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Un des symboles si^ivants apparaltra aur la dernlAre image de cheque microfiche, seion lo cas: le symboie — ►signifie "A SUIVRE ". le symbole V »ignifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc.. peuvent 6tre fiimte A des taux de reduction diffirents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul clichA. il est f Ilm6 A partir de I'angle supArieur gauche, de gauche d droite. at rie haut en bas. en prenant le nombre d'images n6cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 5 6 4 i c I^RH ON CRIME AND INSANITY. 4 # Br JOSEPH WORKMAN, M.D., TORONTO. f- >RINT1D BY LOVELL PMirriNG AND PUBLISHING COMPANY ' 1877. \ • \ m Siif From the Transactions of the Canada Medical Assr )iation, 1877. • 73 PAPERS IN MEDICAL SECTION. ill- ON CRIME AND INSANITY. I BT JOSEPH WORKMAN, M.D., Toronto. At the last annual meeting of the Association, held in Toronto, in August, 1876, I was kindly permitted to read a paper on a subject which at that time engaging no small share of public attention, was discussed by various parties with much earnestness. It had been proclaimed by the press, and was re-echoed from the judicial bench, that a criminal epidemic of alarming extent had, for some time, overspread oar province, and it was insisted upon by nearly all classes, that the suppression or mitigation of the moral malady was to be attained only by the most rigid and unexceptional infliction of capital punishment. Though I have not at any time felt convinced that within the period alluded to criminal violence prevailed in such unusual magnitude or intensity as to be entitled to the designation bestowed upon it. I did not feel called upon to controvert the popularized theory. It is known to the Ontario members of this Acaociation thai during last year four men were put on their trials for murder in whose defence the plea of insanity was advanced. Three of these* in whose cases I was concerned as an expert witness, were con- victed, and were sentenced to death; but on one only was the sentence carried into effect. The fourth was meiely arraigned, and on the evidence of Dr. Dickson was considered by the judgt unfit for trial because of mental incompetency. In this man's case the course recommended in my last year's paper was adopted. He was placed in asylum confinement for close observance by reliable experts. He has been now nearly a year under the charge of Dr. Clark, in the Toronto Asylum, and I understand from this gentleman that his report on the man's mental cond tion, sent in 4 CANADA MEDICAL ASbOCIAnON. to Government two or three months ago, firmly sustains the opinion expressed by Dr. Dickson, and justifies the course taken by the judge. I cannot but regard the procedure in this cane as a very laud- able deviation from the stereotyped system of former years, and I ,am convinced that, not only the Law Officers of the Crown, but the entire Bench of Justice, will feel thankful for the salutary and rational prbcedent thus placed on autlioritative record. As I have before said, three of the four alluded to were condemned. The evidence In two of the cases abundantly satisfied me of the insanity of the persons, and as to that given in the third, it cer- tainly merited more skilled consideration than the jury were capable of bestowing on it. The crimes of the first two were very atrocious, and that of the third appeared to have been so reckless and wanton as to call for deterrent chastisement. It is well understood by all who now hear me, that the above elements of oflfence are too shocking to the minds of ordinary men, who have never bestowed careful study on the subject of mental disease, or have not had opportunity for observing it in its manifold and very diversified forms and degrees, to permit of their taking a rational and calm view of any case in which they are presented. The two who were not executed had their sentences commuted to imprisonment for life in the Provincial Penitentiary. One, the more atrocious murderer of the two, was forthwith removed to the Eockwood Asylum, and placed under charge of Dr. Dickson. He died within six months. Dr. Dickson has informed me that in the asylum he gave decisive indications of insanity, and the post-mortem examination of the brain, made by Dr. Dickson and three other eminent physicians, clearly showed that this organ had been in a diseased condition for a considerable time past. Tho second convict also died about three months after entering the Penitentiary. I exceedingly regj-etted that ao post-mortem was held, but the Penitentiary surgeon. Dr. La"''ell, has stated to me that the man in his final illness showed unmistakable symptoms of brain disease. He lay in a comatose state for two days before death ; and it was Dr. Lavell's belief that cerebral effusion had occurred. I have seldom seen a person of so defective organization. His head was notably unsymmetrical, and ' I never saw the -pigeon breast so prominently displayed as it was in him. The heart sounds indicated serious valvular trouble, and it was my belief !.|«W.p«,l ON CRIME AND IN8ANITY, that the organ was considerably misplaced. Dr. Bucke and I testified pointedly to these facts, and we ^7ere sustained in our testimony by a medical witness who was sent by the Crown to watoh the case, or, as I believed, to watch us. Strange to say, this gentleman's r^estimony went even further than mine in support of the plea of mental defect. He, however, escaped the lash of the erudite Globe ; but Dr. Bucke was doomed to share with me the infliction of a full measure of that organ's classic slang. In my Jast year's paper the following passage occurred near the conclusion, which, in connection with the preceding details, I may not inapprojjriately reproduce here : ' Time ia the grand revealer of all eecrets, the infallible expounder of all mysteries, the potent settler of all doubts. If, instead of rushing on the trials of some atrocious offenders at lightning speed, and consign- ing to the gallows and the quick-limed grave the momentous question of their moral responsibility, we should, in cases in which medical opinion suggests the probability of mental uu- souudness, place the accused under close and skilled observance for a sufficient period, justice would neither be cheated nor out- raged, law would be divested of much of its indocility and bar- barity, and public sentiment would become more rational and authoritative." Time Jias, assuredly, revealed the momentous secret in the cases of Ward and j'^oung Alden; and time, I am convinced, would have amply revealed it in McConnell's case ; nay, indeed, time did, though not timoiisly, reveal it, for the evidence given by the jail surgeon as to this unhappy man's mental and physical condi- tion, in the interval between his conviction and his execution, Jtnd as to the lesions observed on his brain, in the post-mortem examination, could not fail to satisfy any person familiar with the phenomena of insanity and with the appearance of the brains of its victims, that he must, for a considerable time, have laboured under very serious mental aberrations. I have been favoured with the section of that part of his skull on which a fracture had been inflicted some two or three years before he murdered Mr. Mills. I put it to any person who is well read in the literature of insanity, whether such an injury