444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to the strength and dignity of the Bench by his conduct in the recent 

 trial of Christiana Edmunds ? That conduct has elicited such com- 

 ments from all quarters as it has not often before happened in this 

 country to find made on the administration of justice ; and, if the law 

 has not been brought into contempt, it has received a rude shock 

 among a law-abiding people. The uncertainty which now exists, 

 whether a person shall be convicted as a criminal or acquitted as 

 insane, and the accidental character of the result, cannot fail to be 

 injurious to the welfare of society. And if the present agitation 

 subsides, as former agitations have subsided, without any step in 

 advance being made, the bad law is none the less certainly doomed. 

 As we have said on a former occasion, " men will go mad, and mad- 

 men will commit crimes, and in spite of prejudice, and in spite of 

 clamor, Science will declare the truth. Juries, too, will now and then 

 be found enlightened enough to appreciate it : and if the voice of Jus- 

 tice be unsuccessfully raised, it will be but a doubtful triumph for 

 prejudice when Science shall say, ' You have hanged a madman.' " 



It will not be of much use to point out once more, what has been 

 pointed out over and over again, that the manner in which scientific 

 evidence is procured and taken in courts of justice is very ill-fitted to 

 elicit the truth and to further the ends of justice. One side procures its 

 scientific witness, and the other side procures its scientific witness, 

 each of whom is necessarily, though it may be involuntarily, biassed in 

 favor of the side on which he is called to give evidence biassed by 

 his wishes, or interests, or passions, or pretensions. It is not in human 

 nature entirely to escape some bias under such circumstances. In due 

 course he is called into the witness-box and examined by those who 

 only wish to elicit just as much as will serve their purpose ; he is then 

 cross-examined by those whose aim is to elicit something that will 

 serve their purpose; and the end of the matter seldom is "the truth, 

 the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Having regard to the 

 entire ignorance of scientific matters which counsel, jury, and judge 

 show, it may be truly said that the present system of taking scientific 

 evidence is as bad as it well can be, and that it completely fails in what 

 should be its object to elicit truth and to administer justice. " The 

 incompetency of a court, as ordinarily constituted, is," as we have for- 

 merly said, " practically recognized in a class of cases known as Ad- 

 miralty cases, where the judge is assisted by assessors of competent 

 skill and knowledge in the technical matters under consideration. 

 Moreover, by the 15th and 16th Vict., c. 80, s. 42, the Court of Chan- 

 cery, or any judge thereof, is empowered, in such way as he may think 

 fit, to obtain the assistance of accountants, merchants, engineers, actu- 

 aries, or other scientific persons, the better to enable such court or 

 judge to determine any matter at issue in any cause or proceeding, 

 and to act upon the certificate of such persons." The Lords Justices 

 seldom, if ever, decide on a question of insanity without calling for a 



