Volume 62 — Lawyers and Lunatics.
Reading edition
How hardly will Judges, for the most part, admit the plea of insanity in exculpation from a charge of murder! How readily are they wont to entertain it as a reason for setting aside a will! How right they are in either instance! Suppose a maniac is hanged as a man of sound mind, his execution serves just as well, for the purpose of example, as it would if he were. But my Luds would make a mistake on the wrong side by misdirecting Jurors to determine insanity to have been sanity in a case wherein a lunatic might possibly have misdisposed of property.