6|The Green Bag.|}}

possibility. As unlikely is it that the mo sence of reasonable motive and presence of tive was a long-cherished revenge; the fact unreasonable motive — the play of hallucina that the butchery was practised, not on an tions and delusions — may turn out to be a individual or set of individuals, but on the plausible explanation. But in so far as mo members of a class (apparently on such mem tive goes, the theory that these crimes are bers merely as chance threw first in the mur the results of monomanie sans ddlire seems derer's way) seems to negative that idea. untenable. The suggestion that the crimes were com They bear no resemblance to the few in mitted for the sake of obtaining from the stances of this alleged disease recorded, and bodies a certain organ to be sold for scien repeated in every medical treatise on the tific purposes is, of course, untenable. The subject. A sudden and " unaccountable " de state of the market for such articles nega sire to take life, — a wife waking in the night tives the hypothesis. One fails to descry with an irresistible impulse to kill the hus any motive. But this failure is no ground band at her side, with no reason for it, and for inferring insanity, and it would be danger in spite of a strong affection for him; a ser ous to so regard it. Apparent absence of vant, while undressing a child of whom she motive is no criterion. No doubt, in cases had charge, being struck with the whiteness of of alleged kleptomania this element is of first its skin, and thereby possessed of an impulse to murder it, and so forth, — an inexplicable importance. If a person in comfortable cir cumstances financially, with the means even craving, which is not persistent. But here of giving charity to others, secretly fill her we have something different. The impulse pockets with bread at the table of a friend (as was to all appearance sustained, — unless, in in an authentic case, recorded by Dr. Rush), deed, these various murders turn out to be the certainly the absence of reasonable motive is work of several individuals, and those uncon all but conclusive of an irresistible propensity nected with each other, the later cases being to steal. But in this respect the crime of the result of a morbid imitation of the earlier. theft stands absolutely alone. And even in It was not a sudden flash out of a propensity to kill. It was persistent or recurrent. A the case of theft, were the article stolen any thing but a commodity-readily obtainable in most common evidence of this so-called in quantity by the wealthy purloiner, — were it, sane and irresistible impulse is the voluntary for example, a curio or article of virtu, — confession of the act. Immediately the im mere affluence would not infer absence of pulse is gratified it seems to pass off, and the murderer quietly surrenders himself to the motive. In the case of any other crime, it is the proper authorities. This is a strong argu extreme of rashness to conclude that motive ment in favor of the insane nature of the is absent, because it is unascertainable, and impulse. It will, we believe, be acknowl even defies conjecture. If one but practise- edged by medical observers to be the fact, a little introspection, the variety and the ap that of those alleged homicidal maniacs who parently trifling nature of the motives which fly after committing the murder, all show un sometimes actuate man, even in innocent mistakable symptoms of intellectual insanity. matters, must strike him. Further, that I On this ground alone, then, we are forced to these secret springs of action should be ob the conclusion that the apparent absence of scure to others must appear quite natural. motive in these London murders is not to be In this respect of want of adequate motive explained on the irresistible impulse theory, the London tragedies would be hard to bring and that the case is outside the category of within the category of so-called moral mania. " moral mania." The craft and cunning evinced in the mur Intellectual derangement might account for ders in question seem little to consist with them so far as this point is concerned. Ab