not only responsible for crimes but is bound by his contracts and may exercise dominion over his property r Then he goes on to another phase of the case, and then he says w ith regard to delusions :— " Delusion, therefore, where there is no frenzy or raving madness is the true character of insanity. Where it cannot be predicated of a man standing for life or death for a crime, he ought not, in my opinion, to 12 ITS be acquitted, and if Courts of law were to be ^roverned by any other principle, every departure from sober, rational conduct would be an emancipation from criminal justice. I shall place my claim to your verdict upon no such danc^erous foundation. I must convince you, not only that the unhappy prisoner was a lunatic within iny own definition of lunacj-, but that the act in tiuestion was the immediate unqualified offspring;- of the disease. Where the connection is doubtful, the jud<;mcnt should certainly be most indulgent, from the great difficulty of diving into the secret .sources of a disordered mind ; but still, I think that as a doctrine of law, the delusion and the act should be connected." By TiiK Court.— What is that book? Mr. M ACM aster, O.C— This is the report of the speech of Mr. Erskine as contained in the State Trials, 27 Howell's State Trials, page 1307, and 1 shall be pleased to send the volume of the State Trials to you. Now, one word more, Mr. Erskine approaches the matter this way ; he says, " I admit also, that the my.sterious, and, in this case, traitorous intention must be inferred from all the.se acts, unless I can rebut the inferences by proof. If I were to fire a pistol towards you, gentlemen, where you are now sittin"-, the act would undoubtedly infer the malice. The whole proof therefore is undoubtedly cast upon me." Now, may it please the Court, I submit that as a correct statement of the law with regard to where the burden of responsibility lies in such matters. 1 am not going to trouble Your Honour about citing medical authorities.but I will refer to the well-known work that is often referred to in our Courts, " Taylor's Medical Jurisprudence." One paragraph at page 719, says ; " When the defence of .insanity is set up on a charge of murder— in order to warrant the jury in acquitting a prisoner, it must be proved affirmatively that he was insane in a certain legal -sense at the time of perpetrating the act ; if this be left in doubt, and if the crime charged in the indictment be proved, it is their duty to convict him. It is necessary to impress upon the mind of the medical witness, that it is not 170 medical but legal insanity which is required to be proved, on these occasions. As Jiardly two men agree about -um / m s& y ■"i^ 7 .*. "-/A Photographic Sciences Corporation ^f S s V \ <* *> ^^ ■' the men. The money is sent by express, and reaches Valleyficld between six and seven o'clock on the Friday evening. The person in charge of the ofifice receives the money, puts it in the vault in the office, and waits until one or two of the clerks of the Company come in to open the package in case of mistakes. Then he opens the package, counts the money to see if it corresponds with the requisition Then, with the heli) of -'erks, he proceeds to divide the money in small sums for ,ach man. Those small packages are remitted to the men, on the Monday afternoon. On Friday, the first of March last (1895), John Lowe, who then had charge of the office of the Company, received the money from the express, about fourteen thousand dollars ($14,000.) At about half past seven, Lowe and Hugh A. Wilson, one of the clerks of the Company, began to divide the money in small amounts, and put it in packages for each of the men. At about nine o'clock, John Loye, akso one of the clerks of the Company, came in the office and began to work also. 185 Maxime Lcboeuf, one of the ni^ht watchmen of the Company, was also in the office. At about ten o'clock, the prisoner rapped at the door of the office. Love inquired who it was, and the prisoner answered, " Shortis." Then Loye and Maxime Lebctuf opened the door and let him in. The prisoner came in, and went to the counter which divides the office in two parts. He began to laugh and talk in his usual way. He used to be very friendly with Lowe and the other clerks. The prisoner then went around the counter and came to the pay table, where Lowe and WiLson were working, and con- tinued talking and laughing as usual. Lowe's revolver, five chambers, 32 calibre, was lying on the pay table. The prisoner wanted to take it, but Lowe objected. The prisoner then went again to the counter, took an apple which he began to eat and took oft' his overcoat. He came back to the pay table, eating his apple and talking. He again asked for the revolver. Lowe unloaded the revolver and then gave it to him. The orisoner then said to Lowe that he would clean the revolver and asked Loye if he had not oil for thai purpose. Loye got some oil for him and the accused began to clean the revolver. Whilst he was cleaning the revolver, Arthur Lebceuf, another of the night watchmen, came in and sat near the vault. The accused worked at the revolver for about an hour. He brought it back to the pay table, talking on various subjects. He asked Lowe permission