∗ ‘Insanity and Crime : a Medico-Legal Commentary on the Case of George Victor Townley,’ by the Editors of the ‘Journal of Mental Science.’ London, John Churchill and Sons, 1864.Google Scholar

∗ These letters are printed in the Parliamentary paper, No. 37, “copy of correspondence with the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and of orders or warrants issued by him relating to the case of George Victor Townley.”Google Scholar

† Bethlehem Hospital; January 28th.Google Scholar

“ We, the undersigned, having been requested by Secretary Sir George Grey to examine into the state of mind of George Victor Townley, a prisoner under sentence of death in Bethlehem Hospital, and to report our opinion as to whether he is of unsound mind, report as follows:—Google Scholar

“ We have carefully considered the copies of papers supplied to us, and on the 26th and 27th days of this month we have had two lengthened interviews with the prisoner, and the conclusion at which we have unanimously arrived is that George Victor Townley is of sound mind.Google Scholar

“ The demeanour of the prisoner during each interview was calm and self-possessed, with the exception that at the commencement of the second interview he displayed and expressed annoyance at the repeated examinations to which he was being subjected. Neither in mode of speech nor in look and conduct was there any sign of insanity observable in him.Google Scholar

“ His prompt apprehension of the purport of our questions, and the manner in which he replied to them, indicated the possession of good intellectual capacity.Google Scholar

“ The opinions which he avows that men, as the creatures of circumstance, are not justly responsible for their actions, are opinions at which he appears to have arrived by ordinary processes of reasoning.Google Scholar

“ That he knows that he is responsible for the commission of crime is made clear by his own words used to us,—’ I expected to be hanged because I killed her, and am not such a fool as not to know that the law hangs for murder. 1 did not think of it at the time, or I should not have done it.‘Google Scholar

“ We think that his statement that he killed Mies Goodwin to repossess himself of her as his property was an afterthought, adopted to justify his crime. He acknowledged to us that he had come to this opinion after the deed was done.Google Scholar

“ The supposition that he killed Miss Goodwin uuder the influence of the opinion that in so doing he was repossessing himself of her as his property is inconsistent with his own repeated statement to us that, without forethought of any kind, he killed her under the influence of sudden impulse.Google Scholar

“ He explained to us that by killing Miss Goodwin to repossess himself of her as his property, he simply meant that he took her out of the hands of his enemies, and placed her in a position where she would wait, and where he would rejoin her when he died.Google Scholar

“ The prisoner endeavoured to represent the catastrophe to us as due to the influence of sudden impulse, but the details which we elicited from him show that he used threats of murder for some time before he struck the first blow. We think that his clear memory of the events attending the crime, and also the attempts which he has made to misrepresent the state of his mind and memory at the time of these events, are evidence of his sanity.Google Scholar

“ We are of opinion that he does not entertain any delusion on the subject of a conspiracy against him, but that he uses the term conspiracy to express the real opposition which he has met with from the members of Miss Goodwin's family to his engagement with her, and also to express the feeling that they are hostile to him.Google Scholar

“ We have considered the evidence of hereditary predisposition to insanity given in the papers supplied to us, and oar opinion of the prisoner's state of mind has not been altered thereby.Google Scholar

“ We examined the apothecary and also the chief attendant of Bethlehem as to the conduct of Townley since he has been in detention at the hospital—both of them have had him under daily and special observation—and they assure us that neither in conduct, manner, or conversation had they been able to observe in him any of the peculiarities which they are in the habit of remarking among the insane.Google Scholar

“ W. CHARLES HOOD, M.D., Visitor of Chancery Lunatics.Google Scholar

“ JOHN CHARLES BUCKNILL, M.D., Visitor of Chancery Lunatics.Google Scholar

“ JOHN MEYER, M.D., Medical Superintendent of the Criminal Lunatic Asylum.Google Scholar

“ W. HELPS, M.D., Medical Superintendent of the Royal Bethlehem Hospital.”Google Scholar

∗ “Unsoundness of Mind in Relation to Criminal Acts.” An Essay by Bucknill, J. C., M.D. Second Edition. Longmans.Google Scholar

∗ Dr. Winston's Theory qf Toumley's Insanity.—“Having brought forward the different forms of partial insanity, and shown how impossible it is, with a just appreciation of scientific knowledge, to refer Tow nicy's case to any one of them, the question naturally arises, What form of insanity, then, did Dr. Winslow attribute it to? That is just the question which it is impossible to answer. Townley's insanity, as described by that psychologist, was a medley, a scientific patchwork, ingeniously constructed, boldly devised, striking in appearance, but really a scientific incoherency—a mixture of incompatibles. ‘General derangement and diseased intellect,’ with the ability to pass off a true belief as a delusion, ‘not a sane opinion on a moral point,’ ‘vitiation of moral sense,’ ‘inability to appreciate the absurdity of the idea’ that by killing Miss Goodwin he would regain possession of her, and the coherent reasoning of a necessarian—these together constitute an extreme form of insanity of some kind, perhaps a new and at present obscure form of disease, which future ages will describe as 4 intelligent imbecility. ‘How it was that Dr. Hitchman and the governor of the gaol could doubt the existence of insanity in one so very mad passes understanding. One does not know whether to wonder more at the obtuseness of these gentlemen, who could not detect madness where Dr. Winslow discovered it in such extreme degree, or at the marvellous perception of Dr. Winslow, who could discover such extremity of insanity where these gentlemen could detect none.”—Insanity and Crime : a Medico-legal Commentary, &c., &c.Google Scholar

† “We would not overlook the fact that, in the future, insanity may possibly be developed in this man of low moral powers and alleged hereditary taint now subjected to all the horrors of remorse in the solitariness of penal servitude.”Google Scholar