A View of Canadian Law. 308 
know the nature and quality of his act”? ‘ Certainly.” ‘Did he know 
that what he was doing was wrong”? ‘What do you mean by wrong?” 
says the doctor. I said ‘“‘ Wrong in the sense of being against the law.” 
He says, “Yes, undoubtedly.” ‘What then was his mental condition ?” 
‘He knew what he was doing, he knew it was against the law, but he 
had an irrestible impulse to do that act, his power of inhibition was gone 
and he could not help shooting the man.” The other doctors agreed. | 
charged the jury, “If you believe what these doctors say, or rather 
unless on your oath you think you know better than these doctors, then 
it is your duty to find a verdict of guilty. We are an iron people and 
we have an iron law. We must enforce the law as we find it. You 
have no more right to change the law than I have, and I have no 
more right to change the law than your minister has a right to 
take the word “not” out of some of the commandments and tell you to 
obey the commandment as so amended—to go and lie, steal and murder. 
Our law is, if a man, however insane he may be, knows what he is doing 
and knows that that is against the law, it makes no difference that he is 
insane—he must not be found not guilty on the ground of insanity. 
Our law says to a man who alleges he has an irresistible impulse, “I 
shall hang a rope up in front of your nose and see if that won't help you 
some?” (Applause.) We are not troubled with much expert witnesses. 
(Laughter.) If an expert witness attempts to give an opinion as to what 
ought to be done with the accused, he is checked—that is none of his 
business, it is not for him or for me, it is for the Executive to say. 
Our civil praztice we have found very convenient, very speedy. 
Please do not imagine I am up here to boast about my own country or find 
fault with any other—but we have found our civil practice very speedy, 
and a man can have his ease tried just about as soon as he wants to. 
In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the delays are due either to the 
client or to lawyers who do not want to have the case tried. They are 
skirmishing for a settlement or looking out for something else. There 
is no reason why a case should not be tried within six months of the 
writ or less. The first case that ever came before me for determination 
that went to the Privy Council, I heard in April, and in June of the 
following year it had gone through all the Canadian Courts, and had 
been finally determined by the Privy Council. There is no reason why 
any case should not be concluded in our country in less than eighteen 
months. There is no reason why a man who has met with an accident 
should not have his case tried anywhere throughout the country in less 
than six months. ‘The practice, as | have said, we have found convenient. 
There are two ideas which are the basis of the practice of law in 
different countries ; one is that the Courts are a sort of umpire sitting 
up on the watch to see that the two men fight out this dispute according 
to the rules of the game. It is not a matter of very great importance 
whether a man gets his rights or not, but it is a matter of enormous 
importance that the smarter man should get a verdict. That is the old 
idea. The other idea is that a man should get his rights even although 
