DR. GOODE’S CASE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2462, 29 March 1909, Page 2

DR. GOODE’S CASE.

Dr. Goode, slayer of a wife and mother, escapes the gallows. He goes to a lunatic asylum. As it not infrequently happens that persons so dealt with are discharged from the asylum after a moderate time has elapsed, it is quite possible that this danger to his kind may be walking about at liberty again in a couple of years. The tendency of science to talk so as not to be generally understood is illustrated by the use of the phrase “alcoholic paranoia.” It would not be strictly aceurate to translate this by “mad drunk/” because the latter is usuallly taken to indicate a condition of things recovered from, or partly recovered from, when the drinking bout, the cause of it, ceases. “Drink Mad” fills the bill, and has the merit of being English. The phrase as used connotes as a rule chronic rather acute lunacy. In this case the former has to be predicated, for otherwise the verdict would simply resolve itself into a statement that Dr Goode should not be punished for murder because he was drunk when he committed the murder. This would he dead, against the legal position that drunkenness, itself a breach of the law, is no excuse for crime and cannot relieve the criminal from responsibility for his actions. Some judges have held that drunkenness is an aggrevation of any crime commmitted under its influence.. On, the understanding, then, that Dr Goode was suffering from chronic madness as a result of continued indulge-; in -liquor, it is somewhat strange that he had to commit a murder before being placed under restraint. showed that the police had known of ~violent conduct on his part long'Fefpre. the murder, usually when lie -was in drink, yet there was no suggestion that they considered him dangerous to society, lor they had never charged him, and had not even applied for a prohibition order against him. The duty of a Government is to see that a being of this type is never allowed' to. mingle in society again.— Napier ‘Telegraph.’ ......