THE WAITARA TRAGEDY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2457, 23 March 1909, Page 6

THE WAITARA TRAGEDY.

"THE QUESTION OF INSANITY.'

DR. TRUBY KING’S EVIDENCE

(Press Association.)

NEW PLYMOUTH, March 20. The Crown called and Mr. C. H. Weston examined Frederick Truby King, superintendent of the Seaeliff Mental Hospital, who stated he had charge of the Inebriates’ Home . at Waitati and the special department for epileptics at that place. Ho had been lecturer on mental diseases at the Otago University for the last 20 years. He ” was also an examiner in medical jurisprudence, had special experience at Home, and was a member of the- Phyehological Association. After a very careful study of the case, he had come to the conclusion that at the time of commiting the act Dr. Goode was medically and legally-insane.

AN IRRATIONAL BEING

Mr. Weston: At the time of commit ting the act, in your opinion was Dr Goode’s brain structure impaired?

Witness: Yes. Essential impairment of the' brain, „ that rear be inferred with .practical "certainty, is a process of degeneration, in a section of the brain specially connected with the functions’ vvill-ppwer and control, while that concerncdAv/ith the instincts, apnetites, and organic necessities, animal desires, and so forth remains intact. This condition is characteristic of advanced chronic alcoholism dementia, when the proper controlling cells of the'region may be in a state of extreme degeneration, and this area of the cortex becomes shrank to half the normal thickness, and it could be composed largely of packing tissue in the place of proper brain elements. The highest goes' first when the brain is attacked. Ay iUercier says: “It is a process or denudation, .wiping out the highest, leaving the lowest.” With the brain in that state, it would be impossible to have an unimpaired mind. Decease of the mmd is a product of decease of the brain. A DUAL EXISTENCE. Mr. West-on: At the time'of committing the act, in your opinion, did Dr. Goode have any knowledge of what he ■was doing? , ■ Witness: Ho had knowledge, but not the knowledge that would enable him to make a rational choice. People talk about the motive of the insane. Tliey talk about them imagining things and imagining they hear voices. An insane’man does not imagine' lie hears it. He hoars the voice just as he hears when the band plays “God Save the King.” Cerebral processes corresponding tune are going on in the man’s brain, the only organ that man can hear with, for we do not hear with the ears, but with the brain. Is it any wonder that a man becomes annoyed when we laugh at him and say lie is only imagining. I went to bed, last night, slept, and dreamt.' I had a knowledge of what I dremt, but in that other existence. There is a dual consciousness, however limited. We have two existences atnight; but I have no proper knowledge of what I do in my sleep. lam not responsible for what Ido then. Even if it is nightmare,-. I have knowledge, but not a knowledge - that -makes, me responsible. Mr. Weston thought the question admitted a. direct answer, yes or no, but witness said that rvas impossible. . Mr. Weston: Then I take it your answer really is, “I cannot say.” Dr. King: it is not. Permit rne to explain, and remember, Mr. Weston, words are “coins of fools -and counters of wise men.” A GREAT AUTHORITY.

Witness quoted at length from one of the greatest known authorities oil the subject, Sir Fitzjames Stephens (N.Z. Criminal Code), and reasoned from this quotation that accused would not have a proper 'knowledge, real knowledge. Even according to the very highest legal athority, if a man were dominated •absolutely at the time He shot by an idea of injustice in furtherance of the delusion that the world and its inhabitants were all against him, then he had not a proper knowledge, the standard to which he referred things being utterly erroneous. Mr "Weston: 1 refer you specially to the fact of the accused pointing a revolver and pulling a trigger. Mould He Have any knowledge of those acts P Dr. King: If “any knowledge” embraces snch knowledge as a man might have in his sleep, he must be said to have had that knowledge at least. DREAM CONSCIOUSNESS.

Mr. Weston: At the time of committing the iact, did Dr. Goode know that what he was doing was wrong? Did he know be was committing an unlawful act?