to load it. Lowe would not allow him. He then laid the revolver on the table. Lowe and Wilson were just finishing the work for the evening. Wilson left the table to go and dress himself, Lowe began putting the balance of the money in the vault. WHien he\ad most of the money off" he took the revolver off" the table, turned away to a corner of the office and loaded the revolver, which he then placed in a drawer in the counter. The prisoner then came back to Lowe and said he would like to have the maker's name of the revolver. Lowe showed him the name and read it to him. The prisoner took the name on paper, Lowe then replaced it in the drawer and i 18G took some .ilver off the table and books and put them i.i the V3,Ui t. In the meantime, the accused went to the drawer a.id took the revolver. When Lowe was cominjr out of the vault he saw the accused with the revolver in his hand and he told h.m to leave that revolver alone ; that they could not work vyhenhewas fooling with the revolver. The prisoner then said that he wanted to get the model number. He then went to the middle desk, in the middle of the office, with the revolver Ixethen stood between Lowe and Arthur Lebc^uf and the outside door, a.id opposite to Wilson and almost opposite to Loye. He pulled the revolver open and then closed it and suddenly fired at Wilson, who was standing by the counter, at a distance of about five feet from the prisoner He was so near that the powder discoloured Wilson's ace and left marks on his clothes. The ball struck Wilson m the face. Wilson threw up his hands to his head and began to yell and prance. Lowe immediately rushed to W.feon and took him in his arms to support him and Loye, who was thc.i writing at his desk on the counter, near the place where Wilso.i ther. was, rushed to the telephone box to telephone to the doctor. They evidently both believed that it was an accident, but the prisoner said to Lowe who was supporting Wilson in his arms : " If you move will shoot you." Then he turned quickly, made a steJ towards Loye, who was then in the telephone box, and fired at h.m. Loye fell. He was dead. Then the prisoner turned again towards Lowe and Wilson and fired at them He does not appear to have hit them. Then Lowe, being frightened, le t Wilson, passed under the pay table and jumped up on the other side, grabbed two packages of money which remained here on the pay table, and rushed to the vault, where Arthur LebcxHif had preceded him. As Lowe went to the vault. Short.s fired at him. but did not hit him. The ball struck the door of the vault. Lowe pulled the door after him and closed It by moving the inside bolts. The prisoner then went to try and open the vault's door, bu'. Lowe held it ti-ht IH7 Then the pri.so,icr fired agai. twice at Wilson, who was tryins ^ escape b.^ he ..issed him. When Shortis began to shoot Maxnne LebceuUne of the night watchme .. h.d gone on sho^ ^'•^K^^'^^";"^ --- - the vault, and after three hots had been fired at Wilson, only one with effect, the pnsoner hearing Maxime Lebcuf coming from the H lo, Max.me! What is the matter with you P Come here. Lebct-uf answered, "Nothing, nothing." Then the pnsoner vvent round the counter and met Maxime Lebcenf in ; n iT- ?'" '^" '"'" ^"^ '^'' office, and fired at him and killed h.m. Maxime Lebau.f, after .some struggle, fell dead In the meantime Wilso.i, trying to escape, had run into the manager's office and closed the door after him. The prisoner then rushed to the managers office and, finding the door closed on Wilson, he forced it open, although Wilson leaned on It, kickmg one of the panels out. Wilson managed to escape, Shortis pursuing him, but the prisoner could not hit hrni, because apparently his revolver was empty. ]kit he loaded his revolver and, as Wilson entered the large weave room, he fired at him again, but missed him. Wilson was then in the large weave room, at about ten feet of the first door leading from the weave room to the office. He fell on the floor fr m weakness. A few minutes after, the prisoner went back to Wilson, in the large weave room, with a lantern, which is supposed to be Maxime Lebauf, the night watchman's lantern, and then fired again at Wilson' who was lying on the floor. The bullet entered below the collar bone, and passed through his body, grazing the lung and coming out between the ribs on his right side. "^ Then, he vvent back again to the office, shooting again, it is supposed, at Lebocuf, who was probably dead then. Wilson recovered some strength and crawled to the other end of the weave room and fell again on the floor, near a bench that was there. Shortis went twice to look for him, but he had not then his lantern, and lit matches ; he could not find Wilson. The last 'M IHH II^^H time he called him, aiul said, " Wilson ! Wilson • for "Clod's sake where are yoi, ?" Of course, Wilson did not answer Then Shortis went back to the office, and Wilson managed to reach the pump-room, which was at a distance of about^'three hundred feet from the office. There he found Charles Lccompte and Napoleon Delislc, who went for Dr. Suther- land. Shortis went again to the vault door and said • "Lowe, for God's .sake come out!" Lowe answered him that he could not, but told him to turn the