as is indicated by the appearance, both external and internal, of the piece of skull which I now present for your inspection, was not very likely to be followed, sooner or later, by formidable mental alienation. I oould quot dozens of authorities confirmative of this belief, and 6 CANADA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. I may be held excusable in adding that my own twenty-two years' close and careful observance has been thoroughly confirmative of the correctness of the views expressed by the numerous eminent writers whose works have come within my perusal. And now, gentlemen, I have a rather ludicrous, though not uninstructive incident, in connection with poor McConnell's skull to narrate to you. In November last I had, by the politeness of the Sheriff of Wentworth, the privilege of examining a plaster cast of the head of McConnell, said to have been taken immediately after the body was cut down, — would you believe it, this cast showed not a trace of the fracture, though the ridge was so dis- tinctly visible during life that I was able, in the Court-house at a distance of 25 or 30 feet, to see it and to point it out to the ury I I leave it to those experienced in the taking of such casts to iguess how the one exhibited to me became so nicely smoothed down over the region which, above all others, should have been faithfully represented. The inspection explained to me one fact which had previously failed to be comprehended by me. I had learned that a certain chatty medical gentleman professed to several persons that he had seen McConnell's skull, and that it showed no mark of fracture. As I deemed it polite not to impugn the veracity of this critic, my charitable conclusion was that he had seen only the smoothed-down plaster cast, though even this interpretation involved the rather unpleasant suggestion of too large an economy of truth. The hanging of McConnell, we were told by the newspaper philosophers, was indispensable to the safety of society ; and more than one of these public guardians taught that no distinction should be made between sane and insane offenders. In their opinion the best, if not the only reliable, preventive of murder, was the extermination of all murderers. Whether in compliance with their clamourous demands, or from other more rational con- siderations, the sentence was ordered to be carried out, and McConnell was scientifically hanged. Mark what followed his doom, in hot haste I Ward killed his wife, and burned her body in the conflagration of his own house, very severely scorching himself; Hopkins, at Lynden, murdered his wifie in broad day- light, and instantly made known the fact of her death to the men working for him, at a little distance from his house ; the two Youngs murdered McDonald. These three murders were perpetrated a few miles from Hamilton. Next, young Alden shot Jefferson in mmmmmmiffmmr'' ON CRIME AND INSANITY. Hamilton a few monthn later ; and a short time ago Johnson mad« a murderous attack in da^ light on Miss Kneller, in the same city, almost faithfully imitating the slaying of Mr. Mills by McConnell. Whatever other moral effect may have been produced by the execution of this man, it surely did not prove suppressive of the crime of murder in Hamilton or its vicinity. Johnson is alleged to be insane. He was once committed as a criminal lunatic to the Bockwood Asylum, from which he effected his escape. I cun not avoid the belief that his ferocious attack on Miss Kneller was intended by him as a dramatic reproduction of the Mills butchery. Nothing can be less consistent with established facts, than the belief that capital punishment of either the sane or the insane deters the latter class from the perpetration of similar offences ; and many thoughtful persons doubt its salutary influence over the sane class. But these are questions which concern not our pro- fession. As expert witnesses we have nothing to do with the requirements or the course of the law. Eesponsibility for the character and the operation of our enactments rests not upon us but upon our legislatots ; our sole function is, when placed in the witness stand, to declare, to the best of our belief, the bare truth, whether that may benefit or injure the party on whose side we may have been summoned. If the law could exactly define the degree of menial unsoundness which is compatible with full moral responsibility, a very great difficulty would be removed from the process of its administration. The degrees as well as the forms of insanity are of almost infinite variety, and I should hesitate to say that every degree or form of mental defect, however trivial or shadowy, should exempt its subject from all responsibility for his evil acts. I have had conversations with some asylum inmates who have told me that the law could not touch them, and therefore they might with safety commit any offence they pleased. My reply was, if you are eapa, ble of thus reasoning on your actions and of coolly deciding on their performance, you have the power of abstaining from crime, and, should you indulge in any wicked act, I shall be able to give evidence that will convict you, and so my advice is that you behave decently and peaceably. This admonition I generally found sufficient to secure my object. But the class of insane offenders usually presented in courts of justice will be found to include very few who have calculated on 8 CANADA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, immunity from punishment because of their mental unsoundness. On the contrary, the really insane offender usually repudiates the allegation of his lunacy, asserts his own clearness of head, and not nnfrequently tells his questioner that it is he who is a fool for re- garding him as such. In cases of palpable and unequivocal insanity, but little diffi- culty is encountered either by judges or juries; but insanity does not always, nor constantly, present itself in its full life form and altitude, and to those who have not lived in close neighbourhood with it, and witnessed its strange alternations and puzzling incon- gruities, the formation of a decided opinion must often be a matter of great difficulty. I doubt not that many of you have, at times, found it very difficult to formulate an ordinary certificate of lunacy for commitment to an asylum of persons of whose men- tal alienation you have not had a shadow of doubt. Now, to have to onter a witness-box, and give, in connection with such unde- monstrative cases, that detail of facts ascertained in your ])er8onal examination of the patients which will meet the requirements of the law, or withstand the strategic assailments of a crafty cross- examining advocate, is certainly no enviabte position. I have, in my time, admitted into asylum custody hundreds of lunatics, the medical certificates of whose insanity -were defective in the above relation ; and yet I can hardly charge my memory with more than one instance in which my subsequent observance failed to ratify the decision of the medical examiners ; and that one was a case of the most clever simulation I have ever seen, or read of, so that I heartily exonerated the examining physicians from all blame. If I have not already trespassed too far on your time and for- bearance, I would here narrate the details of a couple of cases, which, for a long time, were to me perfect puzzles. You will, doubtless, not be unprepared to hear that the subjects were of the softer sex. The first was a young woman under 1 5 years of age. The details furnished in the medical certificate, and supplemented by those of her friends, were by no means meagre, so far as the mora abnormalities of the patient were concerned. She was presented to me by her mother, who exhibited a bagful of various articles of dress which the girl had destroyed, by cutting out numerous ] ces, mostly circular. A long detail of other very wanton mis- deeds was added. I wap led to the conclusion that we were about CRIME AND INSANITY. 