Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 01.pdf/22

Rh ." It is better not to expose one's self to the reproach of this too keen controversialist in a place where there is not space to defend one's position. So we pronounce neither on the one side nor the other. M. Breschet remarks that the line of demarcation between depravity and madness is very difficult to draw. This is sufficient for us. It is also the gist of the matter. For, admitting, for the moment, the existence of a pathological phenomenon of a perversion of the affections without a derangement of the intellect, there is a further question, not to be settled off-hand by mere generalities: Ought such a form of mental disorder to involve irresponsibility for crime in the same way as intellectual disorder? Even Professor Maudsley shrinks from answering this universally in the affirmative, and considers the admission of a modified responsibility, according to the special circumstances of the case, to be "the truest justice."

It was the very atrocity of the Whitechapel murders that gave rise to the theory of their being the work of a madman. It is not a novel line of reasoning, this. Georget, when dealing with the notorious case of Antoine Leger, who was tried in 1824 for the violation and murder of a girl of twelve, remarks: "The more strange and unheard of a crime is, the less need one seek for its cause among the ordinary motives of human actions." Only let the deed be surpassingly barbarous, and the ordinary mind will at once leap to the conclusion that it was a maniac who wrought it. Its very wantonness and shocking brutality are considered inexplicable on any other hypothesis save that of an unhinged and disordered mind. Now, the inference is quite fallacious. There are many extraneous considerations to be kept in view,—as, for example, that the mutilation may be a mere ruse in order to mislead the investigators, or even, should the culprit look so far ahead, to give color to a plea of insanity when things reach that pass. But putting such aside for the present, it is rash to conclude that there is any limit to the depravity of human nature. From this ground of sheer brutality by itself no inference of madness ought ever to be drawn. Some of the most barbarous murders on record have been perpetrated by admittedly sane men,—men on whose perfect soundness of mind no doubt has ever been cast. Nor is it to be forgotten that an ordinary execution in this country of ours in bygone times was certainly not inferior in savagery to these London outrages. Disembowelling and plucking out the heart while the victim still breathed, and quartering after death, were regular practices, sanctioned by public opinion, ordained by men whom we still count enlightened. It cannot be pretended that these, continued for centuries, were evidences of insanity on the part of the people who permitted their infliction. They were evidences of the coarse and brutal side of human nature,—sane and sound human nature,—which it is the function of criminal law to repress. Uncivilized savages, too, of our own time still revel daily in atrocious cruelties, even to hear of which makes one shudder. Yet we do not stamp these races as universally mad and irresponsible. No more is mere barbarity when displayed in our own time and country to be regarded as necessarily a symptom of mental derangement, or of anything but great depravity. The mutilation of the bodies of these wretched women in East London, taken by itself, is no indication whatever of insanity on the part of the perpetrator or perpetrators of the deeds.

It is said that the hypothesis of insanity as an explanation of these startling crimes is borne out by the apparent absence of any thing like an adequate motive.

The circumstances certainly point to none. The existence of the customary motives to murder seem to be negatived by all that is known. The object cannot have been robbery or gain; the poverty of the murdered woman in each case negatives that. Assassination can scarcely have resulted from an impulse of sudden anger; the very number and similarity of the crimes negative such a