REPORT OF CASES OF MORAL IMBECILITY, OF 
THE OPIUM-HABIT, AND OF FEIGNING, 
IN WHICH FORGERY IS THE 
OFFENCE COMMITTED. 
BY 
J. T. ESKRIDGE, M.D., 
OF DENVER, COLORADO J 
PROFESSOR OF MENTAL AND NERVOUS DISEASES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO ; 
NEUROLOGIST TO THE ARAPAHOE COUNTY, TO THE ST. LUKE’S, 
AND TO THE DEACONESS HOME HOSPITALS. 
FROM 
THE MEDICAL NEWS, 
January 14, 1893. [Reprinted from The Medical News, January 14, 1893.] 
REPORT OF CASES OF MORAL IMBECILITY, OF 
THE OPIUM-HABIT, AND OF FEIGNING, 
IN WHICH FORGERY IS THE 
OFFENCE COMMITTED} 
BY y. T. ESKRIDGE, M.D., 
OF DENVER, CWEORADO \ 
PROFESSOR OF MENTAL AND NERVOUS DISEASES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF 
COLORADO ; NEUROLOGIST TO THE ARAPAHOE COUNTY, TO THE 
st. luke’s, and to the deaconess home hospitals. 
During the past year I have been called upon to 
testify in the criminal court in several instances in 
which the subjects arraigned, all for the same offence, 
forgery, presented the same excuse, insanity. I have 
arranged these cases into three classes: moral imbe- 
cility, morphinomania, and feigning. As most of 
the persons assigned to each class present many feat- 
tures of interest, both to the lawyer and physician, 
I shall give histories illustrative of each group. 
Case I. Moral imbecility.—R. B. T., twenty- 
two years old, a male, and by occupation a printer, 
has been arrested for numerous forgeries. I have 
been unable to learn anything definite of the 
patient’s family history, but from a letter written 
by his mother, in which she claims an exceptionally 
good record for the family, I think that she is men- 
tally below the average. The young man is a de- 
cided blond, of medium height; he is slender, pale, 
1 Read before the Medico-Legal Society of Denver. 2 
and presents a weak and anemic appearance. His 
head is of fair size, but it is irregular in outline, and 
is in aspect decidedly different from the average 
head. He seems bright and intelligent, is said to 
be quite expert at his trade, and is a voluble and 
rather plausible talker. Of his life before his four- 
teenth year I have been unable to learn anything, 
but at this age he began to learn his trade, soon 
became addicted to the excessive use of cigarettes, 
indulged in alcohol and venery, contracted the habit 
of gambling, and not long after his fourteenth year 
he commenced to forge checks for small amounts. 
This he did in Pueblo, and, on being arrested, his 
family redeemed the checks and he was not prose- 
cuted. After being released, he again committed 
forgery, never drawing a check for a large amount, 
but simply making them large enough to supply 
money for his immediate drinking or gambling pur- 
poses. He went to Kansas City, worked for a short 
time, but soon resumed his habit of forging checks 
to secure small sums of money. He was accustomed 
to draw a check in his own favor, signing it in the 
name of some imaginary party, and before the check 
went to protest he would secure money on another 
forged check and pay the amount of the former 
forged paper. He seemed to regard his actions as 
legitimate, provided he succeeded in paying the 
checks before they went to protest, and appeared 
unable to realize anything criminal in his acts. He 
finally succeeded in drawing the money on so many 
checks that he was compelled to leave the city to 
escape arrest. He returned to h:s fam ly in Pueblo, 
again forged several checks, and was arresttd. His 
family again came to his rescue, but warned him 
that if he were again arrested for forgery they would 
not try to shield him from the law. He came to 
Denver in the latter part of the year 1891, and be- 3 
fore he had been in the city twenty-four hours he 
forged three or four checks, all for small amounts. 
To illustrate his actions I will read from his attor- 
ney’s letter to me. 
