Correspondence.

Colonist, Issue 17, 18 December 1857, Page 3

Correspondence.

To the Editor of the Colonist. ... Si*—The last mail to the Wairau brought down your issue of December Ist, wherein a correspondent styling himself' Theto' makes a rather long and learned, but not very logical strictures, upon the "verdict'of 'an ignorant jury' on the Wairau, in the late melancholy case of a female destroying herself by strychnine. Good taste and feeling (towards deceased's relatives) I humbly opine, would have felt satisfied with the verdict, as it answered the aim and ends of justice—which are in such cases to ascertain whether or not violence or foul play was'the cause of death; but in 'Theto's eyes the verdict—which after all he misquotes,— affords him an opportunity, which appears irresistible, of exhibiting his acquaintance with celebrated men and the science of psvchiatri% out of which, he says, they have expelled such a term as •mania transitorium,' thereby (!) rendering the English words' temporary insanity' improper and ♦obsolete/ This may be so, and it may be even true, that \ * Theto's' celebrated authority whom he has' conversed with'—'the President of the highest court of medicine in Prussia,' may never have known for twenty-five years a crime to be perpetrated under the influence of 'mania, transitoria, any more than any English judge in that period may have held as criminal an individual labouring under temporary insanity, whatever his acts may have been. But if' Theto' does not intend a mere play upon words, and means to deny that to temporary as well as confirmed insmity are to be attributed innumerable acts from murder and suicide downwards; ;he may find support in-his ■ notions from German trancendentalism, but none I from common sense or true'philosophy. # i Can '"Theto' explain how a post mortem examination could afford an exact index to the state of mind before death, so that.rfie jury might have' palpable proof of 'immensity of mental suffering, but not reaching 'insanity?' Can he say it is an act of reason, to throw off life?" And if not reason what must it be? What begins where reason ends? Is it a wide expanse of intermediate territory—devoted to the operation of Don Juan— Werther—and Charles Moor, between Reason and Madness ?—and though it be truly said that Passions in contending flow Unfix the strongest mind, .yet in that region insanity must not be held to exist in any degree, because determination upon self-destruction is evinced! I am, &c, ONE OF THE JURYMEN. Wairau, December Bth, 1857. To the Editor'of the Colonist. Sm, —" Justus " will perceive the impropriety of further discussing the matter at present. After the Judge shall have visited Nelson, I shall be happy to measure a lance with him. ™ S.P. T..