By the district attorney: “Doctor, are your sentiments—your personal sentiments—for the prisoner of a friendly or an unfriendly nature?”
“Decidedly, sir, of a friendly nature.”
“You would be sorry to see her hanged?”
The doctor replied by a gesture.
“Or sent to State Prison?”
“I could not bear to think of it.”
“You would do your utmost—would you not?—to save her from such a fate?”
“Eagerly, sir, eagerly.”
“That’s sufficient, doctor.”
An alienist of some distinction followed Dr. Jetz. He said that he had listened attentively to the evidence so far adduced in court, had read the depositions taken before the magistrate and the coroner, had conferred at length with the preceding witness, and finally had made a diagnosis of Mrs. Peixada’s case in her cell at the Tombs. He believed that, though perfectly sane and responsible at present, she had “within a brief period suffered from a disturbance of cerebral function.” There were “indications which led him to infer that at the time of the homicide she was organically a lunatic.” The district-attorney took him in hand.