“Denver, Col., May 24, 1892. 
“ The facts pertaining to R. B. T., so far as I have any 
connection with his case, and so far as I possess any 
knowledge of him as an individual, are substantially as 
follows: 
“ Some time prior to December, 1891, he was arrested 
and charged with the passage of some three or four 
forged instruments of writing. He caused himself to be 
entered, in one of the trials, as his own attorney, and 
defended himself with very considerable vigor, but, of 
course, without any technical knowledge, and the result 
was a conviction. The conviction was set aside for mani- 
fest errors, and J was assigned to defend the prisoner. 
“ I undertook his defence, and endeavored to establish 
an alibi, but was not successful. He was again con- 
victed, and sentenced for a period of eight years to hard 
labor in the penitentiary. I took out a writ of error to 
the Court of Appeals, and upon a presentation thereof, 
was granted a supersedeas, wherein the bond was fixed 
at $1000. This bond was given and T. was again at lib- 
erty. He went to the town of Ouray, Colorado, and 
remained there several months, until his other cases, 
which had not been disposed of, were set for trial, and 
practically beat his way on the railways from Ouray to 
Denver, a distance of several hundred miles. Upon his 
arrival here, I succeeded in having his various cases 
continued to await the action of the Court of Appeals in 
the supersedeas case pending in that tribunal. I then 
explained to him (and he fully understood the facts), 
that the Court of Appeals would not pass upon his case 
prior to September or October (about six months later), 
and that, in my opinion, the case would be reversed, 
and in all probability his cases would never be tried, 
provided he would behave himself in the meanwhile as 
a law-abiding citizen should. He promised me a faith- 
ful observance of my instructions to him, and immedi- 
ately thereafter, without any provocation so far as I can 4 
see, and with money in his pocket, enough to support 
him, and with a good trade as printer, at which he is an 
expert, he proceeded to forge some seven or eight checks 
for a gross aggregate amount not to exceed sixty-five or 
seventy-five dollars. 
“In his earlier forgeries in 1891, which were likewise 
in very small amounts, he used the name, S. M. Simp- 
son, and signed them either with that name or with a 
name of similar sound. In his more recent forgeries, 
taking place a month or two ago, he used the same 
character of handwriting and the same name, with, per- 
haps, one exception. There has never been an attempt 
in any of his forgeries to feign any handwriting, and I 
think, with one exception, the payee in all of them has 
been the same.” 
The young man, in the latter part of May, 1892, 
was brought to my office, where I spent about two 
hours in investigating his case. 
I found that all his forgeries had been committed 
solely and simply as a matter of convenience, and 
that he did not think he had ever committed forgery 
in a criminal sense. He never drew a check for 
more than a few dollars, just enough to meet his 
present wants, and seemed to believe that if he suc- 
ceeded in raising the money to pay the check before 
it went to protest he had done nothing more than 
play a smart trick to secure money for a pressing 
necessity. All his actions sustained this view of 
his case. He had on more than one occasion drawn 
a check for a few dollars, when he had at the same 
time money at his room. He said he did this be- 
cause it was more convenient to draw a check than 
to stop his gambling and go to his room for money. 
If he were unmolested, the next morning he would 
pay the check before it went to protest. He ac- 
knowledged that forgery, as ordinarily practised, was 
a crime and should be punished. He appeared to 
think that he was being persecuted, and did not 5 
realize that he had done anything wrong in forging 
a man’s name to secure money, when he meant to 
pay the check himself, and prevent anyone losing 
anything by his actions. He is.supremely egotisti- 
cal and intensely selfish, and cannot realize that his 
conven ence should be interfered with, even though 
the whole community should suffer on account of 
his actions. 
