If the foregoing statement of the case is correct, we ask at once, how it happened that the jury did not see it in this light, but instead brought in a verdict of "Guilty in the first degree"? While there are many elements in the answer, such as the demand of the public for revenge on the murderer of the man who was more or less of a favorite; a hastily drawn jury; a hurried trial, etc., the burden of the explanation falls back upon the same condition which we discovered in the case of Gianini, namely, the ignorance of the general public in regard to this type of feeble-mindedness. Almost every one thinks that he knows an imbecile. We have so long considered these high-grade cases as _normal but vicious_ persons, that it is difficult to change the point of view suddenly and realize that they are not responsible for their deeds. This failure to recognize the high-grade type of imbecile extended even to the "experts" in the case; for whereas there were three who testified to the feeble-mindedness of the prisoner, there were four or five who testified to his normality. These were four general practitioners of medicine, including the jail physician, and the fifth, a professor of neurology and neuropathology. These gentlemen are all familiar with what we should call the low-grade type of imbecile. They were perfectly correct in declaring that Roland Pennington is not a low-grade imbecile. Not one of them had had experience with the high-grade type. They were, therefore, not qualified to pass upon a case of this kind. It was as though four general practitioners had been brought in to decide a case of obscure insanity. Every one of them could have testified that he had had more or less to do with insane people, meaning persons who are maniacal or strongly melancholic or katatonic, but what would be the value of the testimony of such men in such a case, for instance, as that of Thaw? These men all thought they knew something about high-grade feeble-mindedness. They all testified that Pennington was a normal man. Compare this with the statement of Dr. Martin W. Barr, one of the foremost authorities on feeble-mindedness in the United States--indeed, in the world. Dr. Barr says (_Alienist and Neurologist_, November, 1914, page 367):-- "The courts simply do not go far enough back; they fail in that they do not reach the inception--the root of the matter. They often punish without careful investigation of the causes from which criminal instinct springs--the environment, family history, inherited tendencies, physical disability, and that susceptibility to suggestion which makes them the ready tools of the vicious.