CONTINENTAL.

Abhandlungen über die Hamburg. Verfassung. 8vo. Hamb. 10s. [Discussions upon the Hamburg Constitution.]

Kimd. Summariam Juridicum. 3r. Bd. 8vo. Stutt. 14s. Juristische Leitung für Preussen. 1835. 4to. Berlin. 11. [Juridical Journal for Prussia.]

Murhard, Staatsrecht von Hessen. 2te. Abthl. Cassel. 148. [Hessian Political Law.]

Linden, Das österreichische Frauenrecht. 2Bde. 8vo. Wien. 128. [The Austrian Law of Married Women.]

Haenel, Antiqua Summaria Cod. Theodosian. ex Cod. Vatic c. cod. et Summar. Descript. edidt. 8vo. Lips. 4s.

Curtius, Sächissches. Civilrecht. 1r. Thl. 3te. Anpl. (von Hänsel) 8vo. 8s.

[Saxon Civil Law.]

Zachariæ, Rechtsgutachten üb. d. Ansprüche Aug. von Este auf d. Titel, etc. eines Prinzen d. Hauses Hannover. 8vo. Heidelb. 78. [Legal opinion on the claim of Augustus d'Este to the title, &c. of a Prince of the House of Hanover.]

Pasant, Loix de la Presse en 1834. 8vo. 78.

Dupin, Manuel des Etudians en Droit. 18mo. 7s.

ENGLISH.

[At the time this number of the Jurist went to press-late as it waswe had not received the last number of the London Law Magazine, or the late numbers of the Legal Examiner, and of the Legal Observer, to which we are usually indebted for our lists of English publications.]

AMERICAN.

English Exchequer Reports, condensed. By Francis J. Troubat, Esq., of the Philadelphia Bar. vols. 2. 3d, 4th.

English Common Law Reports, condensed by the Honorable Thomas Sergeant, of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. vol. 25th.

Digest of Cases in the Courts of Common Law, the House of Lords, and in Bankruptcy, and of the Crown. Cases Reserved, from 1754 to 1834; by S. B. Harrison. Esq. First American, from the 2d London edition. 3 vols.

Reports of Cases argued and determined in the Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Maine. By Simon Greenleaf, Counsellor at Law. vol. 9. Portland. 1835.

[Noticed in the present number.]

Digest of Greenleaf's Reports of Cases argued and determined in the Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Maine, from 1820 to 1832, inclusive. Portland.

[This valuable Digest is bound up with the 9th volume of Mr. Greenleaf's Reports. A few copies, however, have been published separately. We have alluded to it in our notice of Mr. Greenleaf's Reports, in this number.]

Supplement to Petersdorff's Abridgement of English Common Law Cases, argued and determined in the Courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer, and at Nisi Prius; being a Practical Abridgement of the Cases reported from Michaelmas Term, 4 George IV., to Hilary Term, 3 William IV., alphabetically and systematically arranged, under appropriate Titles. By Elisha Hammond, Esq., Counsellor at Law. New York. Treadway & Atwood, 1835. 2 vols. 8vo.

[Noticed in the present number.]

Report of the Commissioners for the revising the Laws of Massachusetts. Part 1st.

[This part of the Report has been published since our article on this subject in the last number.]

IN PRESS.

Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence, by Joseph Story, LL. D. Dane Professor of Law in Harvard University.

[Those who have heard Mr. Justice Story's Lectures on Equity, speak of them in terms of the highest admiration. His distinguished reputation, we doubt not, will be still farther advanced by the present work.]

Reports in the Circuit Court of the United States, for the First Circuit, from May, 1829, to Oct., 1834, by Charles Sumner. Vol. 1st. [This volume will be in continuation of the five volumes of Mr. Mason's Reports. William P. Mason, Esq., the late Reporter, having resigned his office, Mr. Sumner was appointed in his place, and has carried nearly through the press the present volume of Reports. The cases reported by Mr. Sumner, contain the opinions of Mr. Justice Story, delivered on his Circuit, which are well known to be unrivalled for their acuteness, thoroughness and deep learning; these are the first that have been published since the new epoch in his reputation, constituted by the appearance of his works as Dane Professor of Law, at Harvard College.]

Treatise on Admiralty Practice, by Andrew Dunlap.

[This work will be published in a very short time. It will, however, be a posthumous work. While this sheet was passing through the press we received information of the death of Mr. Dunlap. Mr. Sumner, in whose hands he had placed the MSS., and who has edited the work, will carry it through the press.]

