Chapter Nine

• Author: Richard D. Schneider
• Pages: 81-88

 

Cae Nne

   emanating from some quarters that e

Times, in its reporting on the Drummond assassination, was giving

undue prominence to strong intimations, if not outright opinions,

regarding Daniel M’Naughten’s sanity or lack thereof – information

that was being served up as evidence when in many cases it was no

better than hearsay and extremely prejudicial to his receiving a fair and

just hearing at trial – the newspaper ran what amounted to a public

disclaimer in its edition of January, here reprinted in full:

We have already stated our determination to say nothing which can

in any way prejudge M’Naughten’s case, or prejudice his character. e

solemn and protecting mantle of justice is thrown over him, and in the

courts of justice alone must his innocence or his guilt be proved. We

would, indeed, rather be silent on the subject and all its bearings. But

silence is rendered impossible by the observations which we have read

in contemporary and provincial journals, as well as by the general tone

of letters addressed to ourselves. We therefore repeat, once for all, that

we shall be truly thankful to see the accused acquitted on the ground

of insanity – provided that insanity be proved on testimony positive,

irrefragable, and beyond suspicion.

We shall truly rejoice to nd that there is not a man in England

or Scotland, exercising the faculty of reason, who is wicked and savage

enough to commit a cowardly murder on a fellow-creature without

the miserable plea of passion or provocation. But the insanity which

alone ought to be admitted in defense of the accused is of that forcible

and overmastering kind which utterly obliterates all moral sense of

right or wrong. It is not sucient to prove occasional hallucination

or erroneous and extravagant hypotheses on particular subjects; the