sanity. Some of the signs dwelt upon as indicating insanity before his confinement in prison, have not appeared to any one since. He has slept well since the homicide, which was said not to be the case before. His absent-mindedness has disappeared. There is no deep study in him, requiring that he should be spoken to more than once to get an answer. Much was said, by the experts, of the silly laugh, as being a very strong sign of insanity. No one has seen this since his confinement. Drs. Earle and Butler do not testify that they saw it in their long conversations with Clark. Yet in those conversations there was a full development of the insane delusions. The insanity, it seems, was, according to their view, fully upon him. If so, somebody, during all the period of his confinement to that time, a little over three months, should have seen these signs. Surely there is some lack of the usual "method in madness" here.

Perhaps it may be said that, the deed having been done, bringing deliverance to the woman, as he thought, his satisfaction at the result freed him from his perturbed state of mind, he being nevertheless as insane as ever. If So, then this satisfaction should have been expressed. At least he should not have expressed merely a gratified revenge.

We have thus commented on the material points in the testimony. There are some other minor points which it would be interesting to examine, if it would not make this article too long. We will barely notice two of them. One is Clark's pretended indifference as to his impending trial, which was quite a point in Dr. Butler's testimony. We simply remark in relation to this, that there is ample evidence in the testimony of Mr. Knevals and others, that he was far from being indifferent on this subject. The other point is the coolness which he exhibited at the time that he committed the deed and afterward. This is as easily accounted for on the supposition that it was an act of wicked revenge, as on the supposition that insanity prompted it. When a man has wound himself up to the deliberate commission of a crime, he is apt to be cool and collected, from the continued concentration of thought and feeling upon the act. This is the explanation of Webster's cool and unruffled state after the murder of Dr. Parkman. He was so calm that no one saw anything in his manner to awaken the least suspicion. Even when his daughter, in the midst of an evening party, playfully said to him, that people would suspect him of killing Dr. Parkman, he did not in the least lose his self-possession.

There are three different suppositions that can be made in re

gard to the case before us. 1. That insanity, as claimed by the counsel for the prisoner, not only existed, but was the procuring cause of the homicide. 2. That insanity existed, but if it had any influence at all, it only concurred with other causes to make him commit the deed. 3. That, as the attorney for the state claimed, there was no insanity, but the deed was one of sheer wickedness.

If we take the testimony of all who testify to Clark's insanity as being perfectly true without any coloring, and if we exclude the testimony of Mr. Garfield, Dr. Hubbard and others, as to his state of mind immediately after the homicide, there is made out quite a clear case of insanity, and that too as directly and fully the cause of the homicide. Not that there would be no doubt. Even then we should feel that some expression of gratification at the result of his mission is needed to fill out the chain of evidence; and we should think it strange that the silly laugh and other signs of insanity, seen before the homicide, were not seen after it.

If, on the other hand, we consider the testimony of those witnesses who expressed the belief that Clark was insane from what they saw of him before the homicide to be somewhat exaggerated; and take into account the undoubted testimony as to Clark's expression of revenge as his predominant feeling after the homicide, and also the absence of all allusion at that time to the delusion of his mission so much dwelt upon by Drs. Butler and Earle, we think that quite as conclusive an argument can be made out for Clark's sanity, under these conditions, as there could be for his insanity, under the conditions mentioned in the previous paragraph.

But it will be asked how, in making out this argument for Clark's sanity, we can account for the distinctness with which the delusions appeared when he was visited by Drs. Butler and Earle three months after the homicide. They think that they could not have been deceived-that the simulation of insanity in this case in this form was impossible. But without any disparagement of their skill, we believe that it is among the possible things, though exceedingly difficult. We have seen quite as difficult things accomplished in the practice of deception. We can conceive the manner in which the prisoner might, in the three months which elapsed between the homicide and the visits of Drs. Earle and Butler, concoct such a scheme of deception as might thwart even their skill. The mode we will briefly indicate. It will be agreed on all hands that Clark had a strong affection for Miss Bogart. Although a corrupt man, his feelings and passions were concentrated upon this object.

He had in her an absorbing subject of thought and feeling. But she discarded him, and another took his place in her affections. It is not necessary to suppose insanity to account for Clark's thinking that she still loved him. We have seen such exhibitions of weakness where there was no insanity. It would be natural for Clark also, in contemplating revenge upon his rival, to entertain some justifying considerations in his mind. He would welcome, therefore, the slightest shadow of evidence. that Wight's character was bad. Imagination would be alive to create such a suspicion, and to change it into real verity. Especially would this be the case here, as Clark himself attempted to take improper liberties with Mrs. Wight when he was engaged to her. Now on the supposition that he killed. Wight from wicked malice and revenge, all this which we have mentioned would come in incidentally both before and after the homicide. His counsel would get hold of these points, both from the prisoner and from others who were conversant with him, and by questioning him from time to time, would bring them out into bolder and bolder relief. If we suppose Clark to be even wholly ignorant of the subject of insanity, we can see the process by which he could gather the requisite material for its simulation. By books on insanity, and perhaps by conversation with experts, his counsel finds out what is necessary as evidence of insanity, and so his questions to the prisoner bear more and more on the points alluded to, and develop them more and more. Clark sees what they mean, and takes hints from them. His counsel thus unwittingly instructs him as to what is wanted; and by the time that Drs. Earle and Butler come, he is prepared with his full development of delusions. The revenge, so prominent at the first, is now all left out. Not a lisp of it is uttered. To these experts Clark appears as innocent and truthful as possible. They would not suspect that he could talk of revenge, and that with an oath. His benevolent mission in relation to Mrs. Wight is the all-absorbing subject. Not a word is said now about his materialism. No comparisons, such as he made between the murdered Wight and a dead cat, are uttered now. He is even eloquent in his defense of the course which he pursued in accomplishing the deliverance of the victim of Wight's villainy, and quotes glibly from the Bible and from Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.

