FOSSIL LEGISLATION.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2254, 19 May 1881, Page 1

FOSSIL LEGISLATION.

The absurdity of leaving to a jury the decision as to whether a man who has committed suicide was in a sound state of mind or otherwise when he did the deed, is constantly being brought before the notice of the public. Psychology is the most intricate of all studies, and yet twelve men, picked up at haphazard, with no special training to render them in any way fitted for their task, are sot down to give a verdict which, by a legal and social fiction, will clear or otherwise, the memory of the departed. The narrow line that separates many forms of genius and eccentricity from insanity is shifted hither and thither by juries with wonderful sang-froid, and without the slightest qualms of conscience, for they recognise that their decision is a farce, and that if they were, in many cases, to carry out their inward conviction to its logical conclusion, the world at large would cry out against them as uncharitable and unchristianlike. A case occurred a short

time since at Timarn which will fully illustrate the extraordinary shifts to which juries are, as the matter now stands, very frequently put. A man named Nathan committed suicide, and left the following singular letter: —“ 1 person alone knows the reason of my voluntary death. I wish for what is impossible, yet without this impossibility I cannot be happy, therefore I die. So, ye wise men, bring in your verdict of insanity. I can’t feel hurt at it. My pulse is at 75; I am quite cool, and feel in a hurry to get off. I am, as regards religious belief, a believer neither in a personal Deity nor a future state of existence.” Now here was a statement, made apparently in no hurry or undue excitement, showing calmly why the deed had been done, and the reasons of the deceased as to his not fearing death—and yet the jury brought in a verdict of insanity! And why? Because the writing “ one ” as a numeral was considered sufficiently suspicions! Outside of this mistake the letter is well spelt and expressed. But the man was dubbed insane because he had written “one” as “1.” At least, that is the general version of the story. The jury seemingly were forced by Christian charity—which most certainly in this case might be described as “ bearing all things and believing all things ” —to lay down the general principle that a man who makes a small error in spoiling is not in proper possession of his faculties. We

wonder if the jury considered the full bearing of this astounding dictum. If there is anything in it, what a fluttering among the dove-cotes there would bo. In the first place, all washerwomen would bo swept into lunatic asylums, for a washerwoman’s bill was never yet known to be correctly spelt. They would bo closely followed by most tin-smiths, who are notorious in the . same respect. A sprinkling of chairmen of local school committees would bo the next victims, and a miscellaneous crowd gathered from all ranks and shades of society would close the motley procession. The Timarn jury could hardly have been prepared for such a state of affairs, and yet it is the natural sequence to the views they appear to entertain. In point of fact it is full time that the fossil legistion that leaves such a nice point to a court so constituted should be swept away, and the general principle be asserted that the deed and its perpetrator be loft to a Higher Tribunal. The law was made at a time when a totally different state of feeling prevailed on the subject. Men in those days had not the slightest doubt that a man who laid violent hands on himself placed himself outside the pale of mercy. They had no compunction whatever in handing over his body to be buried in the cross roads with a stake driven through it. But a more delicate feeling now obtains, and it is manifestly unfair to place juries in such a dilemma that they are either obliged to talk nonsense, or to offend against their charitable yearnings. In our yesterday’s issue the case of an expressman in Dunedin is mentioned, who committed suicide by hanging; and on his body was found a letter stating that the cause of the act was his separation from his wife and family. The letter added, “ I suppose the jury will bring in insanity; but lam not insane—never was !” The poor man’s prophecy has of course been verified, but probably at the expanse of the conviction of a majority of the jury. S’ -<dy it is time to cease constantly pi. '.g jurymen in a predicament which wo aid be ridiculous if the several occasions that cause it were not so solemn.