handle of the safe, which Shortis did, thinking that he would open it • but, mstead of that, it had the effect of locking the safe' Lowe, from the vault, asked Shortis, " Where is John Loye ?" and Short:.s answered, " He has gone into the mill and I ca.mot find him, and Wilson is lying here. Come out and help me do something for him." Lowe told him : " Shortis for God's sake, go out by the front door." Shortis answered' " Very well ! All right, Lowe." The prisoner then went to the front door, slammed it and then came back to the vault door on his tip-toe.s. In the meantime, Dr. Sutherland who had arrived at the mill and seen Wilson, after telephon- mg to Sparrow, one of the employees of the company, and bemg armed with an iron bolt, and Napoleon Delisle with a gas pipe, went through the mill towards the office where the prisoner was. On coming to the last door separating the office from the passage leading to the mill, they stood en each side of the door, holding their pipe and bolt in their hands ready to strike, and waited for Shortis, who had heard them, and was coming in their direction. When he was at a few feet from that door, they suddenly showed themselves calling, "hands up," and then the pri.soner, who had his loaded five chamber revolver in his left hand said • " I want to give myself up, here is my revolv ^r. I do not know why I killed these men." The accused had then his overcoat on It was buttoned up. It was then about a quarter to two o'clock. Then Dr. Sutherland found that Loye was lying dead in the telephone box. Then Lecompte, Smith and Sparrow, three employees of the Company, came in. They 189 found Maxime Lcbct-uf dead in th place where he was killed to the lower "flat?" T e stairs leadinn h.s body. His .i.du wrist was tied by a pair of braces and there was a knot at the other end of the braces We can presume that the prisoner pulled Lebc.:urs body in the sta.rs to take him out of the way. When Smith arrived in the office and .saw the prisoner, he told him : " You arc the thmg that cid this." The prisoner, throwing his head back •sa.d : ' I am the man." And he added : " Shoot me, or lend nie your revolver and I will shoot my.self" They found on the prisoner, inside of his coat, a big chisel and, under a wool- len jersey which he had over his shirt and trousers, a loaded revolver of four chambers, 22 calibre, which he had, inuler his left arm, tied to a handkerchief which was on his chest as a shoulder belt, and they also found on him sixteen cartridges of 32 calibre and eleven cartridges of 22 calibre. The pri- soner had taken those cartridges, at least those of thirty-two calibre, from the drawer where the revolver had been put by Lowe. The telephone receiver and other portions of the telephone were found broken in the passage near the place where Lebceuf had been shot. After being arrested the prisoner asked permission to write a letter to Miss Anderson They would not let him do it ; but somebody wrote "the letter for him under his dictation and, at his request, sent it to Mkss Anderson. The letter to Miss Anderson is in the following terms: " My dear M. Telephone home Anticere Don't fret ; if Bob gives any dirty talk, you tell him to mind his own business or I will make it bad for him. Send Jack to me immediately. I remain yours lovingly, B. SllORTis." These are the circumstances of the killing. Do they con- stitute a murder ? Murder is the killing any person, under the Queen's peace, with malice aforethought, either expressed or implied by law' There is no difficulty as to the killing, and by whom the killing was done, On the first day of March last, John Loye was killed by Francis Valentine Cuthbert Shortis. The evidence with regard to that part of the case is positive, and up 100 has not been attempted to be rebutted by the defence, liut you have also to decide whether the l' of the act he is doing ; the aberration must be mental, not moral merely. Natural imbecility is a natural weakness of the mind owing to defective mental development, and may be of any degree of deficiency, moral and intellectual ; on the one hand, passing by imperceptible gradations into idiocy, and, on the other hand, passing insensibly into ordinary intelligence. To establish the existence of imbecility, it must be shown that there is a defect of understanding, not merely from a want of development of the mental faculties in consequence of a deficient education, but a defect of understanding by reason of some natural incapacity which no education will overcome, a mental privation. Has the prisoner shoxvn that he is an imbecile, a natural imbecile? Mas he proved insanity or a disease of his mind to .such an extent as to render him incapable of appreciatin"- the nature and quality of his act and of knowing that such act was wroncf ? That is the question which we have to examine. Whether the prisoner was sane or insane at the time of the murd. is a question of fact triable by the jury, and depen- dant upon the previous and contemporaneous acts of the accused. As I have told j'ou before, everyone is presumed to be sane at the time of doing anf act until the contrary is proved. Now, how are you going to decide from his acts previous and contemporaneous to the murder whether