There is nothing in the supposition thus made which is at all inconsistent with perfect honesty and good faith on the part of the counsel for the prisoner, Mr. Harrison. His indefatigable zeal in the defense of him who was once his schoolmate, was undoubtedly fired by the conviction, all the while becoming

stronger, that in committing the homicide, Clark was the pitiable victim of an insane impulse which he could not control. And there is no doubt that Clark saw this indicated in the enquiries which his counsel made of him, for he said to Dr. Butler that he supposed the plea was to be insanity.

Taking into view all the testimony, and estimating, as well as we can, the relative values of different parts of it, we think that there is a decided preponderance in favor of the second of the three suppositions that we have stated, viz, that Clark was insane when he committed the homicide, but that his insanity only concurred with other causes when he committed the act. It appears clear that two of the three delusions claimed by the defense existed in his mind-the idea that Mrs. Wight loved him and not Wight, and the idea that Wight was a villain, working her ruin. But the existence of the third delusion that of his mission-the delusion needed to connect the homicide directly with his insanity-is very far from being proyed by the testimony presented in this trial.

But it will perhaps be said, that the existence of the first two delusions is inconsistent with the killing of Wight from a wicked revenge. We will allow that the delusion in regard to the mission to kill Wight might naturally spring from the other two delusions in the insane mind; but it is by no means a necessary product of them. Not only so, but they are consistent with the commission of crime from the influence of some wicked passion, as revenge. And their agency in causing the act might be only to add fuel to the flame of passion. How far this incidental and indirect influence of insanity diminishes responsibility, is a question which we will not now discuss.

Perhaps, too, it will be said, that the existence of the two delusions alluded to, would forbid the exercise of the cunning requisite to make such a show of the other delusion as would deceive such skillful experts as Drs. Earle and Butler. But cunning, for the purpose of obtaining an object, is a very common thing in the insane. The man who has determined upon running away from an asylum, may purposely behave so well as to put the attendants off their guard. That is, he may in part conceal his insanity. Sometimes the insane conceal their insanity quite thoroughly, and for a long time, for the purpose of accomplishing some object. So, too, could the insane Clark, for the purpose of escaping the penalty of his crime, practice cunning. He could add to the natural manifestations of his insanity as readily, perhaps, as others could lessen them. He supposed that the plea of insanity was to be set up, as he

told Dr. Butler; and, so far as we can judge from the testimony, he was not so crazy as to forbid his cunningly furnishing more material for such a plea than really belonged to his

case.

The opinion that we have given is upon the evidence as it appears in the trial. But there is palpable deficiency in the evidence. This is not by any means as complete as it should have been. The investigation of the question of insanity in the case is far from being satisfactory; and therefore we do not give an opinion on this question with full confidence. A satisfactory investigation might perhaps have brought us to a different, or even an opposite conclusion.

There is a great chasm in the evidence for the defense. It is a chasm that stretches over three months of the history of the case, and that, too, the most important part of its history. The defense, full on every other part, is utterly silent here. It tells us nothing of the state of mind of the prisoner after the homicide till three months have elapsed, and then bursts upon us a full exposition of a tissue of delusions. Under these circumstances there is certainly some ground of suspicion that there is imposture on the part of the prisoner.

How do the defense meet this suspicion? It is said on the authority of the experts who testified, that Clark could not have woven such a tissue of delusions as he presented to Drs. Butler and Earle at their visits. We have already shown how insanity could have been, at this period of the case, in part, or even wholly simulated, and need not again dwell on this point. But it is said, also, that these delusions, so fully developed at these visits, were also developed to some considerable degree before the homicide. The evidence on this point is not wholly satisfactory even in regard to the least important of the delusions, and is entirely deficient in regard to that delusion, on which hangs the question of the connection of the homicide with the insanity, if insanity existed.

The mere chasm then which appears in the evidence of the defense, gives rise to the suspicion of simulation. But this suspicion receives confirmation from the positive testimony introduced by the state, and occupying, though by no means filling, this chasm. The testimony referred to is small in amount, but what there is has much significance. And we need not remark again upon its discordance with the evidence as to Clark's condition, offered in the testimony of Drs. Earle and Butler.

The suspicion of simulation also receives support from certain negative evidences in regard to Clark's condition after the homicide, up to the time of the trial. Certain signs of