Dr., King: I think he did not know that shooting a fellow being was illegal, but that that knowledge was the knowledge of a, man whose brain was wasted dj y chronic alcoholism, and who was under. the immediate influence of that poison at the time, and who was also suffering from a form of insanity capable of existing without alcohol, and that I,ls state of unconsciousness may even have been as suggested, one of an epileptic form of dream consciousness, though I am not- of opinion that the last named was the ease. Cross-examined by Mr. Skerrctt. Dr. King said Dr. Goode knew that shooting a fellow being was not_a meritorious •act. Once having had a mind, if he had a vestige cf mind left he knew that such an act in a human being was wrong.

BRIGHTNESS OR WRONGNESS,” "Sir. Skerretfi:, “Do. you think ©r. Goode, having regard to his mental condition, was, at the time, of committing the ei'jhne, capable of calmly and rationally considering the different reasons which -affected the rightness or wrongness of his act Dr. King: I have no doubt that lie Was , quite incapable of so considering. Mr. 'S'kcrrctfc: Your opinion is that the brain functions which control the •'lnactions- of desire were nwthe case of Dr. Goode diseased at the time of committing the crime. Dr. King: 1 have no doubt of it. Mr. Skerrett: Clearly enouMi that impaired the function of judgment? Dr. King, Yes. ' . Mr. Skerrett: Symptoms of alcoholic insanity are delusions of persecutions and injustice, sometimes .accompanied bv hallucinations? . %'“ Dr: King: I may tell you my cliag-iiid'-is does not show Dr. Goode .simply suffering from chronic alcoholic, insanity. His is a complex case. -G. A v PROVISIONAL JL'DCIMENT. v Dr! King then gve an account of Ins connection with the case. He nac men •summoned by; tekgrqm At that time fa-, knew nothing of the ca~. except what'he sa win the papers and -a IW, mi ore that, he heard .casuaily.ft-om people. He came to New Plymouth .Vit-li a "eiieral recollection of the. effect of. what he had read in the papers-at the time of the original trial. supl>lem. r eii" by casual .remarks. .fiom.. Taranaki who happened to ,vi ? it >, the south.",' Ho thought override mat ye* c.nd •. . ■ • .;

arrived at a provisional conclusion, a judgment based on the ordinary relationship of. wine and women to sexual olfences and crimes of violence. There was a man endowed with all the reelings, passions, and desires of a man who through a reckless life and drinking to excess had robbed;himself of some of the best attributes of manhood —rob.--bed himself of the power of choice and self-control. Witness had pictured an atrophied, disordered brain, the power of control gravely impaired, and the conduct dominated by primary passions. People talked of no motive, but carnal desire was the strongest motive of all in such matters. This man had carelessly shot aud threatened to shoot.' New Zealand shows -that more than 50 per cent, of crimes of violence and 50 per cent, of the crimes of lust take place in alcoholics, and particularly in cases of chronic alcoholism, ' where a person is under the direct influence of drink.- Thus everything in Dr Geode’s case seemed to the general picture he had formed. This man, it appeared from the evidence, had felt lustful with regard to his next-door neighbor. He had coveted his neighbor’s wife. She had resented the overture, and he, in a state of maudlin madness, shot her. This was a natural explanation of the case, but was it always sufficient. The dominating situation was that the shooting did not sober him. In the virtual presence of death it was a- remarkable fact that the man further insulted the woman, and asked her if she were dead. That was certainly beyond the ordinary for chronic alcoholism, but this was not an impossible position. He assumed the man had been carried away by sexual lust, and then baffled, exasperated, and without staying to reflect, went on insensibly to the other act, his primary passions and anger as of the beast carrying ljim beyond all limits. The next thing was that witness examined accused at New Plymouth a few days ago. He found the man as he expected was physically an ■ordinary alcoholic. He had the ordinary coarsened, ‘ somewhat congested face, the ordinary diminution of the play 6f expression and emotions in the face, the diminished alertness and comparative slowness and; torpor' of the mental process, a dilated heart, and thickened blood vessels. Altogether, he had the whole aspect of a chronic alcoholic. When visiting accused • the first time in company with Dr Hasell, witness had not said much, but k-t'Dr Goode tell his own story, with little questioning or prompting. Accused showed little reserve, talked about himself in a somewhat detached manner, and gave answers to questions asked. Witness did not question him about theimmediate surroundings of the crime, but tested his memory. Ete had found that the memory was specially affected in alcoholic insanity. He would not say that accused’s memory was bad in regard to such facts as he could verify. They were naturally anxious, in regard to one point, the question as to his having ideas of persecution. There haa been a certain delicacy about introducing this matter, but accused himself entered into complaint about the way his fellow practitioners treated him. He alleged that the New Plymouth doctors poached liis preserves, and. that the doctor at Waitara was a bad lot, having worked him out of his practice and interfered between him and lodge work. The latter .feeling was strong,, but could be accounted for, because in small places medical men were apt not to be pleased if other doctors came in to oppose them, and where there was not room for two. In this he was rational, but excessive. As to his more recent memory, it was significant that while according to the depositions the first event that he recollected after the tragedy was of people rushing into tlie room, he had told witness that the first .thing he remembered w'as being hit on the head with a piece of scantling. They tried to get at the other end of-the story and find what he remembered before the tragedy, and here it struck him that accused was evasive and inconsistent. This strengthened the view of responsibility. It was ; apparent that accused was acting a part to some, extent. It should he borne in mind, however, that an insane man was not a bit different from a sane person in that he would play for life with all his might. Those were some of the leading things that had come out at the first interview with accused. THE SECOND INTERVIEW.