the prisoner was sane or insane at the time of the murder? You will have to decide whether the acts of the prisoner anterior and at the time of the murder are acts which indicate that the prisoner was insane, whether they are acts that an ordinary sane bo\- would do. You can decide as to the insanity of the prisoner by comparing his conduct and his acts anterior to the murder to the conduct and the acts of an ordinary sane man. You have no other way to decide that question, for you cannot penetrate into his heart and his 194 mind. It seems to me that saiiit)' in a man would consist in doing things as other people in general do. It is only by comparison that you can decide whether the accused was sane or not. Before referring to the evidence on the insanity and imbecility of the accused, let me say a few words about specific delusions. The law says that a person labouring under specific delusions, but in other respects sane, should not be acquitted on the ground of insanity unless the delusions caused him to believe in the existence of some state of things which, if it existed, would justify or excuse his act. For example, if, under the influence of delusion, he supposes another man to be in the act of attempting to take his life, and he kills that man, as he supposes, in self-defence, he would be exempt from punishment ; for, b}' the law, homicide in self-defence is excusable. Homicide in self-defence is such as occurs when a man being violently attacked is obliged to kill his assailant in order to save his own life. If the prisoner had proved that, at the time of killing Loye, he was labouring under such a specific delusion with regard to Loye, he could not be convicted. But, if the delusion caused him to believe in the existence of some state of things which, if it existed, would not justify or excuse his act ; for example, if his delusion was that the deceased Loye had inflicted a serious injury to his character and fortune, and he killed him in revenge for such supposed injury, then he would be liable to punishment, and he should be convicted. But it was not at first pretended by the Defence that the prisoner was labouring under specific delusions. The specific delusions arc not alleged in the special plea filed for him, and it was not then pretended that at the time of the killing the prisoner was labouring under specific delusions. It is now pretended that at the time of the killing the prisoner was labouring under the specific delusion that he was persecuted by Simpson and that he was in his hands to a certain extent. If the prisoner was sane in certain respects, but labouring, at the time of the killing under that delusion of the persecution 195 of Simpson, I must tell you now that that delusion would not justify him, because, if the facts which form the object of the delusion really existed, that would not justify the murder of Loye by the prisoner. You must remember that, imme- diately after the killing, the accused said to Dr. Sutherland that he did not know why he shot those men. That is a strong evidence that he was not labouring under specific delusion with regard to the men he killed. If ' e was insane in every respect to such an extent as to render him in- capable of appreciating the murder he was doing, and of knowing that when he killed Loye he was doing wrong, then the delusion would not amount to much, that would be insanity that would be the excuse, and not the specific delusion. Putting then aside the specific delusions, there remain the natural imbecility and insanity or disease of the mind to such an extent as to render him incapable of appre- ciating the nature aud quality of his act, and of knowing that such act was wrong. We will now refer to the evidence adduced by the prisoner to establish his insanity, and his natural imbecility. A commissioner was appointed, under the statute, by the Judge of the Superior Court in this district, to take evidence upon oath of persons residing in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and specially in Ireland, able to give material information relating to the accusation of mur- der preferred against the prisoner. Forty-eight witnesses have been examined by the commissioner, and that evidence has been read over to you. The defence has also produced here several witnesses, and specially most able medical men, and men who have made special study of insanity. The following facts have been established by the evidence adduced by the prisoner, to prove his insanity. It is proved, and I think it cannot be denied, that hered- itary influence is undoubtedly a great factor in the produc- tion of insanity ; a great number of cases being traceable to such taint. Not that the insanity of the father shall necessarily show in the children. It may be latent in the m TOG second generation and may reappear in the tliird and fourth generations. But insanity, being the result of a disorder of the brain, may be transmitted like any other disease. The prisoner has proved thai; his grandfather and other members of his family were insane ; and he points to this evidence as showing the caus-:^ of his insanity. Thomas Shortis, the grandfather of the accused, was married to Mary Wineberry. He died, on the tenth day of