Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed, 1770, vol IV).djvu/37

Ch. 2. thing in tay of judgment or execution. Indeed, in the bloody reign of Henry the eighth, a latute was made", which enacted, that if a perobn, being compos mentis, hould commit high treaon, and after fall into madnes, he might be tried in his abence, and hould uffer death, as if he were of perfect memory. But this avage and inhuman law was repealed by the tatute 1 & 2 Ph. & M. c. 10. For, as is oberved by ir Edward Coke , "the execution of an offender is for example, ut pocna ad paucos, metus ad omnes perveniat: but o it is not when a madman is executed; but hould be a mierable pectacle, both againt law, and of extreme inhumanity and cruelty, and can be no example to others." But if there be any doubt, whether the party be compos or not, this mall be tried by a jury. And if he be o found, a total idiocy, or abolute inanity, excues from the guilt, and of coure from the punihment, of any criminal action committed under uch deprivationof the enes: but, if a lunatic hath lucid intervals of undertanding, he hall anwer for what he does in thoe intervals, as if he had no deficiency. Yet, in the cafe of abolute madmen, as they are not anwerable for their actions, they hould not be permitted the liberty of adding unles under proper control; and, in particular, they ought not to be uffered to go looe, to the terror of the king's ubjects. It was the doctrine of our antient law, that perons deprived of their reaon might be confined till they recovered their enes, without waiting for the forms of a commiion or other pecial authority from the crown: and now, by the vagrant acts , a method is chalked out for imprioning, chaining, and ending them to their proper homes.

III. ; as to artificial, voluntarily contracted madnes, by drunkennes or intoxication, which, depriving men of their reaon, puts them in a temporary phrenzy; our law looks upon this as an aggravation of the offence, rather than as an Rh