At his trial for insanity in the county court, I 
testified that I believed him to be a moral imbecile, 
whose selfishness and egotism caused him to disre- 
gard all law when he wished to gratify some passing 
desire. The jury returned a verdict of insanity, 
and he was remanded to the custody of the sheriff 
until room for him should be found in the State 
Asjlum. He is still in the county jail here, and 
has been since his trial, as our State Asylum is 
overcrowded. At his trial he ignored his insanity 
and tried to justify his actions on the score of expe- 
diency. 
During his stay in the county jail he has written 
several long and interesting letters. In a letter to 
his wife, written a few days after he was adjudged 
insane, he exultantly recounts his triumphs in Den- 
ver. He tells her that through the shrewdness of 
his attorney and his own masterly way of conduct- 
ing himself, the judge, the jury, the county attor- 
ney, and even an expert on insanity, have been 
deceived, and he has been declared insane. He 
informs her that he is not very bad, and that, although 
only two days have elapsed since the trial, he is 
already able to recognize his attendants; and one 
week’s detention in the asylum, to which he feels 
sure he will be transferred in a day or two, will suf- 
fice for his complete recovery. His conduct in the 
jail has been overbearing to an offensive degree. 
He speaks to his attendants as though they were his 6 
vassals, declares that he is being persecuted, and 
pompously asserts that he is going to have the whole 
matter investigated. He insists on his attorney 
visiting him several times each week, and relates to 
him in great detail his real or supposed wrongs. He 
yet languishes in jail, but still remains the same 
overbearing, unconquered, self-important individual. 
This young man indifferently drew checks on any 
convenient bank, and with none of which had he 
ever kept an account. 
We will now study the nature of moral imbecility 
and compare T.’s case with others that are on record. 
Bucknill and Tuke, in their work on Psychological 
Medicine, in a foot-note on page 49, state: “In 
fact, the term moral insanity is now universally re- 
stricted to that morbid condition which results in 
immoral acts without apparent intellectual dis- 
order.” Dr. Crichton Browne’s description of 
moral insanity, written many years ago, is regarded 
as one of the best. He says: 
“ Moral insanity is of frequent occurrence in early 
life. The intellectual faculties of the person affected by 
it remain entire and unimpaired. He is perfectly capa- 
ble of perceiving and knowing and judging. He cher- 
ishes no delusion. He cannot in the ordinary and legal 
acceptation of the term be pronounced insane, and yet 
he is to all intents and purposes of unsound mind, and 
as much requiring guidance, restraint, and treatment as 
the furious maniac. He suffers from entire perversion 
of the moral principle, from the want of every good and 
honest sentiment. He is actuated by impulse, or by the 
most selfish, depraved, and cruel motives ; he presents, 
in short, a perfect picture of a desperado or ruffian. The 
existence of moral insanity, like the existence of every- 
thing else, has been called in question, and at the present 
day there are not lacking those who will recklessly com- 
mit the moral monomaniac to the scaffold or the peni- 7 
tentiary, little thinking that in so doing they punish dis- 
ease and not crime. We are forced to acknowledge 
moral insanity as an actual disease by the most cursory 
glance at the previous history of some of those by whom 
it is manifested. Many of them from being refined and 
virtuous, and upright and prudent, have become coarse 
and licentious, and dishonest and reckless. We believe 
that many of our jails and penitentiaries are peopled by 
such.” (Ibid., p. 244 ) 
Dr. Prichard, one of the ablest and earliest of Eng- 
lish physicians to devote much time to the study of 
the form of insanity under consideration, remarked : 
“ It seems not improbable that many persons, wrong- 
headed and perverse through life, and singularly 
capricious and depraved, would afford in reality, if 
the matter could be ascertained, examples of moral 
insanity, native or congenital.” (Ibid., p. 245.) 
Bastian wrote many years ago: “There are cer- 
tain beings who are moral imbeciles.” “It is re- 
markable,” he states, “what an acute intellect may 
sometimes coexist with an entire absence of the 
moral sense.” (Reynolds’s System of Medicine.') 