March, i88i,at the age of sixty-five years, of chronic softening of the brain, of which he suffered for a year and nine months before. At the outset, he suffered from mania and, subse- quently, from dementia and complete imbecility, ultimately complete fatuitj'. He had delusions and hallucinations during his illness, that some of deceased relatives were about him. He imagined that he would be hanged, and occasionally it was very difficult to keep him under restraint. Towards the end he became quite imbecile and lost all reasoning power, gradually losing the use of his limbs and his sight. It is stated that he was then insane and that he did not know the difference between right and wrong. John Shortis, the uncle of the accused and brother of his father, was admitted in the Clanmel Asylum on the i6th day of May, 1868, and was discharged on the loth day of November following. He was re-admitted in the asylum on the 6th July, 1871. He was then suffering from mania, and he was discharged again on the 9th day of January, 1872. He was again re-admitted on the 2nd day of May, 1872, and again di.scharged on the 7th day of June, 1872, He was a fourth time re-admitted in the asylum, on the 23rd day of July, 1872, and he died in the asylum on the 7th day of February, 1886, at the age of thirty-nine years, of cerebro- spinal disease and epilepsy, of which he had suffered for twenty years. He was very violent at times, and had no control over himself • Francis Wineberry, a brother of the prisoner's grandmother, and an uncle of the father of the accused, was also admitted in the Clanmel Lunatic Asylum on the 27th day of October, 197 ! 1 8/ 1. His delusion was that he was going to die a pauper. This species of insanity of Francis VVineberry was dementia, but in the asylum he developed a disease called general paralysis of the insane, and he died, in the asylum, of that disease on the 27th day of March, 1873, at the age of thirty- nine years. He was completely insane when he was admitted in the asylum. Kate Wineberry, the sister of the mother of the prisoner's father, was also admitted in the Clanmel Lunatic Asylum. She suffered from dementia. She had a disposition to injure others. William Scott, a first cousin of Francis Shortis, the father of the accused, was admitted to the Clanmel Lunatic Asylum on the 30th day of March, 1888. He was then a young boy of not more than ten or eleven years of age. It was reported that an old woman had met him on his father's farm, and threatened him with a stick. He was very much frightened and excited and rati away. It was from that excitement that lie got epileptic attacks, or />tV/V wr?/. He was discharged on the 14th day of May, 1888. The father of the accused pas.ses for a solid, level headed man. Doctor Gardner, aged 65 years, of Canmel, medical super- intendent of the Clanmel Lunatic Asylum during twenty-six years and a half, says that more thar. a half of the insanes get the desease by heredity, and that the insanity of the grand- father of the prisoner and of one of his uncles, on the paternal side, would lead to the conclusion that insanity is developing itself in the prisoner. Now, if you believe that insanity may be transmitted by heredit)', if you admit the large play of hereditary influence in human development, and I think that cannot be denied, then if you find that, at the time of the killing, on the first of March last, the prisoner was insane, you may trace the cause of his insanity in his ancestry. But the point in the case, and the important point in the case, is whether, at the time of the killing, the prisoner was insane or not. You must ascertain 198 whether, then, he was insane. P'or his ancestor, his grand- father, may have been insane, and the prisoner might be sane, as we have seen that insanity, like any other disease, is not necessarily transmitted by heredity. We have, then, now to examine the evidence adduced by the prisoner, and taken in Ireland and here, as to his own insanity and resulting from his acts anterior and contem- poraneous to the killing. That evidence has been commented and most ably com.- mented on both sides. I will simply mention the facts established by the evidence in Ireland without discussing them ; but I may perhaps be permitted to say that it is possible that there might be some exaggeration in that evidence. In fact, it seems to be exaggerated. The prisoicr, at the time of the killing, was a young man of the age of twenty years and fifteen days. He is the only child of Francis Shortis, now aged forty-eight years, a cattle dealer, of VVaterford, Ireland, and of Mary A. Hayes, his wife. His parents have a first-class position in society and are in good circumstances. They are people of means. They are worth over a hundred thousand dollars. His father was often away from home for his business, but the accu.sed was petted at home by his mother, who, like all good mothers, and mothers, as you know, are all good, bent all her heart on her only son, her only child. And, through her kindness and love, probably, she always had a great deal of influence over him ; although he caused her a great deal of anxiety. He did not develop like the other children. He did not speak nor walk until three or four years. He had