1885.] 
u Mignonette ” Case. 
61 
of which these unfortunate men should have been pitied 
rather than blamed. The madman is not, in our times, put 
to death even for murder. A like exemption, as mentioned 
above, is proposed in America for the inebriate and for the 
chronic alcoholist. The former is, indeed, with us liable to 
safe-keeping for life. But wherefore ? Because in a 
paroxysm of madness, which might occur at any moment, 
he might repeat the offence. We refuse to accept drunken- 
ness as an excuse for the criminal, since every ruffian might 
plead drunkenness, or indeed, as often happens, might prime 
himself for the outrage with a dose of some intoxicant ; but 
in the case of these unhappy cannibals on compulsion there 
is no fear of the deed of horror being repeated. The 
chances are doubtless millions to one against their being 
ever again placed in the same position. As utterly incon- 
ceivable is it that anyone would ever by semi-starvation 
qualify himself for committing murder with impunity. 
Whilst therefore these men were at the time being insane, 
and as such had a claim to be held free from responsibility, 
that insanity is not of a permanent or a recurrent type. 
It becomes, therefore, difficult to conceive any sound 
reason for their punishment. To eliminate a public danger? 
Certainly not : under any normal circumstances these poor 
sailors, for anything that appears to the contrary, are no 
more likely to indulge in murder and cannibalism than Lord 
Coleridge himself. For their reformation ? This end could 
not of course be effected by the death sentence nominally 
passed upon them, were it not absurd to speak of the further 
“reformation” of amadmanwhen restored to his senses. For 
a warning to others ? If unhappily the same circumstances 
should recur, other men placed in such a predicament, and 
driven to madness, if not deterred by the instinctive loathing 
of civilised man for the flesh of his fellows, would scarcely 
be influenced by Lord Coleridge’s utterances and the final 
issue of the case. 
On this view, that the Court was dealing with an aCt 
committed by madmen, all the authorities quoted and all the 
solemn comments made are flatly irrelevant. During the 
terrible Siege of Samaria, when women sacrificed their 
“ weak and unoffending” children to prolong their own lives, 
the king rent his robes in horror; but he did not utter 
platitudes. 