9 to encount( . a very mischievous and annoying inmate; but I resolved to treat her trustingly and kindly, and to awnit the result. I was not disappointed in m}' hopes. She not only never misbehaved, but was really a model of good conduct. We found her to be obliging, kind, obedient, and very intelligent; not by a single act or word did she exhibit a trace of insanity from her admission in December until her discharge in April following, when she was taken home by her mother. No sooner hud she re- entered under the paternal roof than she repeated on even a larger scale her former misdeeds, and on the third day after her departure from the asylum, her mother once more presented her. I declined to re-admit her, stating that I had not found her to be insane, and could not feel justified in receiving her. The mother then fell into a pitiable state of commotion, which vanquished me, and I agreed, that if she would take her daughter back with hei* and submit her to proper medical examination by three physicians who should testify to her lunacy, I would defer to their finding and again admit her. Two days after she returned with the required document, in which the girJ was designated " a mono- maniac with the propensity to destruction of property." I am very certain that besides this " propensity," no other evidence of insanity was obtainable. So far from there being any lesion or defect of intelk t, we had found the very contrary to be the fact. I resolved to treat her in just the same manner as before. I retained her nearly thirteen months, and she behaved in every way to my entire satisfaction, and became a favourite with us all both sane and insane. Towards the end of her second residence, I took several opportunities of conversing with her kindly but admonitorily, telling her she was not insane, and that she ought to know that continuing as an asylum resident must blight all her womanly hopes of future well-being, and inf t on her parents and brothers, who had all been extremely kind i her, unspeakable distress. I concluded by intimating to her, that, in the event of another exhibition of her evil doing, she must makeup her mind to confinement in a prison or reformatory, and not in an insane asylum, and that she would find a very painful difference between the lenity of discipline in the latter and the correctional rigidity of the former. She ultimately intimated to me that she would willingly leave the asylum, but not to go home to live with her mother, against whom she evidently indulged a very unfiJial feel- ing. 10 CA.NADA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. I apprisod her mother of this decision, and she made arrange- ments for her daughter's now residence with a new form of dailj* employnient, and took her out of the asylum on a second trial Three ye \rs afterwards I had the pleasure of learning that she had gone on well, and still later she paid us a visit. It is now four- teen 3'ear8 since she went from under my care, and I have had no unpleasant report of her. Here, then, was a case, if there over was one, of moral mania, pure and simple. There was, so far as I could discern, no detect or impairment of intellect, but yet dare we say that all the realm of m:nd was in a state of integrity ? Was the unnatural aversion to a kind mjther an indication of perfect sanitj'^? Is it not an almost universal fact that insanity presents, as its earliest manifest- ations, unaccountable likings and dislikings, and that the objects of the latter are invariably those who were previo.:sly most loved ? This consideration gave me pause, and constrained me to enter- tain a charitable view of the case. It also dictated to me the course of moral treatment to be pursued; and who will say that my decisiofx was unwise or unjust ? Suppose I had adopted a sterner course and treated her not as a victim of mental aliena- tion but as a deliberate criminal, should we have found her the amiable, docile patient she proved to be ? Is it not lar more pro- bable that we should have rushed into premature development a mental malignity over which subsequent kindness might have entirely lost its healing power? Do not, I entreat you, regard these words as a mere lapsus of vague sentimentalism. I have before said in relation to other cases which to superficial and inexperienced obt"6Jvers presented an aspect ve^y different from their latent reaUty, that " time is the grand revealer of all secrets, and the potent settler of al). doubts." Insanity is, surely, in its every form a deep mystery, and it behooves us to keep our eyes open to every flicker of light which may be shed on its gloomy domain. It consists with, the experi- eace of all physicians, that, in the incubative stages of some dis- eases when the determination of a clear diagnosis, after the most patient ? exhaustive exploration of existing physical signs, is frequently unattainable, and its precipitate enunciation might bo alike imprudent and erroneous, a cautious enquiry into the family, or stock, history of our consultant may throw in a side- light on the case, which either dispels our apprehensions, or dark- ly beglooms them. CEIME AND INS/»NITY. 11 Tu no human malady is this form of enquiry of more value in relation both to diagnosis and prognosis than in insanity. It wrb not till seven years after the so-called moral mor.'omaniac, of whose oaiie I have been giving a fevv^ details, had a second time left me, in a state of at least much doubtfulnoss as to her actual mental constituticn, that u side-light was thrown upon it which convinced me that in ti-eating her, not as a moral criminal, but as the inno- cent subject of a germinal mental disease, our charitable inter- pretation of her conduct had guided us into the path of true science. At this time an older sister, whose history was a truly sad one, was committed to my care. Of the early phases of her insanity I gathered but little. She had, some years before, eloped from her good home and fallen into a life of abandonment. Ultimately she became an inmate of the insane department of a large alms- house in one of the chief Americfan cities. Her parents accident- ally discovered her whereabouts and brought her home, — alike in body and mind an utter wreck. Now it was that I first under- stood the words of the mother when she brought back my first patient, and I declined to re-admit her, under the belief that she was not a fit subject for asylum detention. " Oh, then," said she " what will become of her ? She will go to the streets, and be lost." Had she then given me but a .ay of that side-light which maternal delicacy constrained her to withhold, I might have responded very differently to her enireaties. My second patient from the family has died since I relinquished my asylum position. My