the ricketts. He was a pupil of the Christian Brothers at VVaterford for five or six years. There it appears, by the evidence, that he was always very singular and restless. He was exceedingly impulsive and spasmodic in his actions. He had always foolish tricks. He used to laugh boisterously. He was a source of infinite trouble. He would stick steel pens in the head of his comrades. He would constantly have rows with 199 boys, and he would not be allowed to play with them without having a person to control him. Coming from school he would set the boys to fight and would fight himself if they did not do what he told them. Once he attacked a number of soldiers with stones. His intelligence with regard to studies w'Hii weak. He was considered as a weak minded boy. He had also a private teacher who, it is said, could hardly teach him anything. There were only two subjects he could learn, it was the French language and chemistry. He was fond of chemistry, and specially of the experiments. I will recall to your memory few of the particular facts anterior to the killing which the evidence has revealed, to establish the insanity or imbecility of the prisoner, and I will allude, in a general way, to the other facts given in evidence. Once, at races that had taken place, he drove, in a reckless way, passing through a crowd of people, and struck one man on the head with a stick. People threw stones at him, but he drove .so fast that they did not hit him. One 'day, a man engaged by his father, was carrying a bundle of hay on his back, the prisoner fired a shot with his revolver at the bundle of hay, and then laughed and clapped his hands. Three or four years ago, a painter was painting a landing stage on the river. He had a number of planks tied together and floating on the water. He was on the planks, paint- ing. The prisoner went down with the painter on the planks^ cut the twine and let the planks go adrift. Shortis was on a single plank and the painter on two or three of them. People had to throw a rope to them to get them out on the stage. There was great danger of both the painter and himself being drowned, on account of the strong tide of the river there. About the same time, three or four years ago, he was riding his pony in his father's field, and, suddenly, he stopped his horse and began to fire at a man who was working there. He fired five or six shots. The man had to run away. i'! m 200 n I About ei)0 i appreciate It as you have to appreciate, yourselves, the evidence as to the acts of the prisoner, which those expert? have tliemselves appreciated. Ikit you must not tai facts proved, according to the dictates of common sense and of your conscience. The law says, that the prisoner to be excused must prove that he was, at the time, labouring under natural imbecility or disease of the mind to such an extent as rendered him imcapable of appreciating the nature and quality of his act, and of knowing that such act was wrong. That means, that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of committing the act, the party accused was lal Hiring under snch a defect of reason from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong. If the accused at the time of the killing, was conscious that the act was one which he ought not to do, he is punishable. It is for the jury to determine whether the prisoner, v hen he committed the offence with which he stands charged, was capable of distinguishing between right and wrong. Provided they should be of opinion that when he committed the offence he was capable of distinguishing right from wrong, he would be answerable to the justice of the country, and guilty in the eye of the law. >flL#v 223 In order to support a defence of insanity, it ought to be proved by the most distinct and unquestionable evidence that the prisoner was incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong. In fact, it must be proved beyond all doubts that at the time he committed the act he did not consider that murder was a crime against the laws of God and nature, and there is no other proof of insanity which would excuse murder or any other crime. I lay it down to you as the law that if the prisoner who committed the offence, if the prisoner who killed Loye knew right from wrong, and that he was doing wrong, he must be brought in guilty, whether insane or not. If insane, he is not necessarily exempted from the punishment of his crime. The question is, whether he was at the time capable of committing a crime, and that must be determined by evidence of the absence, not of insanity, but of a knowledge of right and wrong. Was his insanity of such a kind as to render him irresponsible by destroying his knowledge of right and wrong? You must base your verdict on the question of insanity on the acts of the prisoner previous and contc aporaneous to the murder. You will decide whether all those acts that you consider as proved and well established, are acts that could not have been made by anybody else but an imbecile or an insane. If you come to the conclusion that an insane man alone or an imbecile alone could have done all the acts that have been proved by the Defence, then you will say that the prisoner is an insane or an imbecile. But, to decide that