Cases of moral imbecility are often difficult to 
diagnosticate. Some may take the form of so-called 
kleptomania, some of pyromania, some may be im- 
pulsively homicidal or suicidal, others may be sim- 
ply vicious and perverse, taking delight in acts of 
cruelty or in annoying their associates; while, in 
all, there is to a greater or less extent a loss of self- 
control. 
In a recent brochure entitled Prichard and Sy- 
monds ; with Chapters on Moral Insanity, Tuke gives 
a letter from Dr. Prichard to his (Tuke’s) father, in 
which he says : “I am desirous of knowing whether 8 
you have observed (at the York Retreat) any cases 
of moral insanity. By that term I distinguish the 
mental state of persons who betray no lesion of un- 
derstanding, or want of the power of reasoning and 
conversing correctly upon any subject whatever, 
and whose disease consists in a perverted state of the 
feelings, temper, inclinations, habits, and conduct.” 
Dr. Tuke himself describes the condition as 
being “not loss of memory, not delusion or halluci- 
nation, not any deficiency of talent or genius, not 
any lack of mental acuteness, and certainly no inco- 
herence of ideas or language, but a deficiency or 
impairment of moral feeling or self-control, such 
being either the development of a character natural 
to the individual, or a departure from it, which 
contrasts most strikingly with its former traits.” 
{Brain, part lvii, p. 126.) 
Tuke says that the diagnosis of moral insanity 
cannot be made by any rule, but that each case 
must be studied and decided in relation to the in- 
dividual himself, his antecedents, education, sur- 
roundings, and social status, the nature of certain 
acts, and the mode in which they are performed, 
etc. {Ibid., p. 131.) 
We have, then, in moral imbecility a moral per- 
version, with loss of self-control. 
The young man, the history of whose case has 
just been given, is nervous, subject to attacks of 
severe headache, with slight fever, coming on once 
or twice each year, and lasting one or two weeks at 
a time. Early in life he fell into habits fitting a 
criminal of mature years, and forged checks for 
small amounts, from time to time, apparently as a matter of convenience. The amounts of money he 
secured on checks were always small, and the 
forgery was done in a routine and systematic man- 
ner. When asked in court if he did not know that 
forgery was a crime and punishable, he promptly 
replied that he did, and made no effort to explain 
why he had committed forgery. He was asked if he 
had not committed forgery. He said that he sup- 
posed he had, or, at least, people seemed to think he 
had. On inquiring if he expected to commit forgery 
again, he replied that he did not, as he had no de- 
sire to be imprisoned. Then he was asked what he 
would do if he wished to purchase a parcel of 
goods, if all his money should happen to be at 
home, several blocks distant. His answer was that, 
he would either go and get his money, or give a 
check for the amount, then get the money and pay 
the check at his convenience. When asked if he did 
not know that this would be forgery, he indignantly 
replied that it would not, as he would not be trying 
to cheat anybody. Convenience with him is supreme 
law, and self-gratification the great object of life. 
Egotism and a disregard of the rights of others 
characterize all his actions. All of his actions with 
which I have become familiar correspond with the 
statements that he made to me and before the jury. 
The next case that I wish to report is one of 
moral imbecility, complicated by the opium-habit. 
Alcoholics and neurotics are found in the family 
tree. 
Case II.—Mrs. W., twenty-four years of age, of 
Nebraska, is a large fleshy woman; mentally rather 
9 10 
dull, and her mind acts slowly. As a girl, up to her 
sixteenth year, when she was married, she mani- 
fested few symptoms different from other girls of 
her age, except that she seemed wayward, head- 
strong, and somewhat eccentric. At her first con- 
finement she became insane (form not known), and 
remained in this condition for several months. 
