MODERN STATE TRIALS. PART III.--DUELLING. [_Note on Part II. on Criminal Responsibility in cases of Insanity._--A physician in a responsible official situation, affording him great opportunities for observation, has addressed to us a note from which we extract the following passages. Our only object is to aid in eliciting truth; and our anxiety to do so is proportionate to the difficulty and importance of the subject to which the ensuing letter has reference.[39] "The article on Oxford and M'Naughten has interested me very much; and though I cannot at all admit the principle of punishing a man for his misfortune, I am yet satisfied that the doctors have assumed too much, and have helped to let loose upon society some who deserved hanging as much as any who have ever suffered the extreme penalty. The test of insanity, as laid down by the Judges on the solemn occasion to which you refer, is manifestly of no value; for it is, I might almost say, _the exception_ for an insane person _not_ to know the difference between right and wrong. Many of them deliberately commit acts which they know to be wrong. Dadd killed his father, and immediately fled to France to avoid the consequences of his crime; and nobody ever doubted that he was one of the maddest, if not the maddest, of the mad. Touchet shot the gunmaker, not only with a full knowledge of the nature of the crime, but for the express purpose of bringing about his own death. He has entertained various delusions: amongst others, the notion that certain passages of Scripture have special reference to himself personally; and, as regards those in actual confinement, on account of their mental malady, the majority know perfectly well that it is wrong to tear, break, and destroy, to injure others, and indulge their various mischievous propensities. So well satisfied are many of them that they are doing wrong, that they will try to conceal acts which they know are not permitted; and, in this way, a propensity to bite, or kick, is indulged in only when it is believed that it can be done unobserved. It seems to me that, in these most painfully embarrassing cases, every one must stand on its own particular merits; and, as neither judges nor doctors can say where sanity ends, and insanity begins, so no possible rule that can be devised will be alike applicable to all; but the previous habits and course of life of the person accused, together with the absence or presence of any motive, will go far to remove the difficulties which necessarily beset the question. I am not at all prepared to say that, because any degree of mental disturbance has been shown to exist, a person should be held _irresponsible_. It is a doctrine fraught with such dreadful danger to society, that it is very properly viewed with jealousy; but, when clearly proved that the mind was so far disturbed as to entertain delusions before and at the time of committing the offence, I would