question, you must not take the opinion of the witnesses as to his imbecility or his insanity, except, however, the opinion of the medical men who have been heard as experts, which you are not bound to follow, but which you must consider. Those other witnesses are not in a better position than you to appreciate the acts which have been proved, and your verdict must be the result of your own opinion, appreciating those acts and appreciating also the opinion of the medical men. So that vou will not take into consideration the declara- 224 tions of the witnesses that they considered him as a fool, but you will have to say whether the acts proved could be nothing else but the outcome of insanity or imbecility. If you come to the conclusion that those acts that you will consider as proved, are the acts of an insane or an imbecile, that will help you to come to the conclusion that at the time' of the murder the prisoner was an insane or an imbecile ; for the question is whether he was an insane or an imbecile or not at the time of the murder to the extent I have mentioned before. You will then take in your most earnest consideration all the acts of the prisoner previous to the murder, together with his conduct in the murder itself, and say whether at the time of the murder he was an insane or an imbecile to such an extent that he did not know what he was doing, and that what he was doing was wrong. The law does not oblige the jurors to account for the means by which they are convinced ; it does not prescribe to them rules of which the abundance and sufficiency of the evidence must depend ; it prescribes to them to interrogate themselves in silence and meditation, and to find out in the sincerity of their conscience what impression the evidence brought against the accused and his grounds of defence have made on^'their reason. The law does not say to them : you shall hold as true such fact as shall be attested by such and such number of witnesses ; neither does it say to them : you shall not con- sider as sufficiently established any evidence formed by such documents, by so many witnesses and by so many presump- tions ; it puts to them that only question which includes the whole measure of their duties : Have you an intimate con- viction. Have you an intimate conviction that, at the time of the murder, the prisoner at the Bar was insane and did not know that he was committing a murder, and that in committing it he was doing wrong, then j-ou will say that he is not guitty, but if you have an intimate conviction that at that time he was not so insane as not to understand that he was committincr ■22r^ a murder and to know that he was doin^ wron-, then yoii will say that he is guilty. It is within your province to say. it is your duty to say whether the prisoner, at the tioie that he killed Loye, had enough intelligence to know that he was committing a murder and that in killing Loye he was doing wrong. Gentlemen, it has been represented to you, with a great deal of force and ability, that the prisoner at the bar is the only son of most respectable people, occupying a most enviable position in their country, and that both the father and tlic mother, and specially tlie mother, have done all they could for his moral and intellectual education, and it has been hinted that, taking into consideration the inappreciable sorrow and grief of the prisoner's good mother, you would lean to clemency. On the other side it has been said that you must not lose sight of those that have been killed, and that the hearts of those near to them have also been broken by this horrible crime. Gentlemen, it is my duty to tell you that you cannot take those good feelings into consideration. I am sure your hearts have bled when you have witnessed here the overwhelmning grief and inexpressible anxiety of the prisoner's mother. At the beginning of this trial you have heard the Clerk of the Crown here tell you that, for his trial, the prisoner has put himself into the hands of God and of his country, which you represent. You would be untrue to God— in the presence of whom you have sworn to give an impartial verdict; you would be untrue to your country, whose justice you are ad- ministering to-day ; you would be untrue to your oath, and you would be unworthy of the name of honest men, if you rendered a verdict for any other consideration than for the firm purpose, and the only purpose, of doing justice to the prisoner according to his due. Gentlemen, I appreciate the difficulty of your position. You would be happy— we would all be happy— to return this unhappy boy to the good-will of the Lieutenant-Governor and 15 ■ ia^t 1 226 to the love of his mother, if before God, who sees the secrets of your hearts, you beheve that he did not know what he was dom-. and that he was doing wrong ; but you must not do it if you believe that he is guilty of a wilful and conscious murder. Gentlemen, you will have to answer the three followin^r questions : '^ 1st. Did the accused, PVancis Valentine Cuthbert Shortis, murder John Loye on the first day of March last (1895) ? 2nd. Was the accu.sed, at the time of the murder, labouring under natural imbecility or disea.se of the mind, to such an extent as to render him incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of his act, the said murder, and of knowing that such act or murder was wrong ? 