We often hear of kleptomania as a defence for persons who have failed to recognise the distinction between _meum_ and _tuum_, and are haled before the court because of the detection of infringements of this distinction. True kleptomaniacs there are, but there are always other symptoms of their mental disturbance besides the tendency to steal. Their queerness in other ways has usually been recognised by their friends and by their family physician before the incident which calls attention to this special form of disequilibration occurs. Kleptomaniacs, too, are usually prone to take things of little value, or not especially suited to their wants and for which they have practically no use. It is true collectors, that is, those who have a hobby for gathering curiosities of one kind or another to make a collection, may become so interested in additions to their collection {300} as to be tempted to appropriate to themselves articles of which they can not otherwise obtain possession. Such actions may easily go beyond the bounds of reason. It must be remembered however, that the collection mania itself is often so pronounced as to be a little beyond the bounds of ordinary rationality. Other so-called monomaniacs have the same characteristic and are associated with related symptoms of mental disturbance. Pyromania is sometimes pleaded as a defense for arson. It is a legitimate defense, however, only when the careful tracing of the patient's history beforehand shows the existence of other symptoms of mental unbalance. The homicidal mania is of the same order. There have been cases where men seem to have delighted in inflicting injuries or death upon fellow creatures from pure malice. Such cases as that of Jack the Ripper, for instance, are undoubtedly due to a special tendency to take life. In these cases, however, associated symptoms are never lacking. It is not improbable that in Jack the Ripper's case a sexual element was present, because the victims were always of one low class, and that the general character of the murderer would have revealed his irresponsibility. There are several stories of children--whose mothers delighted in seeing their husbands, who were butchers, slaughter animals--who seem to have had a veritable mania for seeing blood flow and to have exercised it in the murder of human beings.