Dr Truby King then passed on to the second interview, which he had obtained for tho purpose of asking him expressly about the question of delusions and hallucinations. He introduced the subject as an incident of conversation in a peculiar way, by referring to tho blues; and accused smiled, and said he had never liad hallucinations or delusions or any irrational ideas at all. He seemed to lie perrecly clear about that. Asked if he had suffered at all from loss of consciousness, accused related how on one occasion he had been overcome by a sort of faintness when going;up hill, but he did not wholly lose consciousness, and was able to go on his journey. Accused admitted having indulged in the alcoholic habit to excess in the past five years. Witness then fully satisfied himself that there was nothing, in connection with the kidneys or other organs to account for a certain heaviness and torpor in accused. His next conclusion was most strongly in the direction of .the opinion he had formed originally, that it was a case of chronic alcoholism.

ALCOHOLIC PARANOIA. However, the latter evidence, especially regarding scores of delusions mentioned by witnesses on the previous day, convinced him that accused was suffer- • ing from something more complex than simple chronic alcoholism, viz, from that- rare disease alcoholic paranoia. Paranoia, he said, is one form of insanity in which above ail others a man who may superficially appear _ sane enough cannot escape from the dictates and leadings of delusions. He would now describe paranoia, not chronic; alcoholism, for paranoia could exist without alcohol at all. As in the-case of Lionel Terry, his was a; different class of paranoia, but paranoia all the same. He quoted from Dr Mercier,' the Highest English authority on the subject. Paranoia‘is a form of insanity; which runs a definite course, not .seen in any other variety systematised. The delusion found in cases of the kind is a delusion which constituted a false knowledge, a paradox certainly, but so far as the patient is concerned he has no doubt that-he knows things, though in reality they are delusions, and lie knows that lie knows tliein in the same, sense that the victim of hallucinations may know that lie hears voices, when no one is speaking.y Till one grasps'this it is impossible to'understand or interpret the motives and conduct of the insane. The delusion of paranoia differs from other delusions in the fact that it -colors the whole lifey of - the patient, regulates his' daily; conduct; provides him; with an explanation of all experiences'that ate is his theory of the cosmos. -Through -every systematic . delusion there runs. Gbebtlireaid: of | : avhich :ecm-' hecks • thorn.. The 'Uiflueiice. actmg upon-. : . . ... . '

a patient in such a state is always an influence adverse' to him. This disease is associated closely and conspicuously with confusion of "thought, and more, often than any other form of insanity with hallucinations. Tho character of the delusions varies, but the idea of persecution runs through them all., ! .f' 4 ' The persecutor may be a .real individual. One man alleged persecution by a man be bad never seen. Sometimes the persecutor is specified, in other oases they are alleged to pervade the community. . . ...

