Insane offenders may be divided into two classes: those whose wrongdoing is the result of their insanity; and those who have been sound enough to begin with, but who have become insane, just as they have contracted physical diseases, as a result of vicious indulgence and its treatment. Of the first-named class there may be one in about a thousand admissions. The crimes charged are of all kinds and degrees of gravity, as the following examples will show:—
X 1.—A man is brought to prison for the first time charged with a series of petty thefts committed while under the influence of drink. He shows signs of alcoholism, and is too dazed to give any account of himself. In a day or two the alcoholic symptoms have passed off and his general condition suggests enquiry. He has signs of mental disease which cannot now be confused with drink. It is found that, until a year before, he had been in business in an industrial town; that he had been a reputable citizen, quiet, peaceable, and abstemious in his habits; that he began to take to drink, and sold off his business, which realised several thousand pounds; and that he had since been lost to the knowledge of his friends. What happened in the interval I do not know. He was taken in charge by the police for stealing glasses from a public-house, weights from a shop-counter, and such-like things, which were certainly of no use to him and which he could not sell. The charge was dropped and he was sent to a lunatic asylum.
X 2.—A young man is imprisoned on a charge of fire-raising. He is brisk, talkative, and cheerful, and laughs at the charge as ridiculous. Beyond showing a high appreciation of his own qualities he does not do or say anything to attract attention, and as he is really “bright” his conceit only provokes a smile. He has no physical symptoms of brain disease, and it is not suggested on his behalf that he is mentally unsound. A decent workman who was interested in him called to say how well-behaved he had always been, and to ascertain what ought to be done by way of assisting his defence; and some things he said suggested the need for special enquiry. It was found that prisoner had always been energetic and bright at his work, and that he had good reason for boasting of his skill. His fellow-workers admitted that, though they disapproved of his bounce. He had been a teetotaler all his life and was a prominent member of a militant temperance society. He was very industrious and thrifty. He married a quiet, reputable girl who shared his opinions and ideals. He had saved some money and he suddenly made up his mind to start in business for himself. His wife did not approve of his doing so, as she did not like the risk and was quite content to go on in their accustomed ways. He persisted, and she yielded the point, but only when she saw her opposition was causing domestic strife. He rented a small workshop and furnished it. He got as much work as he could undertake—not a great amount—but before he had time to see how his venture would prosper, he conceived the idea of removing to a larger house. His wife was unable to see how he could safely do this, as she did not think he had money sufficient to justify such a course. Her opposition only made him more insistent, and on one occasion he lost his temper so completely that she became alarmed. He threatened to kill her, and looked as though he meant it. When she spoke to him about this afterwards, he apologised and laughed it off; and as he had always been a most affectionate and dutiful husband she dropped the subject. Things went on as before till one day there was a fire in his workshop. It was not got under till some damage was done, and it might have resulted in serious loss of life and property, as there were dwelling-houses adjoining. It was quite obviously the work of an incendiary, and he was arrested on a charge of fire-raising, as he could give no satisfactory account of his movements. On closer investigation it became quite apparent that he was a person of unsound mind. Little things that had passed as peculiarities, receiving only a passing comment, when dovetailed into the story as I have related it left no room for doubt. The charge was dropped, he was sent to an asylum, and there he died two years later from general paralysis of the insane.
In his case his fellow-workmen, seeing him from day to day, failed to observe more than a slight accentuation of the qualities they had been accustomed to see in him. He talked a lot about what he could do; he always did that. He offered to make certain articles for a man better than any other could; very likely he was able. He started business on an altogether inadequate capital; others have done the same thing. He wanted to set up in a higher style of living; he was always ambitious—and so on. Until he set fire to his workshop they had never known him do anything inconsistent with his character, and while they laughed at his boasting they did not doubt his sanity. It was the same with his wife. She distrusted his judgment but did not doubt his sanity. His sudden murderous threat she put down to his temper. His temper she attributed to his want of sleep; for she admitted that he got up at night, and worked or moved about. On one occasion, she confessed, he had proposed that he should cut her throat and his own. He was quite quiet at the time and she thought it an ugly kind of joke, as he woke her to make the proposal; but she explained it to herself on the ground of overwork and sleeplessness. Those who are coming most in contact with persons afflicted like this man are the last to see the significance of the changes taking place before them, because the transition is so gradual. This is true of people in all social classes.
