No mental alienation was recognised, especially at the time of the deed, but certain preceding morbid phenomena and other subsequent circumstances led the experts to an opinion which resulted in the commutation of the death penalty to which she had been condemned. Among her maternal ancestors, and in the mother herself, there had been extreme avarice; they were most eager of money, and possessed by the fury of gain; it was proved that this impulse had in some members of the family paralysed the sentiments of equity and honesty. The father was a drunkard. The girl had a certain amount of education; she wrote, in an exact style, a diary of her impressions. She had acted as a servant, as an assistant in a printing-office, as a sempstress. She was thin, and slightly developed; menstruated at 19; had a very high opinion of herself. Apparently of tranquil disposition, she was declared by some to be envious, a liar, and a thief. Notwithstanding simulated indifference, she coveted the savings which her mother had scraped together; she cherished hatred against her parents; continual quarrels and unworthy calumnies revealed a heart apparently good, in reality selfish and depraved. There was slight asymmetry of the face, due to flattening on the right side; there was no perceptible lack of cranial symmetry. The right pupil was larger than the left; both movable and perfectly sensitive. She had hysterical attacks, which became rare before the deed, and were interpreted as a sexual neurosis of puberty. These attacks began with præcordial anxiety and oppression of breathing, and usually ended with a strong desire for movement, to which she yielded with only partial consciousness. She was sometimes for hours in a semi-conscious condition, with extravagant movements, vociferations, senseless talk, etc. Sometimes she exaggerated the attacks; at other times opposed them. From papers that she wrote in prison, it appears that some of these attacks were entirely simulated. The sexual functions were very irregular; she pretended a want of inclination towards the other sex; the hymen was found lacerated. She wrote a romance of her life, leaving out everything that might cause disgust, and expressing penitence for the attacks that she confessed to be simulated. On her death-bed she developed attacks which were certainly not simulated. She was very excitable, and her life was overspread by nervous tempests which, in spite of herself, she was not able to dominate. She had little love for her mother, who was avaricious and hard-hearted, and refused her the slightest help. In one of her papers, dating from the time of her most severe hysterical phenomena, there are religious expressions marked by undoubted sincerity; but when religion did not afford the consolation she expected, her zeal cooled and she went to the opposite extreme.