Shortly after her recovery from this mental aberra- 
tion she became hysterical, peevish, and fretful, and 
developed kleptomaniac tendencies. When she 
went to a store to order groceries she would fill her 
pockets with articles of slight value. Many of these 
were absolutely useless to her. At times she ordered 
goods in c msiderable quantities to be sent to the 
houses of different persons, saying that she had been 
requested to leave such orders. Finally her lying 
•and thieving propensities caused her to be such a 
nuisance that merchants ceased to believe or trust 
her. After a while she began to have hysterical 
paroxysms, of several hours’ duration, during which 
she would lie convulsed and semi-conscious. About 
this time, some four years ago, she began the use of 
morphine. She had hysterical hemi-anesthesia that 
lasted a year. Some three years ago she began to 
attend the meetings of the Salvation Army, and by 
some of the religious fanatics she was considered 
quite an acquisition to their ranks, as she made as 
much noise and professed as great a change of 
heart and character as the best of them. One 
night, in their experience meetings, she arose and 
said: “I wish to tell what the Lord has done for me. 
Last night I s'ept in the arms of a railroad man; 
to-night I shall sleep in the arms of Jesus ” Some 
one in the gallery inquired in a loui voice, “Are 
you engaged for to-morrow night?” The meeting 
went on till a late hour as usual. When it ended, 
and the people were leaving the house, she was seen standing in the vestibule looking searchingly at the 
male portion of the congregation as they were leav- 
ing the budding. Finally, when most of the people 
had left, she inquired of a man if he knew the man 
who inquired if she were engaged for “ to-morrow 
night,” stating she would like to see and make an 
engagement with him. 
I mention this episode in the life of this moral 
imbecile to illustrate the utter worthlessness and 
hollowness of all professions of reformation made 
by such mentally defective creature’. 
Whether she had resorted to forgery before she 
came to Denver about two years ago, I was unable 
to learn. Her husband is small, insignificant-look- 
ing, and a worthless-appearing man. It seems that 
he and a certain other man weie cognizant of her 
forgeries and profited by them, if they did not sug- 
gest and direct them. 
Within a few months after she came to this city 
she had succeeded in passing eighteen forged 
checks, all for small amounts. They were all in 
the same handwriting, which did not differ materi- 
ally from her usual writing, with one, or possibly 
two exceptions, signed by the name of the same 
person, and were nearly all, if not all, drawn in 
favor of the same individual. About the only vari- 
ation that was noticed about the checks was a change 
of address on nearly every one. It was her custom 
to go into a store and order a small bill of goods 
sent to her at a certain address, and then offer in 
payment a check d>awn for about ten or fifteen dol- 
lars. As the purchase that she had made did not 
am 3unt to more than two or three dollars, she 
obtained, as a rule, about ten dollars for each check. 
When she was arrested and committed to the 
county jail she was under the influence of morphine, 
and probably of whiskey. She claimed to have been 
11 12 
accustomed to take from ten to twenty grains of 
morphine daily. I saw her, after her imprisonment, 
with Dr. M. Baker, and we soon succeeded in 
reducing the quantity of morphine to two grains 
daily, and in about one month we stopped it 
entirely. She gained considerably in flesh after the 
drug had been discontinued. 
When she was being tried for the forgeries, at the 
request of the district attorney and the attorney for 
the defence, the court appointed Dr. McLauthlin 
and myself to make an examination into her mental 
condition. 
We found no physical evidence of any organic 
nervous lesion, and physically she appeared to be 
in an excellent condition, notwithstanding that she 
claimed to be unable to feel the contact of sub- 
stances or the prick of a pin in certain areas. On 
repeated examinations of the sense of touch and 
pain over different portions of her limbs we found 
the areas to change in size and situation from time 
to time; so that we were forced to the conclusion 
that she was feigning anesthesia and analgesia. She 
appeared to have but little regaid for the truth, but 
exhibited great caution and deliberation in her 
answers to our inquiries concerning the forgeries, 
lest she should contradict herself. She claimed to 
know nothing of all the checks, save one, and to 
remember nothing of obtaining money or goods on 
any but this one. This particular check she said 
was given her by a male friend. When asked why 
she had given a wrong address when she obtained 
money and goods on it, she said that she did not 
want the merchant to know where she was stopping. 
