As Hoffbauer remarks, “This man did not enjoy the free use of his senses; he did not know what he saw; he believed that he was repulsing a sudden attack. He very soon recognized the place where he ordinarily slept; it was natural that he should seize his hatchet,--since he had taken the precaution to place it near him,--but the idea of his wife, and of the possibility of having killed her, were the last thoughts that entered his mind.” Seafield[150] quotes from the Express (London) of January 5th, 1859, the following case of sleep drunkenness: “Yesterday the Marylebone Police Court was crowded to excess, in consequence of a report which had been circulated, that a woman was in custody for killing her child by throwing it from a first-floor window into the street. The rumor in regard to the murder happily turned out to be untrue; but it will be seen from the subjoined evidence that it was a providential circumstance that the lives of three children were not sacrificed by their mother while acting under the influence of a dream. “At two o’clock the prisoner, Esther Griggs, was placed at the bar before Mr. Broughton. “Mr. Lewis, of Ely Place, appeared for her; and Mr. Tubbs, relieving officer of Marylebone, attended on behalf of the board of guardians of the parish, to watch the case. “The prisoner, who evidently felt the serious situation in which she was placed, was seated during the proceedings. “The first witness called was Sergeant Simmons, 20 D, who said, ‘At half-past one o’clock this morning, while on duty in East Street, Manchester Square, I heard a female voice exclaim, “Oh, my children! Save my children!” I went to the house, No. 71, from whence the cries proceeded, and the landlord opened the door. I went up-stairs, accompanied by two other constables, and, while making our way to the first floor, I heard the smashing of glass. I knocked at the door, which I found was fastened, and said, “Open it; the police are here.” The prisoner, who was in her night-dress, kept on exclaiming, “Save my children!” and at length, after stumbling over something, let me and my brother officers in. When we entered, we found the room in total darkness; and it was only by the aid of our lanterns that we could distinguish anything in the room. On the bed there was a child five years old, and another, three years of age, by her side. Everything in the room was in confusion. She kept crying out, “Where’s my baby? Have they caught it? I must have thrown it out of the window.” The baby must have been thrown out as I was going up-stairs; for before getting into the room I heard something fall. I left a constable in charge of the prisoner; and I ascertained that the child which had been thrown from the window had been taken to the infirmary of Marylebone Workhouse. She told me she had been dreaming that her little boy had said that the house was on fire, and that what she had done was with the view of preventing her children from being burned to death.