first is, so far as I am now aware, in good health of mind and body ; but just as no mortal's epitaph should be committed to marble before the curtain of life's drama has dropped, so must we wait and watch for the final issue of this and all similar perplexing cases, I find, gentlemen, that I have taken up too much of that time which must be more appropriately devoted to other subjects, in closer affinity to the legitimate proceedings ot this Association, to warrant my entering upon similar lengthy details of the second case alluded to by me in the outset. Suffice ?t to say, that both were to me deeply interesting; and one was, perhaps, more in- structive than ii may since have proved to others who have con- centrated their observance on its individual manifestations, to the exclusion of those auxiliary irradiations which are occasionally contributed from the side-lights. The case has, throughout, pre- I 12 CANADA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. sented thone characteristics which in all our ablest writers on insanit}', go to make up the motley garb of moral mania; and now three times over the lady has been duly certified to be the subject of this form of mental alienation, by medical examiners of established high reputation. I dare not venture to say that in this lady I ever detected any flaw of intellect, yet were I to furnish you with even a small moiety of the details of her home life, or 01 her asylum exhibitions, I feel assured you would hesi- tate to declare to her perfect sanity. I had her many years under my observance. I had certain conjectures as to the probability of a morbid heredity, but until ^ cry near the end of my official relation to her no clear side-light had broken in. Then I learned of a cousin being insane. This person is now an asylum co- inmate with my quondam friend. My object, in laying before this Association the preceding hurriedly-recalled observances has been to impress upon society, through your instructing and influential agency, the very great importance, in the determination of the actual mental condition of some moral delinquents, of a wide and panetrating circum- spection over the entire range of those facts which a thorough acquaintance with morbid psychology will have taught you to estimate at their true value. Among these facts none can more potently command deference than morbid heredity ; and yet, in litter defiance of this long-established truth, what do we find is the orthodox practical creed of our courts of law or equity ? Bo not the judges, in their charges, scrupulously abstain from the utterance of a word which might lead juries to allow this element, however clearly established, to enter into their consideration, or in the most remote degree to influence their findings ? I have, again and again, been pained by observing this conservative indo- cility ;, and I have said to myself, why should we severely animad- vert on a Chief Justice Hale, sentencing two old women to be burned as witches a long time ago and in his charge to the jury very learnedly descanting on the actuality and the abominations of witchdom, when, to-day, we find his bench worshippers ignor- ing a medical fact which has passed into an acknowledged tenet, not only of scientific doctrine but of universal popular conviction ? What should we say of the physician who might, in the exami- nation of a person alleged by his friends to be insane, fail in a con- versation of an hour, or in several conversations with him, to detect any striking indication of insanity, and who, resting his y CRIME AND INSANITY. 13 decision on this evidence alone, in exclusion of the most ample proofs of insanity running through the stock for several generar tions, and, under the observance of credible and disinterested in- formers, having shown several out-croppings in the pi-esent sub- ject, should yet unhesitatingly declare him free from mental flaw, and consequently a thoroughly responsible free-will moral agent? Should we not say of such a Doctor, that he has yet much to learn ? Yet just such is the position of the judge on the bench, who ignores all consideration of similar facts, and tells the jury they are not to enter into the history of the prisoner's antecedents or of his collateral blood relatives, but must form their judgment as to his general mental condition upon the evidence bearing upon this question at the time of the offence, howc er imperfect and undeserving of scientific deference this may have been. About fourteen years ago, when on a. visit to this city, I chanced to be requested by an esteemed medical friend to examine a gentleman under legal interdiction, in order to qualify myself for going into court to testify to his persistent mentrJ unsound- ness. I complied with my friend's requcist, und had a long interview with the interested person in which I failed to elicit in conver- sation any words that, if detailed in court, would be interpreted as indicative of mental unsoundness; and yet I was as sure of his insanity as of my own existence, for I had long been aware of it, and was satisfied that hia friends had no improper motive in seek- ing to restrain him from squandering his estate. I need not say that 1 declined appearing, and that the case was more rationally di^jposed of without my testimony than it would have been with it, for I know too well the adroitness with which a sharp cross- examining counsel can contrive to turn into ridicule the evidence of a defectively informed medical witness, and how heartily the gentlemen of the long robe rejoice in the torture of our profession. Under your further kind indulgence I would now br'ng under consideration the details of a very interesting case of insane homicide, as I have found them furnished in the report of the trial, published in the columns of the London J^ail of 9th February last. I shall not detain you with the reading of the whole evidence, but merely with such portions of it as have appeared to me to throw clear light on the important question of the prisoner's mental condition. 14 CANADA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. "THE PIMLICO MURDER." Frederick Treadaway, 20, described as a shopman, was indicted for the wilful murder of one John Collins. The prisoner, a good-looking young man, pleaded " Not Guilty.'" Mr. Straight, with whom was Mr. Avory, conducted the prosecution, which had been instituted by the Treasury authorities; Mr. Besley, assisted by Mr. Tickell, defended the prisoner. Mr. Straight, in opening the case for the prosecution, dwelt on the solemnity of the occasion, which demanded, he said, from the jury the strictest attention and the utmost care. The learned counsel then stated all the attendant circumstances as they were afterwards, to a considerable ex- tent, related in evidence. The first witness called for the prosecution was Elizabeth Collins, who, being examined by Mr. Avory, said, — I live in Stanley-street, Pinilico, and am the widow of the deceased. I have known the prisoner over 12 months. I first saw him in the Harrow- road, talking to my niece, Carry Stephens, and she introduced him to me. I saw him twice after that at Mrs. Stephens's. He came to our house in October last to fetch a hamper, and took it away with him in a " trap." That was the first time Mr. Collins saw him, and he stayed about half an hour. Mr. Collins and he talked together