On having her write her name and then showing her 
the identity of the handwriting on the forged checks 
and on the paper on which she had just written her 
name, she became confused, but stuck to her former 13 
statement that the check had been written and 
given her by a friend. On questioning her in 
regard to her actions on the days on which the sev- 
enteen other checks had been drawn and passed, it 
was found that she had a fairly good memory for 
everything that occurred on those days, except 
what took place in relation to the checks. 
Dr. McLauthlin and I agreed that she was feign- 
ing, knew all about the forged checks and the 
obtaining of money and goods on them; and we 
further agreed that she was a moral imbecile. 
Before we were called into the district court to tes- 
tify, she was taken to the county court and adjudged 
insane, and remanded to the care of her father and 
mother in Omaha, where, I have no doubt, she is 
still pursuing the even tenor of her ways, and prob- 
ably visiting revival meetings and professing great 
change of heart. 
In the county court I simply testified that the 
unfortunate woman was morally rotten, that she was 
a criminal and moral imbecile by inheritance, 
nature, and practice, without self-control to restrain 
her from following her evil impulses, and that she 
was incurable and would live and die a criminal and 
a moral blot upon the community in which she 
chanced to reside. 
On comparing with each other the histories of 
the two cases just related it will be perceived that 
they vary greatly in certain respects. In one, the 
young man, there are no kleptomaniac tendencies; 
he is bright, intelligent, egotistical, and oblivious 
of the rights and privileges of everybody else; he 
will not steal, he abhors a thief, although he has 
not hesitated to take mean advantages of his part- 
ners in the gambling business; he is a systematic 14 
petty forger, to such an extent that he may be said 
to have a penchant, or almost a mania, for forging, 
yet his actions have shown that these forgeries have 
been committed rather for convenience than for the 
purpose of defrauding anyone; he seems to take 
pride and delight in obtaining money on a worth- 
less piece of paper, and tries to pay the check before 
it is protested. In this he can realize nothing 
wrong. When confronted with his crimes he denies 
nothing, but acknowledges all, gives a detailed 
account of every transaction, his intentions, and the 
causes that led up to the forgery. 
In the other, the young woman, kleptomaniac 
tendencies have been manifest for a number of 
years; she is dull, somewhat stupid, suspicious and 
deceitful; she exhibits no egotism, and apparently 
cares nothing for the opinions of others; she is not 
a systematic forger, but seems to have been actuated 
by a different motive than that shown by the young 
man; she desires to defraud, and by falsehoods 
keeps her address a secret; it is only comparatively 
recently that she has resorted to this method of 
gaining money, and when confronted with proofs 
of her guilt, she lies and persists in lying, although 
she knows that she is not believed. She even denies 
all remembrance of obtaining money on more than 
one check, and this she maintains was not forged 
by her, although her own handwriting condemns 
her. 
What is the difference? The young man belongs 
to a more definite and better class of moral imbe- 
ciles than that to which the woman is assigned. 
He does wrong because he sees and recognizes no 15 
wrong in what he does. In the woman two causes 
seem to be in operation—one a partial moral ob- 
liquity, and the other a delight in doing wrong 
because it is wrong. 
There is one mitigating circumstance connected 
with the woman’s forgeries, and this should not be 
omitted in summing up the character of her actions. 
It was observed that when she obtained money on 
forged checks she was always joined by her hus- 
band or by another man soon after she left the 
store. This would suggest that these men were 
acquainted with her doings while in the store, and 
probably had suggested the forged checks as a 
means of obtaining money. Now take a person 
morally depraved as this poor unfortunate creature 
is, and he becomes the dupe of every designing in- 
dividual who happens to have influence over him. 