3rd. Is the accused guilty or not guilty? If you are of opinion that the accu.sed murdered John Loye or killed him by an illegal act, as I have no doubt that you will come to that conclusion, as the evidence is clear on that point, you will answer j^.y to the first question. If you are of opinion that the accused has proved that at the time of the murder he was labouring under natural imbecility or disease of the mind to such an extent as to render him incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of his act and of knowing that such act was wrong, you will answer jyes to the .second question. If, on the contrary, you are of opinion that he has not proved that, at the time of the murder, he was labouring under natural imbecility and disease of the mind to such an extent as to render him incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of his act, and of knowing that such act was wrong, you will answer no to that second question. If you answer jw to the first question, and if you answer no to the second question, then you will answer ^«/7/y to the third question ; but if you answer jes to the first question, and if you answer yes to the second question, then you will answer to the third question not guilty ; he is acquitted on account of insanity. •>•)■ Gentlemen, before leaving the case into your hands, I must tell you that you are bound to follow the direction of the Court on the questions of law, but that, on the question of fact .\s to the murder and as to the insanity, you are the abso- lute and the only judgc^ On the question of culpability, you are bound to follow no other opinion than your own. In fact, you are bound to decide according to your own conscience and not according to the conscience of anybody else, not even the President of the Court, whether the prisoner at the liar is guilty or not guilty. Gentlemen, I now leave the case in your hands, convinced that you are honest men, and that you will decide and render a true verdict between Our Sovereign Lady the Queen and the prisoner at the Bar. 28th Day of Trial — November ^t/i, i8gS- Mk. Macmastkk, O.C, of Counsel for the Ckown. I now beg to move for sentence of the Court on the prisoner at the Bar. The Clerk of the Crown.— Prisoner, you are indicted, tried, and convicted, for the murder of John Loye on the ist day of March, 1895. Have you anything to offer why sen- tence of death should not be pronounced against you accord- ing to law. If you have, you must offer it now, and you shall be heard. Prisoner.— No, thank you. By His Honour Judce Mathieu.— Francis Valentine Cuthbert Shortis, you have been accused of having murdered John Loye on the ist of March last ; to that accusation you have pleaded that you were not guilty : your ground of defence was that at the time you murdered Loye you were labouring under natural imbecility and disease of mind to such an extent as to render you incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of that act, and of knowing that such act was wrong. Twelve honest men have been sworn to try your case, and after a month's close attention and reflection, and after you have been most ably defended by able, eminent and learned Counsel, they have returned a verdict of "guilty," declaring thereby that your plea of insanity has not been proven. It is now over eight months since j'ou have killed Loye. It has taken eight months for the justice of the cf)untry to declare in your case that he who commits murder shall be punished. Still, the jurors have paused and reflected a long time before bringing to you the just reward of your most atrocious crime. The law says that he who commits murder shall, after conviction, be sentenced to death. It is with 220 deepest sorrow that I am obliged to-day to pronounce the sentence of the law. A father uiil easily understand the blow that this sentence will i,nvc to your father, and a son who had also a good mother will share to a certain extent the grief that cannot be expressed of your good mother, even when he is bound to be the instrument of the inexorable justice that must punish and cannot forgive. I am bound to-day to pro- nounce the sentence which the law pronounces in your case. The sentence of the Court of Our Sovereign Lady the Oueen, sitting now here, is, that you, Francis Valetitine Cuth- bert s'hortis, be taken to the common jail of this district of Beauharnois, and there kept in custody until the third day of January next, at eight o'clock in the morning, when you will be taken from the said common jail and conducted to the place of execution, and there you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may God have mercy on your soul. By the Prisoner.— I wish to thank you, my Lord, for the kindness and consideration you have .shown to me. and all the people connected with this honourable Court have given me whilst I have been here. — , i ^^H^^HJ ! B 1 riie following gentlemen formed the Jury in this case CHARLES McHARDY, JOSKPII DAOUST, THEO. BOURDON, REGIS. CARDINAL, ALEXANDER WATSON, WILLIAM FEENEY, CHARLES DEMERS, A. A. SMAILL, GEORGE LIGGIT, PIERRE BOYER, THEOPHILE DOR^, JOHN CUNNINGHAM.