INSANITY IN LAW

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 August 1933, Page 9

INSANITY IN LAW

AN AGE-LONG PROBLEM The place of insanity in law formed the subject of an instructive address delivered by Mr. W. E. Leicester. I L. 8., before the New Zealand infv.ianco Institute, (says the ‘Dominion’.)

“Th‘. intricacies of the subject it-' self, the over-changing views held in regard to it, and the different standards adopted by the medical and the legal professions combine to make the! study of the lunatic a sort of mental labyrinth,” said Dlr. Leicester. “Medicine is the progressive, law the positive science; the one concerned with the health of tile social unit, the other with the good of society. “The tendency in the physician is to take too kind-hearted a view of ths conduct of the patient, whom he regards as torn and tormented by ‘the tyranny of his organisation,’ while the lawyer is prone to sacrifice individual justice to codified precision, and to bring every affender within the section of the Act. Yet, strange as it may seem, the humane treatment meted out in this age to the mentally afflicted is due more to the efforts of legal men to unravel the mysteries of conduct than to the researches of medical piactitioners into the realms of sick minds. It is only during the last quarter of a century that the study of mental diseases can be said to have made much progress. SPORT OF DEVIL-CHASING “During the Middle Ages, herbs were used as a means of curing the ■phrenise.’ The prescriptions of such early Greek and Roman writers as Galan and Apuleius were copied and used until well into the seventeenth century. The treatment of epilepsy 'was the swallowing of the brain of a mountain goat after it had been drawn through a gold ring; wolf’s flesh was applied to hallucinations, while mandrake, administered in warm water, was considered just the thing for witlessness—a cute, one imagines, of which many of the aristocracy must have become hearttily sick. “The holy Church , spreading the gentle spirit of religion through the land, lagged sadly behind the infidel Greeks, who sought to heal the lunatic with music and happy natural surroundings. A demented person, by a curious twist of reasoning on the part of his persecutors, was held to be deliberately harbouring the evil one. so the sport of devil-chasing oi exorcism was instituted, and monk, joined in it with the same zest as the general public. The flogging of mad people was a popular amusement. As late as 1622, Sir Matthew Hale, th Chief Justice of England, expressed his belief in witchcraft, and for fifty years after this date convictions wen obtained for this offence.” The speaker went on to quote many famous cases against insane persons for crimes committed, including that of the young man who fired a pistol q,t the Into Queen Victoria. When the youth was acquitted of a charge of high treason on the ground of insanity, the Queen was righteously indignant, and when it was explained to her that it was a principle of English law that there must be a criminal hr tent before the prisoner could properly be convicted, she had the law altered.

SUICIDE A CRIMINAL OFFENCE.

“Suicido is a criminal offence, and there is,' in the law of evidence, a legal presumption against the imputation of crime demanding, before crime can be held to be established, proof of a more cogent character than in ordinary cases where no such imputation is made,” continued the speaker. “In criminal cases this rule is often expressed by saying that the crime imputed must- be proved to the exclusion of reasonable doubt, and there is authority for the proposition that the presumption of innocence from crime- should be applied with equal strictness in civil as well as in criminal cases. “Where an insurance policy stipulates against liability, should the accused commit suicide whether sane or insane, if the evidence is conflicting it is presumed that death was accidental. and not intentional,” said Mr. Leicester. Thus claimants under the policy sTfould du such circumstances derive -ih'-c benefit, of an,y reasonable doubt —not, it should be stressed, of every doubt, but only of a doubt for which reasons can be given; for it is said that everything idative to human affairs and dependent on human evidence is open to sonic possible 01 imaginary doubts.”

trap as a. weapon of offence. Ju view of these circumstances, and many otlu’is, Scotsmen are probably ill-advised Io shed their native speech nben st if Lug in England. Yet many of them do, and presumably reap some I cnelit by confoiming -to the prevailing mode. Chinese pirates also disguise themselves as peasants before, cmbaiking in the vessel they mean- to capture. Many realy successful Scotsmen, however —doctors, for example—carelu.lly preserve their accent as an important featuie of their personality, q’hcy wear the Doric as another man will wear a button-hoe or a beard, and lor the same purpose: to present a distinguishing mark in the midst ot II n i to rn i i t y..