large number of medical and lay witnesses were examined, and the result of the inquiry was a declaration of insanity, and the order that the accused be taken to Stockton. A short time before this trial took place, this gentleman made and executed a second deed of one-half of the remaining property, to his wife. Immediately after he had been declared insane by the last commission, and before he was taken to Stockton, a jury was demanded to determine the fact of his restoration to sanity. This trial was contested by the family, and a large number of medical witnesses were called, including his family physician and the Superintendent of the Asylum at Stockton. The testimony of the medical witnesses was unanimously in favor of his insanity. Numerous witnesses, among the laity, however, were not wanting whose opinions flatly contradicted those of learned gentlemen, and the jury returned a verdict of sanity. A few months subsequent to the latter decision, this unfortunate gentleman began an action in the District Court to have the second deed to his wife set aside, upon the ground that he was insane at the time of executing it. The judgment of the court was, that the deed be set aside upon the grounds as alleged in the complaint. Mr. President, we behold the transformation of the caterpillar into the butterfly and we marvel at the mysterious process of designing nature; but what a sluggard is nature when compared to the law! The law can metamorphose a human intellect from health to frenzy and from frenzy to health by the exercise of its resistless fiat. We read of the Arabian Knights and of Aladdin's Lamp, but the fantastic evolutions of this legal romance surpass them all. The same individual in the short space of two years, without apparent change in his mental state, so far as could be determined by physicians or friends, is thrice pronounced insane by as many commissions of lunacy, twice sane by two different juries and once insane by a District Judge, in order to annul a deed that was executed just prior to the verdict of a jury that declared him sane and therefore responsible for his acts.