AMERICAN JURIST.

NO. XXVIII.

OCTOBER, 1835.

ART. I.-CRIMINAL LAW OF INSANITY.

[The following article was delivered, as a lecture, before the bar of one of the Counties of the State of Maine, by Dr. J. RAY, of Eastport, Me. The correctness of its views, we think, will be felt by all our readers.-ED. JUR.]

It may not be generally suspected by the legal profession, though it is not, therefore, less true, that the Criminal Law of Insanity is greatly behind the present state of our knowledge of that disease. Indeed, that such should be the case in some degree, was to be expected from the very nature of the subject. When we consider the immense amount of reading which the lawyer feels it necessary to go through before he can gain any thing like eminence in his own profession, and which seems to accumulate rather than diminish with every step of his progress, he can have but little disposition to extend his researches into another and very different science, and make himself master of some of its nicest questions. If there be another cause of it, still greater than this, undoubtedly it is the incompetence of physicians; and it is not strange, that after witnessing so often, the loose, inaccurate and contradictory nature of medical testimony, the courts should conclude that they know as much about the subject themselves, and

VOL. XIV.-NO. XXVIII.

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are as capable of forming pathological opinions that are to affect the lives and property of their fellow men. In the following remarks I hope to convince you, that nearly all the common law of insanity touching responsibility for crime, by which practice is regulated in Great Britain, and to some extent in this country, and on the continent, is founded on totally erroneous notions respecting the nature and phenomena of this disease, and consequently has led to frightfully numerous cases of judicial homicide. It cannot help striking one who examines this subject free from professional biases, that the common feelings of humanity seem to be stifled, and that benign principle so often proclaimed in our courts of justice, that it is better for ten guilty persons to escape punishment than for one innocent to suffer, to be completely reversed in cases of insanity; and that the miserable being who has been blasted by the direct visitation of God, according to the old and still popular belief, becomes at last, too frequently, a victim to the judicial visitation of man. True, some of the decisions which constitute the criminal law of insanity, and are more particularly characterized by error and absurdity, were made in the infancy of all medical science, and have probably lost a little of their force at the present time; yet it is also true that in this age of general enlightenment, the feelings of humanity are often outraged, and science put to the blush, by the execution of miserable creatures whose mad ravings were heard in the court and on the scaffold. The full discussion of this subject would require a volume; here we can barely glance at some of the most prominent points.

Every lawyer has heard of the lucid intervals of the insane, and knows it is an established principle of law, that they are responsible for their acts during such intervals. This principle is founded in error, and tends only to unmingled evil. Insanity, like many other, and especially nervous diseases, has sometimes its periods of intermission, when the cloud that envelopes the understanding has passed away, and the light of reason seems to shine forth in its original brightness. But

it must never be forgotten that affections of the brain,-and that insanity is caused by disease, or deranged function of this organ, is a fact now universally acknowledged by medical men, are regulated by the same laws as those of every other organ, and that intermission of disease is a very different thing from restoration to health. Lucid intervals are nothing more than intermissions of the cerebral disease, and depend upon the same pathological conditions as other intermittent diseases. In the intervals between the paroxysms of intermittent fever, the patient may engage in his ordinary pursuits, and experience no appreciable suffering; and the victim of neuralgia, who for several hours in the day for weeks and months together, is subjected to the severest pain to which the body is liable, is in the intervals as free as ever from pain or any other disorder, yet nobody pretends to say that in these affections all disease has vanished with the disappearance of acute suffering. On the contrary, it still exists, and could generally be discovered by anatomical examination, but in its outward manifestations, follows those laws of periodicity, so common in the actions of organized matter. In these diseases, it is the stomach in one, and the nerves in the other, that are affected; but the principles are not different when, as in insanity, it is the brain that suffers. It may be safely affirmed that in every lucid interval there is a morbid irritability remaining, which on the application of the slightest exciting cause, may produce an outbreak of insanity in all its original fury. The least provocation may give rise to an act that is purely the result, and the sufficient, though perhaps only evidence, of a return of the mental derangement,―an act totally repugnant to the natural disposition, and therefore one of the best proofs of insanity, but which, being the ground of the criminal process, would not be likely, if ever allowable, to be considered as such. These views are forcibly presented by one of the most accurate and philosophical writers on this disease, Dr. Andrew Combe. However calm and rational the patient may appear to be during the lucid intervals, as they are called, and