INSANITY AND CRIME. 307 partaking of parental kindness and affection; one of whom now sleeps in the grave, sent there by the hand of him who was to her as a dutiful son while the afflicted, bereaved husband stands here his prosecutor stands here looking upon the accused, as if his hand had shed a parent's blood, and illustrating in his feelings the truth of the great philosophic poet, -- "How sharper than an adder's tooth it is To have a thankless child." In most cases of homicide, some doubt may exist as to the identity of the offender some uncertainty whether the wounds were the cause of death. Here no such doubts exist no such uncertainty remains. The perpetrator stands unconcealed before you the bloody garments in which the horrid act was accomplished have been exhibited -no apology, no excuse, no existing quarrel, no provocation is pretended. It was not to be rid of an enemy. - it was not a contest with an equal. The victim was an unarmed, unoffending female -a sincere friend, an affectionate wife, a fond and devoted mother. The mangled corpse of the deceased the afflictions of the bereaved husband -the tears of motherless children, have been made to call aloud for vengeance. The tragic story has been repeated at every fireside, and every repetition has added new horrors. It has brought an exasperated, an enraged populace even around the doors of the temple of justice, demanding the execution of the accused, and impatient even of the delay of the forms of a trial. If the nature of the charge, the character and manner of the offence, present difficulties to an impartial examination of the question of guilt or innocence, a difficulty not less formidable is to be encountered in the nature of the defence. It is INSANITY. Insanity! And what have we learned of insanity, but the incoherent ravings of the madman, the clanking of the chains of the maniac? Who will for a moment listen to the excuse of insanity for an act of such atrocity, from one whose whole life has been a reg ular and quiet and intelligent discharge of the duties of his humble station? Who has known of his being irrational? Who has heard of a single act of derangement of his? Here we feel how little we know of the human mind – the force of the truth that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." I am well aware of the power and eloquence with which the conviction of the prisoner will be urged on the part of the Government. You may be told, that, if he escapes the sentence of the law for murder, the commission of the crime may be encouraged, and the blood of future victims will be required at your hands—that perhaps your own children, your own wives, may be sacrificed to your lenity. Gentlemen, let no such appeals stir you to injustice- to cruelty -to conviction, without proof and against proof. If you have relatives, friends, whom you would protect from the violence of the assassin, you too are friends, husbands, fathers to those, upon whom, in the Providence of God, the calamity which now afflicts this young man may fall. While every grade of mind, from the humblest reasoning faculty to the loftiest power of human intellect, has been subject to the paralyzing influence of this malady; while its unseen and noiseless approach is unknown till marked by the ruins it has left, who can feel assurance, that within the hour he may not be its victim? And while the thousand new forms and modes in which its effects are exhibited are now daily baffling "the wisdom of the wisest," who is there who may not fear, that to such a calamitous visitation of heaven, erring mortals may add the infamy of a public execution upon the gallows. I here leave the prisoner and his fate with you. May you render a verdict upon which you may hereafter reflect with satisfaction - a verdict which shall not disturb, with misgivings and regrets, the remainder of life, which shall not enhance that dread of death, or the awful solemnity of that scene where we must all soon appear before our final Judge. AGRICULTURE: ITS DIGNITY AND IMPOR TANCE. BY JOHN A. DIX. WE are informed by the most ancient of human records, that the cultivation of the earth was one of the first occupations of men; and as we emerge from the darkness and doubt which envelope a later period in the history of our race, we find it ranked in the annals of the most distinguished nations, among the highest and most honorable pursuits. Egypt, principally through the extraordinary fertility of her soil, renewed by the annual inundations of the Nile, which were turned to the best account by artificial structures and by the laborious industry of her inhabitants, became one of the most wealthy and powerful of the nations of antiquity. Among the Samnites and Latins the national religion was associated with the labors of agriculture and a pastoral life. At a later period, the public domain was parcelled out in small portions among the great body of the people, an agricultural priesthood, under the name of "fratres arvales," was instituted, and every encouragement which the law could afford was extended to the cultivators of the soil. When Rome had reached the height of her power, her most eminent citizens were seen, like the humblest, laboring in the fields with their own hands. It was the privilege of the agricultural class for several centuries to fill the ranks of the Roman Legion; her civil and military commanders were sought for at the plough, and her rewards for great services to the commonwealth consisted of donations of land. In Greece, agriculture, though honored in some of the |