some time. The prisoner again came on the 14th of December shortly before 1 o'clock. I let him in. After wishing me good morning, he asked if Celina was there, meaning a niece of Mr. Collins and a sister of Carry Stephens. I knew he and Carry kept company. He said he had a letter from her to meet her at 1 o'clock. Mr. Collins was then at home, and asked him to dinner, which was served in the front kitchen. The prisoner marked some new linen for me on that occasion. He stayed to dinner with Mr. Collinp and me. He then wrote a letter, and I told him I was going to Paddington. I left to do 80 about 4 o'clock, leaving the prisoner there with Mr. Collins. They were then talking very comfortably together. I returned about a quarter toll that same evening. The prisoner had then gone. Mr. Collins was waiting; my return at the front gate. I saw the prisoner next morning. He came to our house about half- past 10, and I let him in by the area door. He asked if Mr. Collins was in. I said he was not. The prisoner said he was very tired, and I asked him to take a seat in Mr. Collins' easy-chair, which he did. I asked iiim if he had the letter in his pocket. He said " No, I have not been home all night ; I have been walking about." I said he must be very tired, and gave h-m a cushion for his back. He asked how the Stephensea all were. I said they were very well, except Mrs. Stephens. Mr. Collins came in about 11 o'clock, and went into the front kitchen. I went about the dinner, ami left the room. They were then talking together in an ordinary way. I did not hear what they were talking about. I went in and out repeatedly, as I was cooking the dinner in the room in which they were. Dinner was ready about halt-past 1 , and the prisoner stayed and had some. When I left the kitchen the prisoner was still sitting in the arm- chair. I went into the kitchen and made a pudding. I could not say whether the prisoner ate any dinner or not. When I returned he was still CRIME AND INSANITY. 16 sitting in the arm-chair, and Mr. Collins had then moved to a different position. They were still near together. I cleared away all the dinner things and went into the beck kitchen, and backwards and forwards a good many times. The prisoner and Mr. Collins were still in the kitchen talking together. Once when I went in the prisoner was looking at a fiddle, and he hung it up again. The last time I saw them together there was only the table between them, and the prisonar was standing with his hat in his hand, as if he were going away. Mr. Collins was still sitting in the chair. Up to that time they had only talked together in an ordinary way. I went to the back kitchen for a pan and heard a loud report. I turned round to go and see what it was, and I met the prisoner in the doorway of the back kitchen, coming towards me. That was not his way out. I asked him what the report meant. He said he did not know. The words were scarcely uttered when he fired again. I saw the flash and then heard the report, which was that of a heavy blow. It struck me in the ear, and I felt the blood trickling down my neck. I reeled round, but did not fall. I saw the prisoner £^o along the passage to the area door .1 could not say if he had his hat on. I went after him and caught him by the coat at the area door. I attempted to cry " Murder," upon which he put his fingers into my mouth so that I could not speak, aud with the other hand took me hf^ the neck and threw me down outside the area door. He beat my head on the pavement several timeo. I struggled hard for life as he leant upon me, and I loosed one of my hands, but he still held me. As he was leaning over me, I took him by his shirt. I then found I was regaining my feet, upon which he released me and went up the area steps rather quickly ; at least, it seemed quick to me. I put my other hand on the floor and tried to get up, but fouud it in a pool of blood. I went up the area steps and begged the passers-by to send for a doctor, and a policeman to take the prisoner into custody, saying he had murdered my husband. On my going into the kitchen I said to my hus- band, " What has he done ; has he shot you ? " He made no reply. He was then lying on the oil-cloth of the kitchen floor, and I knelt over him and begged him to speak to me, but he was gone ; I felt he was dead. The only sign of life I saw was a slight quivering of the lip ; and ray only hope in life was gone. No one was in the house at that time but an aged lady in bed. We had a gentleman lodger, but he did not come home until 6 in the evening. • I had no children. Mrs. Stephens was Mr. Collins's sister, and Mr. Stephens was a ladder-maker. My husband was formerly a builder, and had some house property. He kept his money upstairs as a rule except when there was any large amount, and that was in the room in wliich we slept. Mr. Stephens wore a belt for a weak back, and he made some use of it when he went into Cornwall for carrying his money, and then only. Chief Inspector Thomas Foinet spoke to having been at the Isleworth Police Station shortly after 12 o'clock, when the prisoner was taken there. The prisoner had then only been charged with the murder of Mr. Collins, and witness told him he would be further charged with the attempted mur- der of Mrs. Collins. The prisoner then appeared quito stupefied. At length hs eaid, " I don't know how I came to do it. It seems a blank to me." m 16 CANADA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. Afterwarda, on the way to London, witness asked him where he had got the revolver. He replied, he had bought it on Thursday morning, shortly after leaving home, at a shop in the Seven Sisters'-road, and he intended to use it on or for himself. Things, he said, were very miserable at home, and he did not ki.ow what he was doing. He added that after the affair he went to Hyde Park and thence to Kentish-town ; that he had been out the pre- vious night from 5 in the morning, and he felt tired. Next morning he said on leaving Kentish-town he did not know where he was going or what he was doing; he only had 2d., with a penny of which he bought a newspaper to read about " the affair." It was all wrong, he said, and he explained how wrong. He afterwards went through Finchley and Barnet towards St. Alban's, but afterwards retraced his steps towards London, thinking he should like to see Mrs. Wiggins once more ; that on reaching Kentish-town he found a pair of spectacles, which he wore as he went through Kensing- ton and Hammersmith. On reaching the police-station he was placed in a cell, and on the Sunday evening he asked witness for pen, ink, and paper to write a leti^er. He was told he could have them, but that witness would read what he wrote before sending the letter. He said he only wanted to explain to Mrs. Milton why he shaved off his whiskers at l?er house, as that had seemed to surprise her. Witness offered to send for her, but the pri- soner afterwards changed his mind, and no letter was written. Later on he said to witness, in the presence of his father, " I don't know how I came to do it. I don't think I did do it. I must have been mad at the time." On the occasion in question, when the prisoner was at the station, he seemed to be partially stupefied. Witness was satisfied that there had been no theft or attempted theft. At this stage of the trial the prisoner was taken ill in the dock, and