PARANOIAC DELUSIONS DOMINATE THE WHOLE LIFE.

He quoted from Dr Mercier to show that the conduct of the paranoiac is dominated by delusion. In this there is a marked-and conspicuous difference between paranoia and a mere -fixed delusion. In. the .latter the patient goes about his work like an ordinary mortal, but the delusions of the, paranoiac dominate his whole life... They are with him every hour and every minute of the day. They keep him .from work and interfere, with whatever he tries to do, but the most important characteristic of the conduct- in. tlie persecutory delusion is tlie tendency. to violence and to homicide that so often' The 'continuance of persecution, the rutility of all measures taken against it,-the refusal of the. authorities to interfere, general neglect of and. disbelief in' liis trouble, at last generate a degree of exasperation ' which prompts, may bo violence, may be murder. The delusions of tlie paranoiac dominate his whole life and in extreme cases prompt him to do violence and murder. The need .of restraint in institutes is more imperative in paranoia than in any other form of insanity, and the rule is stringent that no paranoiac should be at large. If lie. is allowed liberty his perpetration of murder is only a matter of time, and is certain to take place if the time is allowed. Alcoholic paranoia is described as distinct from mental disease in a book by Dr Stoddart, of Bethlehem Hospital, London, which , has just appeared. He says: “This is a rare disease. It usually begins about middle age, and occurs more frequently, in men than in women.” : PARALLEL INSTANCES, -r

■ Taking a copv of the “Daily Nows” of that morning and reading from; tho Waitara people’s evidence of the collisions given the, clay before, Dr King said the evidence was so clear, so c;osclv in accord'with the text Kick, that lie almost had difficulty in deciding when lie was reading from the,newspaper and when from Dr Mercier s text book on the disease. An parallel instances in the case of accused l*r is nig, scanning tlie newspaper, drew attention to the evidence of some half a doi.cn witnesses as to people being in Ragne to injure accused professionally. Tho conspirators’ spies watching and hiding behind hedges, the haunting of the street and avoidance of this by accused, thi eais to shoot, the voting paper nutdent, etc., lie “referred to as such a remarkable action on the part of a man of education as to show conclusively that Dr Koodo was an irrational person and insanelv x suspicious. W itness • _t. n showed to what extent these suspicions and delusions would affect the mind. A man whose mind was pervaded .with these altogether irrational ideas became more and more suspicious, andmore reserved. Apparently in this case Dr Geode had' these delusions belli drunk and sober, and suspicion dominated liis every movement for five months. I)r King quoted Dr Ivraepeliu an eminent German authority, Dr Mercic-r, the highest English authority, and Dr (Houston.

SUPPOSED INJUSTICE. “One fact that made' Km (accused) liable to such delusions-was-that Tie was an Irishman. They ah knew the rooted idea of the Irish which found expression in the words ‘Another injustice io Ireland,’—another injustice to another Irishman. His Celtic temperament made him very prone to suspicion, very liable to shoot.” In support of .this he mentioned that in. the Dominion there was twice as high a percentage of Irish insane as English, Scotch, or German. At every turn in life Dr Goode seemed to feel that he met with some injustice—in- medical practice, in goings cut and comings in, and finally m ’ove affairs lie felt he had never had a show. He felt that in h:o neighbor’s house—and his feelings found, expression in words—that he was being denied favors extended to other men a delusion of course —and in resentment and dominated by a sense of injustice he shot this woman. There was this feasible connection between the delusion of which they had had evidence and the actual committing of the murder. A DRAMATIC ENDING. Dr King’s evidence created an immense impression, and brought about a dramatic ending; till then totally unanticipated, but publicly accepted as correct.