WHO ARE INSANE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1382, 22 August 1885, Page 3

WHO ARE INSANE.

Two or three recent cases have provoked some interest in the subject of insanity as related to personal responsible). One of these is the investigation into the sanity of Miss Hoyt, growing out of the contest over her father’s will in the New York Surrogate’s Court. She declares that she was shut up in an Insane Asylum, although she was not insane. Her insanity is not so clear, but a great deal of testimony showed that she acted like an irrational woman. It was testified that she swore, struck her mother, made attacks on the furniture and indulged in other disagreeable freaks. The idea that this was proof of insanity grew out of her surroundings rather than the nature of the acts themselves. A girl who had no advantages of education, of a quiet home, of wealth and luxury ragiht Indulge in all these acts, but she would not be, on that account, shut up in an insane asylum. It is the same with kleptomania. The well-educated, wellbred person who steals when surrounded by few temptations is called insane. The person who is tempted by hunger or want lacks moral training, is only a common thief. . A few days since a young man in Connecticut killed his mother and sister and then shot himself. He was rich, a recent valedictorian in Yale College, in reai-on-ably good health, and without a known provocation for his murder and suicide. He was an athlete in college, aad yet won its highest scholastic honors easily. Since his graduation he had been devoting himself tc his office duties and worked hard at night. All who knew him at college expressed surprise at hia deed and at the idea that he was insane. Neither, so far as known, was there insanity in the family. He was sane and intelligent enough to recognise the wrongfulness and the con sequence of his acts. In the letter which he left, he said he was conscious of the enormity of hia offence, but at the same time he had a suspicion that he was insane. Hia object was “to save his mother and sister from an unhappier fate.” “If there is a just and generous God,” he said, “ these two will go to the happiness which they deserve. If there is no God, then they will simply find their rest.” There was in these words perfect intelligence. His logic was correct; his recognition of the offence quite clear. He upbraided his friends for not recognising his state of mind and helping him, but he immediately admitted that it would be a fairer question to ask why he did not help himself ? Such a view of the situation betrayed a sane and reasonable mind. And yet the act which he committed is regarded as evidence of insanity. Was it not rather evidence of a murderous impulse which he recognised perfectly, but which he would not, or could not, control 1 It was in a certain sense, to be sure, an unreasonable impulse. He did not murder for money or revenge. But did he not gratify some other impulse in just the same way as a greedy man or a revengeful man would have done ! It is a proof of insanity to give way to an impulse which he who yields to it recognises us wicked, even though the impulse is not as common as other impulses which lead to murder, Some persons have committed murder, knowing it was wicked, merely to gratify a passion to see a human being die. Suppose the few instances of this sort should increase. Suppose that in time this morbid desire becomes common, and that not infrequently a man kills another purely for the sake of killing him. Would he be any more insane than another who kills for the sake of robbery or to gratify an ugly temper t Ur Nicholson, an eminent clergyman of Philadelphia, against whose character there has never been a breach of defamation, has recently leen the object of the most malignant attacks by letters and postal cards addressed to himself and members of his congregation. There was not the slightest clue to their source, but the post office officials, by a careful scrutiny of the letters, traced them to two street boxes. These were watched day and night, and every letter taken out immediately after mailing. A week of this work fastened suspicion upon a lady of high social standing. A female detective, sent into the house under the guise of a domestic, confirmed the suspicions. The youag lady’s mother was informed, but the obnoxious letters continued. A family council was called and the proofs of her guilt laid before them, with the threat of arrest unless she left the city in twenty-four hours. She did so, and the letters ceased. She was the Belle of some of the most famous of the winter resorts afterwards, and was soon married, enjoying the luxury of a large and fashionable wedding. No possible motive was assigned or discovered for this remarkably vulgar and wicked attack upon a venerable and an estimable man. But no woman from the slums could have been viler in her assaults. Had she been such a person, she would have been considered rae»ely depraved. But, under the circumstances she is regarded as a monomaniac, and not responsible. As soon, however, as she was detected and threatened with disgraceful exposure, she was as sane as anybody ; acted like a rational being, and ceased to do evil. When Mrs Seguin, the wife of an expert in insanity, killed herself and her children, she was generally regarded as insane. Her husband pronounced her so. But since that time, it is said be has had occasion to change his opinion, and on being requested to testify in the Hoyt will case, refused to do so as an “ expert.” “No money,” he said, " could induce him to appear as an expert in insanity.” When so distinguished an “ alienist ” confesses himself disqualified to judge, then the whole subject of insanity may be regarded as being yet in a very chaotic and unsatisfactory condition. In fact, the up-and-down contradictions of different alienists about the same state of facts shows that with all the investigation and study that has been given to the subject, it is very far from being mastered.—American paper.