Mr. Gibson, the prison surgeon, having been called to see him, intimated to the Court that he was not in a state to justify the fHirther continuance of the trial that day. He added that us had had him under his charge since the 19th of January, and nothing of the kind had happened before. Mr. Justice Lush thereupon adjourned the trial. Sarah Vivian was called as a witness, and examined by Mr. Tickell. She said her maiden name was Treadaway, and she was the sister of George Treadaway, the prisoner's grandfather. She remembered her father and mother very well. They lived near Uxbridge. Her mother died at 55 years of ape. Her brain was paralyzed for three years before her death, and she was quite childish. Witness's father died at the age of 82; 25 years ago. She knew all the family well. Her mother's maiden name was Weedon, and she (the mother) had two brothers, one of whom was named Charles and the other Samuel. Her sister was named Lucy ; she married a Mr. btillwell, by whom she had two daughters ; one of them was Mary, who died in an asylum — that of Han well. She was between 50 and 60 years of age when she died, and had been in that asylum about 15 months. Samuel was imbecile two or three years before his death, and tried twice to drown him- self. He was between 60 and 70, Hor mother's brother, Charles Weedon, was in St. Luke's Lunatio Asylum three or four years, and afterwards had CRIME AND INSANITY. 17 a keeper until his death. He was near 70 when he died. She hau a sister called Mary Treadaway, who married a Mr. Chapineau, and who was about 45 when she died. She was strange itt her manner and quite childish. She was not in an asylum. She lived in the Marquis of Exeter's park. Witness's brother William died in 1853 or 5 at the age of about 55. He hanged him self. He had a good deal of property and was very well off, but was given to despondency. Witness had a sister, the prisoner's grandmother, who died about two years before the prisoner's birth. Her age was about 57 or 60. She was quite insane, and obliged to have a person always with her. Witness had a brother named Henry who died in a fit when he was eight years old. Susan, a daughter of her brother George, was always subject to fits, and she died in one at the age of 22. She had the first fit in Padding- ton churchyard ; and once she fell on the fire in a fit. They were called epileptic fits. By Mr. Straight, in cross-examination, — The age of Charles Weedon when at St. Luke's and when he died was near 70. George Hibbert proved that he acted as keeper for a year and nine months to Charles Weedon, who, though insane, was not a violent person. Mrs. Ann Henn, residing at Notting-hill, said she was for some years in the service of the prisoner's grandfather as cook — about 2.S or 24 years ago. His first wife was then living, and his son George and his daughter Susan were living in the house unmarried. Susan was subjecttofits, which occurred frequently and used to last an hour. She had them once or twice a week all the time witness was there. She struggled very much when in the fits and became quite black in the face. She was also very violent on those occatiions, and it required witness and her father to keep her down. She used to bite pieces out of the glass from which she drank. She was very strange in her eyes and r-mnner, and witness could tell by that when the fitij were coming on. She complained of pai.:'- in the head — shooting pains. She was always very ill after a fit, which 'vould sometimes last an hour, and for days afterwards she looked haggard and wild about the eyes. She was not at all conscious when in a fit, and she used to foam very much at the mouth. Her mother was a very great invalid ; and she, too, wan very " curious " about the head, and used to throw things at witness — one being a coal-scuttle. She was exceedingly passionate. She had a brother a very weakly boy. George Frederick Treadaway was the next witness. He said, — I am an outfitter, and the accused is my son. He is 21 this month. In infancy he was brought up in the country, and afterwards lived with me in the Harrow- road, going to school till he was 15. He was brought up to my business, and was of a kind, gentle disposition. In July or August, 1875, 1 remember him coming home on a Saturday and walking with him in the Holloway- road on the Sunday morning. We were on tlu- left side of the way and approaching the Liverpool-road when I felt him stagger against me. I asked him what was the matter. He said something which I did not understand, and I noticed his eyes appearing as if the sight was gone. He fainted and loat all muscular power. I dragged him into a doorway and rubbed hia 18 CANADA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. back and opened and rubbed his hands. He Been\ed quite unconscious of what I was doing, but did not seem to speak. He remained in that state nearly twenty minutes, trembled very much, and shook violently, turned quite pale, and then afterwards gradually recovered. The first words he said to me were, " I'm burning in the throat; give me something to drink." I could not get him anything to drink, but he sucked two oranges which I had, and he seemed to recover. We rested under the railway bridge on the way home, he being then very weak. When we got home he complained of being very bad in the head. Once he came home, saying he had had a fit in a doctor's shop. He had then a graze on his face. That was in 1873, and he complained of his head all the day afterwards. In September, 1876, he left his situation, and he frequently complained of giddiness in the head. The last few weeks in December he conipiained of pains in the head. He was generally very much dispirited and distressed, and sometimes would not speak for an hour. I had had no quarrel with him. My mother's maiden name was Suaanr.ah Bourne ; she died in 1854, at the age of 56 or 57. She was always ill, and at times used to throw things out of the window at people passing, imagining they were making fun of her. She was also g".ilty of acts of violence at times. Mrs. Caroline Treadaway, the mother of the prisoner, said he was the jldest Ci nine children. Her eldest daughter had brain fiever, and was ill , for about six months. He had ^Vequently said he was miserable, and on one occasion talked of committiiig suicide. Angus Caroline Treadaway, daughter of the last witness, gave corrobo- rative evidence, tending to oliow that her brother had been of late in a very desponding state of mind, and had said the best thing he could do was to shoot himself. Caroline Stephens said the last occasion she saw the prisoner was on the Saturday before he went to Pimlico. She had met him by appointment at the house of a relation on the Saturday evening. He parted from her in tlie usual way, and there had been no quarrel between them at all. Dr. Hughes Bennet deposed that in the course of his practice he had seen persons afl!licted with epilepsy, and he explained the dift'erence between that and epileptic vertigo. The milder form of epileptic vertigo, he said, could exist without the patients' knowledge. In that form it did not necessarily recur. Very frequently epileptic fits followed epileptic vertigo. A person having epileptic vertigo might not know it. Epileptic vertigo was trans- missible. He had seen instances of persons acting automatically under epileptic vertigo, and one of which he gave in detail from his own experi- ence. On one occasion he extracted a pint of opium from a man who was afterwards unaware what he had done. Epileptic vertigo was not a recog- nized form of mental derangement. Witness had seen the prisoner on five occasions, and during those visits he did not discover any unhealthy con- dition. He questioned him as to his past health, and he said he had been in good health until about two years ago, when about that time he had a fainting fit in a chemist's shop, and that since then he had had six or eight seizures of a similar kind ; and, in addition to those, he had been subject to CRIME AND INSANITY. 