X 3 was a professional man in a very good line of business. Late in life he was arrested on a charge of embezzling large sums of money. When I saw him first he had a paralysis of the muscles of one hand, which was withered in consequence; and he could not articulate owing to paralysis of the muscles of the mechanism of speech. He put or answered questions in writing. Enquiry showed that for many years he had been much respected and trusted. He had amassed a considerable fortune, and had been upright and honest in his dealings with others. He lived in the country and kept up a large establishment. His business was one which dealt in large sums of money. Some years before his arrest he married for the second time, and there was trouble between his second wife and his family by her predecessor. He had always been an open-handed man, but latterly his public gifts had excited comment by their number and character. His mental condition, however, was never suspected by his family. They assumed his ability to afford anything he chose to buy. His wife left him as a result of his conduct to her and in doubt as to his sanity, but these doubts were not shared by his family. She said he had become capricious and sometimes cruel to her, and quite different from his ordinary self. He would sometimes bring in parcels of costly jewellery for which there was no need. In the end she became frightened to stay with him; but though she feared he might injure her, as he seemed to have taken a dislike to her, she never suspected that he was frittering away his substance. When the crash came it was found that he had within a short period thrown away tens of thousands of his own, and as much belonging to others who had trusted him. He had bought and sold property in a reckless way and without any authority to do so, his reputation enabling him to do things which in another would have been questioned. He was sent to an asylum. In his case the paralysis from which he suffered, gradual as it was in its onset, had attracted attention to itself and had actually masked the mental condition which accompanied or followed it.
There are some crimes which in themselves shock us to such an extent that we find it difficult to believe that any sane man would commit them. In a book such as this I can only refer to certain sexual offences without discussing them, but even in these cases the crime need not infer insanity. We are no more justified in saying that a man is mad if he does a mad-like thing than in calling him wise if he does a wise-like thing. A man’s criminal acts are only to be judged in relation to his other conduct if we would form a rational opinion as to his mental condition; and that again has to be considered in relation to the social condition in which he is placed before anything approaching a fair opinion as to its adequacy can be formed.
If a man’s criminal act were to be taken as sufficient to infer his insanity there are certain crimes for which we should never have anybody tried. Every murderer would straightway be sent to a lunatic asylum on the plea that he must have been mad or he would not have done it; and yet that is precisely one of the most important points that have to be examined in the course of a trial for murder in Scotland.
Murder is practically the only crime for which the death sentence is passed. Scottish jurymen have shown a strong repugnance to be parties to the death of a criminal. They may favour capital punishment in theory, but, no matter how bad he may be, they shrink from handing a culprit over to the hangman; and they will seize any opportunity to escape from doing so if it is given them. They may be told they have nothing to do with results; that their duty is to find a verdict on the evidence; but they might as well be told to pull the bolt. They know what will happen. They do not seem to believe that they are not responsible for the necessary consequence of their acts, and in spite of the assurance of the law the verdict is a worry to them. Few homicides are hanged in Scotland, and there are few verdicts of murder, mainly for this reason. If the death penalty were abolished—if it were even made only a possible penalty—brutal murders would have a chance of being called by that name and not by “Culpable Homicide.”
For a time it was almost a matter of routine to set up a defence of insanity in murder cases where the facts could not be seriously contested. Now in most assaults there is an element of accident. The assailant is in a state of rage and hits out wildly. The blow that will kill one man may only stun another. Blows inflicted on one part of the body may cause little more than inconvenience, but if the same amount of violence be applied to another part death may result. I have known cases where as a result of assault the victim seemed to have sustained injuries sufficient to kill him, even though he had the nine lives sometimes attributed to a cat, and yet he recovered—maimed and permanently unfitted to support himself. That was not murder; in some respects it was worse; but there was no attempt to prove the assailant insane. If death had ended the suffering of the victim there would have been a plea of insanity set up. The determining factor in the plea was thus the physical condition of the assailed, not the mental condition of the assailant.
In Glasgow special care is taken in all cases of murder to enquire into the mental condition of the accused. From the time he is admitted to prison he is placed under observation with this purpose in view, and any evidence bearing on the subject is carefully examined. His conduct in prison may be perfectly sane, but if there is any reason to believe that, when at liberty, he showed signs of insanity, the medical officer personally makes an investigation and reports. The prisoner may be penniless, but he suffers no prejudice thereby, as the work is undertaken at the expense of the Crown; and at the trial the necessary witnesses are usually produced on his behalf if the reports show that he is insane. This is true in other than murder cases to this extent, that the procurator fiscal informs the prison authorities of any allegation as to the prisoner’s mental condition and asks for a report. He also puts before the judge any statement by the prison doctor as to the health of a prisoner mental or physical, even although the report may not have been asked for.