Case III.—The third case that I report is quite 
brief. It is in relation to the criminal action of a 
morphine-habitue, a young man, whose family and 
personal history I was unable to obtain, further than 
that he had been accustomed to the free indulgence 
of morphine for eight or ten years, and during the last 
two or three years preceding the crime had been 
in the habit of taking from twenty to thirty grains 
of morphine daily. He was accompanied by two 
young men to a second-hand clothing store, ob- 
tained a suit of clothes for which he was to pay six 
dollars, produced a check drawn in his favor for 
twelve dollars, signed it, and received six dollars in 
change. Nothing wrong was observed with the 
young man during the transaction. Shortly after 
this the check was found to be worthless, and the 
man was arrested. He denies having any knowl- 16 
edge of obtaining either clothes or money on the 
check, although it was proved that he had obtained 
both, and had written the check himself. The plea 
of amnesic insanity was set up by the defence, on 
the ground that he had taken about ten grains of 
morphine just before the transaction. 
I was appointed by the court, at the request of 
the defence, to testify in regard to the man’s in- 
sanity at the time of the transaction, and in regard 
to the influence of morphine on the mind. I found 
that the man remembered almost everything that 
occurred on the day of the alleged transaction ex- 
cept the transaction itself. 
After giving the attorney for the defence my 
opinion in the case, and telling him that I should 
have to testify in the main against his client, I was 
requested by him to take the witness-stand. He 
asked me only one question: the influence upon the 
mind of the free and prolonged use of morphine. I 
testified, of course, that it made a moral wreck of a 
man and lessened and destroyed his self-control. 
On cross-examination I was asked (although the 
defence objected to the question) the immediate 
influence on the mind of the usual quantity taken 
by morphine habitues before the period of stupor 
was reached. I answered that it brightened and 
quickened the intellect, improved the memory for 
the time being, and put the opium-user in the best 
possible mental and physical condition. I was asked 
if the habitue of morphine knew right from wrong 
under such circumstances. I answered that he 
would distinguish quite clearly, although he might 
be unable to resist doing wrong. The young man 
was convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary. 
I believe that this man was a tool in the hands of 
his two evil companions. They probably planned the 17 
crime and he carried it out. He probably realized 
that he was doing wrong at the time of the act, but 
moral control was gone, and the hope of obtaining 
money for further indulgence in morphine made 
him a ready victim for almost any crime suggested 
to him. 
Case IY.—The fourth and last case that I report 
requires a little more careful study than Case III. 
The patient is a young man of twenty-two years 
of age, newly married, and of an intelligent, mild, 
and prepossessing appearance. He is a college- 
graduate, and has received a fairly good business 
education. He came to Denver about one year 
before his arrest in this city, and like the majority 
of people who do not belong to one of the three 
professions, he entered into the real-estate business. 
His life before coming here, so far as I was able to 
learn, had been exemplary. He met and married a 
young and rather prepossessing lady whom he had 
led to believe that he was doing a prosperous business 
and had become possessed of considerable wealth. 
He said that he was agent for a tract of land in 
Texas, for which he claimed that he would make 
twenty-five thousand dollars. He bought three 
houses and lots, for which he had no money to pay. 
He purchased expensive furniture for his office, and 
for this he gave a check on the bank in which he 
had formerly kept an account. His grocery bill 
amounted to seventy-five dollars. He drew a check 
payable to his wife on the same bank for more than 
the amount of the grocery bill, went with her to the 
grocer) man, and had her pay his bill with the check. 
Within a few days he drew several checks for vari- 
ous small sums for debts contracted and purchases 
recently made. Suddenly he disappeared and was 
not found for several days. During this time the 18 
checks had been protested. He was found staying 
in the unoccupied houses which he had recently 
bought. He was arrested and committed to jail, 
and I was requested by the attorney for the defence 
to make an examination of his mental condition. 
