CRIMINALITY AND INSANITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6051, 9 April 1881, Page 5

CRIMINALITY AND INSANITY.

I [BT TELEGRAPH.—OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Christcuurch, Friday. The Times has a leader on the two shooting cases just tried at the Supreme Court, expressing surprise that more trouble was not taken to find out whether Beanfield was not really mad. Of the madness of Gibson, it says there can be no doubt, as a crowd of witnesses, independent of the two doctors, conclusively showed that. Of the state of Beanfield'a mind, there was no direct evidence, but the man was clearly of a muddled intellect, and, having no lawyer to defend him, was at the mercy of the prosecution. Upon* the subject of his wife's relations with Spring, and the latter's attempts So poison him, the man was labouring under i uecidert. hallucination, and so the Times jays : —"lf a man is mad on one point alone, ioes that take away his knowledge of the liflereucc between right and wrong generally ? In other words, when a man is mad m one point, is he a madman? For our part, would it be necessary to go into ;he question of the madness or sanity of nonomaniacs on other subjects but those of ;heir delusions in cases of crime arisiug out )f such delusions. The proper plan is to jonfine the inquiry to those delusions, and .vhnt they portend. If Beanfield accepted a lallucination for a fact, then he was mad as ar as that hallucination 13 concerned. His ittempt to shoot Spring was a consequence )f that madness. It was committed while us mind was unable to distinguish between lallucination and fact, and therefore he nust be held at the time to have been ncapablc of distinguishing between right tnd wrong; therefore we think that f the existence of the hallucination 3e established, the conclusion that Beanfield yas not responsible for his action at the ;ime of the shooting will be easy. In the neantime the great question of the hallucination can easily be set at rest by the Government, for a clue exists already. It is ;o us a matter of surprise that the clue wa3 lot followed up before the trial, so that the 2rown could have said positively * This man s mad/ or "'He is not .mad.' If it were jot the business of the police to ind out these things, then we shall >e hanging or imprisoning lunatics one of ;hese days, simply because they happen to )C undefended by counsel." The Star" also jails for a more searching inquiry. On the )thcr hand, the Globe thinks neither , men vere mad : that Beanfield ought to have got nuch more than ten years, and Gibson ought ;o have been hanged. How it can arrive at ;hjs conclusion, in the. face of the mass of Evidence, is a mystery.