19 very frequent and violent headaches, and had been liable to varioua pains ; that especially since August last he had been in a very depressed and melancholy condition, and, while brooding over his troubles, he conceived the idea of committing suicide, eventually coming to the conclusion that he would have recourse to a pistol. He spoke on the morning in quemtion of giddiness in the head, and of a black cloud coming over him. These state- ments came out in the course of conversations of witness with the prisoner, and he did not in any way suggest the answers to his questions. The result of all those symptorr.s suggested to witness the existence of epileptic vertigo, the 3rd of February being the last time he saw him. He saw him after the attack yesterday, which, witness thought, was of an ep'!eptic character, though somewhat more prolonged han : 'al. He attested the syipptoms in the presence of Mr. Gibson, the prison turgeon. Angina pectoris was very frequently a sign of epilepsy. Mr. Justice Lush said, incidentally, that the state of mind in which the prisoner was when he conimitted the oflfence was the question for the jury. The witness, replying to the Court, said he had never seen epileptic vertigo last more than three or four minutes, but the effects might last from a few seconds to a few i^ours. By Mr. Straight. — There was nothing in the circumstances inconsistent with an ordinary fainting fit. Dr. Reece Williams, Resident Physician at Bethlehem Royal Hospital, and lecturei' on mental diseases at St. Thomas's Hospital, said he had seen many cases of epilepsy in his experience. The medical profession certainly recognized epileptic vertigo as a form of mental disease, and he gave instances which had come under his personal observation 5 one in particular, in which a patient on recovery could give no account of his symptoms. He related the circumstances attending one remarkable case of this kind, and said he had seen other persons attacked with epileptic vertigo and uncon- sciousness of what they were doing. All that such persons did was auto- matically ; they were mere machines for the time, and after the attack thore was an impression on their minds as to something they had done, but they could not tell what. The length of the attack varied. The longest attack he had seen lasted about an hour ; but, as a rule, they were very much shorter. During the time the patients were unconscious. The circumstances in thi3 case corresponded with cases in his practice, and it was undoubtedly one of epileptic vertigo. Epilepsy would tend to shorten life, he thought, but not insanity. Epilepsy was certainly a disease of the brain. There might very probably be an hereditary transmission of epilepsy. Witness saw the prisoner yesterday, but not during the attack. When he saw him the prisoner was totally unconscious. On that occasion he had had a fit o an epileptic character, combined with symptoms which belonged to hysteria. Mr. Richards, medical superintendent at the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum gave corroborative evidence from his professional practice. He agreed with the last witness that a person afflicted with epileptic vertigo alternating with epilepsy was unconscious of what he did, and of that the witness gave 20 CANADA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. If ■ i\ iM It"'"" i Ik exempliflcationfl from his own experience. He saw the prisoner yesterday when he was unconscious, and from the symptoms he coachided it was an epileptic fit with some modified circumstances. After an attack in such cases memory was a blank. Epileptic vertigo usually alternated with fits. Mr. John Robinson, an outfitter at Forest-hill, said the prisoner was in his service from September, 1875, until February, and that when spoken to he 8oen)ed absent. Qr. William Smiles, surgeon at the House of Detention, Clerkenwell, said the prisoner was received there on the 18th of December and remained until the 15th of January, when he was removed to Newgate. He was in good health, talked rationally, and witness did not see in him any signs of au epileptic form, nor did he hear of anything of the kind. He saw nothing about hini indicating insanity, though there was a good deal of hysteria. By the Judge. — While he was under witness's observation witness had no suspicion of epilepsy. Dr. Gibson, prison surgeon at Newgate, said on the 15th of January he received the prisoner into his care. He had continued to see him daily since then. He certainly agreed with the previous witness that the chief symptoms of yesterday's attack were those referring to a hysterical condi- tion, the graver of those symptoms having an epileptic character. In his opinion there might be a distinct convulsive attack in such cases without any premonitory symptoms. Mr. Justice Lush, in summing up the case to the jury, dwelt on its great importance and its distressing nature, whether they looked at the old man, cut off at a moment's notice in his own house, or as regarded the age and position of the young man at the bar. The law said that every man who took away by an act of felony the life of another, not under provoca- tion, was, prima fade, guilty of murder, and it devolved on a person so charged to show that at the time he committed the act he either did not know what he was doing, or, if he did, that he acted in spite of that know- ledge. Every man was presumed to be sane and to possess sufficient reason to distinguish right from wrong. It must be clearly proved that at the time of couunitting the act the prisoner was not sensible of the quality of the offence with the commission of which he was charged. The test was its being, primd facie, an act of murder, and the question was whether, at the time it was perpetrated by the prisoner, he was labouring under such a deficient reason as not to know what he was doing. In other words, did he labour under such an affliction of Providence that he was for the moment deprived of consciousness to such an extent that he was a mere automaton from an attack of epileptic vertigo f If he did not know what he was doing, the jury ought to acquit him and find him guilty on the ground of insanity. If they were satisfied, in other words, that he was doing an act the nature of which he did not know, they would find him not guilty on the ground of insanity. There was nothing in the case which reduced it to the crime of manslaughter. The jury retired at 25 minutes to 8 o'clock, and about a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes afterwards returned into Court with a verdict of guiliif of murder. CRIME AND INSANITY. 