After inquiring into his life, habits, and mental 
powers up to the time when he began to draw 
checks for which he had no money in bank to pay, 
I took up in detail, beginning with the first, each 
amount for which he had drawn worthless checks, 
and found that he remembered with remarkable 
accuracy the minutest circumstances connected 
with each transaction. He could give the amounts 
of each check, the date it was drawn, and for what 
the debt was contracted. When I asked him why 
he drew the checks when he had no money in the 
bank, his invariable reply was that he knew he had 
some nine hundred dollars in bank, and if the bank 
said he had not, it made a mistake. I asked him if his 
bank-book did not show that he had no money on 
deposit in the bank. He said it might, but that he 
knew the bank was mistaken, as he had deposited 
about nine hundred dollars in the bank since his 
book had been balanced. I continued my inquiries 
into the time (several days) during which his where- 
abouts had not been known to his wife or his 
friends. For this period he claimed to have no 
memory whatever. 
On inquiry at the bank, I learned that he had not 
made the deposits which he claimed to have made, 
and that he withdrew his account from the bank 
some nine months before the fraudulent checks were 
drawn. I found that he remembered his arrest while 
staying in the unoccupied house, but he said he 
could not tell how long he had regained conscious- 
ness before his arrest. 
Without going into the reasons for my opinion, I 19 
told the young man’s attorney that I felt positive 
that his client was feigning. I heard nothing of the 
case until about three months after my examination, 
when I was summoned by the district attorney to 
appear in the criminal court to testify in a case of 
alleged insanity. On my arrival in court I found 
the case was that of this young man. The district 
attorney did not know that I already had knowledge 
of the case. During the progress of the trial I 
learned from witnesses who testified in the case that 
several of the statements which the prisoner had for- 
merly made to me and his attorney were false. After 
adjournment of court I began an examination of the 
prisoner in the presence of his attorney, the office 
of the district attorney not being represented. I 
found the young man exceedingly nervous and 
despondent. Several developments in his case had 
occurred during the time that I had been in court 
which proved that he had not been truthful either 
with me or his attorney. I abruptly demanded of 
him to know why he had dealt falsely with his 
attorney and me, and told him that I feared it was 
too late to do anything for him, but advised him to 
tell us the whole truth and we would do all that we 
could for him. He expressed regret that he had 
not been truthful, and with tears in his eyes frankly 
acknowledged that he knew when he drew the 
checks that he had no money in bank, but excused 
his conduct on the ground that money was due and 
promised him, and he had expected to collect this and 
deposit it in bank before the checks were presented. 
Failing in this, rather than tell his wife and creditors 
his unfortunate condition, he had tried to secrete 
himself, when he was arrested. 
It is needless to say what the verdict of the jury 
was. 20 
We may inquire, What should be done with the 
criminal moral imbecile, or with the criminal moral 
reprobate caused by the use of alcohol or opium? 
Shall he be allowed to go free on the plea of insan- 
ity and irresponsibility? The community has certain 
rights as well as the individual, and those of the for- 
mer are greater than those of the latter. It seems to 
me that the only feasible solution of the subject is to 
make all criminals who are not suffering from those 
forms of insanity that necessitate their confinement 
in an asylum responsible to the law for their con- 
duct, but to modify the punishment according to 
the degree of self-control possessed by each class. 
Neither the insane asylum nor the penitentiary is a 
fit place for the moral imbecile, or for the criminal 
insane in general. It is an outrage to subject the 
insane to the constant presence and association of 
the criminal insane, and it is equally unjust and in- 
humane to confine the latter with the hardened 
criminal, such as are found in our jails and peniten- 
tiaries. Every State should have a separate place 
provided for its criminal insane. 
Owing to the indefatigable and intelligent efforts 
of Dr. Peterson and his co-laborers in the cause, the 
State of New York is about to establish a home for 
its epileptic population. Let us hope that this good 
work may spread to every State in the Union, and 
that not only the epileptic but also the insane 
criminal, of which the epileptic population forms 
no insignificant proportion, may be equally well 
and suitably provided for. The Medical News. 
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