21 Mr. Justice Lueh, asBuining tlie black cap, proceeded to pass sentence. He said, addressing the prisoner, the jury hud given the most anxious and careful attention to the evidence, as well that ajiainut him us tliat in his behalf; and they had come to a conclusion in which he (Mr. Juctice Lush) entirely concurred. What liis motive was in taking away the life of that poor old man was only a matter of conjecture or suspicion. Whether he failed in his endeavours to rob him or intended to ransack the house was a matter of conjecture or suspicion. Whatever the motive was utterly immaterial, it being clear to the jury and to his (Mr. Justice Lush's) mind that the act was a wilful one ; and he could now only exhort him to prepare for the fate which awaited him. He would have, in the meantinii^, the services of a faithful and experienced minister of the Gospel, who, in a loving spirit, would point to sources of consolation in anticipation of the doom that awaited him. He could only pray that the Lord nught have mercy on his soul. The convict, who is a very young man in the prime of life and of pre- possessing appearance and manner.^, was then removed from the bar." Now, gentlemen, I may, with all befit ig Beriousness, ask you whether you have ever mot with a family history more wofully darkened by the records of transmitted brain di.seaso, than that of Frederick Treadaway ? But of how little avail in the defence was its establishment in court! How little, indeed, could it avail with a jury instructed by a judge, who told them that it must be clearly proved to their satisfaction that the prisoner, when he committed the murder was '•'■for the moment deprived of consciousness to such an extent that he was a mere automaton, from an attack of epileptic vertigo ! " Which of you, gentlemen, that has ever witnessed the deprivation of consciousness occurring in an epileptic fit, would ever dream of the patient at that time committing murder ? Is it not deplorable that men sitting in judgment on their diseased lel- lowmen should be so ignorant of the actual nature of those spinal facts, which they presume to elucidate to men hardly less ignorant than themselves ? And yet one can hardly imagine that any of Treadaway's jurors, who had ever witnessed an epiletic seizure, could fail to perceive the aBsurdity of the judge's instructions. They saw the prisoner under seizure of a fit in the dock, and in consequence of the interruption the trial had to be adjourned till the morrow: did they, or did their venerable in- structor believe that at that moment the prisoner was able to commit muixler ? No physician who has seen epilepsy on a large scale "will say that the unfortunate subjects of the malady are most dangerous in their fits. It is during the approach, and the : i ■ I' t 22 CANADA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. recession of a fit, that the epileptic is to be feared; then, indeed, 8om'> are wupromol}' dan^orous, Mr. Justice LuNh. as in duty bound, complimented the jury on their polite acqnioHcence in his own very erudite view of the whole cane, including the hypothesis of the prisoner's failure of " endeavour to ransack the house " — a supposition unsupported by any tittle of evidence. All judges have served a suflBciontiy long apprenticeship at the bar to render this sort of jurj' blarneying a chronic infirmity, and we need not wonder, when they become suddenly inspired by the prospect of donning the fatal black cap, that they should court the sympathy of their dozen of scapegoats. How much might it have mitigated the painfulness of his Lordship's position, had he but known in time, that within the precincts of London one profoundly wise admirer was about to indorse his decision. Who, other than the correspondent of the Toronto Globe, should, or could that indorser be ? That no obscurity may rest on this after-piece of the Treada- way drama, I now offer to your admiration the following extract from the Globe's '* London Correspondent's " letter, which appeared in Toronto on the 20th of March last. HOMICIDAL MANIA. The never-ending disoussion as to homicidal mania has been revived once more by the unexpected pardon of the ao-called Pimlico murderer. A few vreeks ago a young man named Treadaway shot a retired tradesman in Pimlico under circumstances of peculiar brutality. Treadaway was engaged to be married to tlie niece of the man whom he murdered. He Tiiade a further attempt to kill the wife of the murdered man, and finally made good his escape with great apparent self-possession and presence of mind. He was captured shortly after, and the evidence against him was so overwhelm- ing that he practically made no endeavour to dispute his guilt. The crime was a singularly brutal and unprovoked one. It was shown by very strong evidence to have been deliberately planned beforehand, and the only poseible line of defence was that adopted, namely, that the prisoner was not in his right mind when he perpetrated the murder. No doubt the fact of a man's •jommitting a very brutal crime under circumstances almost certain to secure his detection, and without any very apparent adequate motive, is strong primd facie evidence of insanity. Under our system, however, of criminal jurisprudence it is impossible to elicit the whole history of a prisoner's antecedents, unless they can be clearly connected with the offence of which he stands accised. It is, to say the least, possible that if the his- tory of the relations between Treadaway and the family of the girl he was engaged to could have been investigated, some explanation might have been forthcoming as to the possible motives for the crime. As it was, the evidence to show that Treadaway was a lunatic broke down completely at the trial, CRIME AND INSANITY. 23 and he was proved to Imve been regarded as a pane man by all the persons he liad aHfluciated with throughout liis lite, and the oi fact atlduced w' hifl favour waw that as a child in arinn he had kfid an ejnkj/licfit. In fact, pre- viouH to his crime, there was not apparently one tittle of evidence on which hia incarceration as a lunatic couM have been justified, and the (piestion whether the crime wan in itself ho jnon.-JtrouH as to be proofpu^itive of insan- ity on the part of the perpetrator wan decided in the negative by the jury after a very careful trial, their verdict being distinctly approved by the pre- f^iding judge. The executivHi of the sentence was regarded uh a mutter of certaimy, especially as the crime ",as not one to elicit anyuMtburst of popu- lar symphthy. But almost at the last hour the Home Secretary had the prisoner .xamined by two medical men, who reported that in their judgment he was not responsible for his actions, and thereupon the sentence was respited. Mr. Cross is not given to err on the side of leniency, and I believe the truth is that evidence was submitted to him which created grave causa for doubt as to the man^s sanity. It is clear, however, that this evidence ought to have been submitted in public to a court of law, and not to a secret and irresponsible tribunal. Indeed, tiie Treadaway case furnishes yet another argun)ent for the necessity of a Court of Criminal Appeal. This very trutliful caterer to the columns of the very truthful Globe tells us that the crime " was shown by very strong evidence to have been deliberately pUiimed heibre hand," and ho says tjiat " the one fact adduced in the prisoner's favour was, that as a child in arms, he had h.