913

understand the testamentary act. Before July amale nurse and a female nurse were employed to lookafter him ; in July they were dismissed and Hinksgave up his work to take charge of the old man.The Court of Criminal Appeal found the verdict was

not against the weight of evidence and that the

alleged misdirections of the jury were unimportant.If the judge at trial had not dealt fully with themedical evidence for the defence, it must be borne inmind that this, the latest evidence to be given, wouldhave been freshest in the jury’s mind. There was

adequate evidence of motive. The family solicitorhad found that Hinks, who had then been marriedfor a few months to Pullen’s daughter, was sellingsome of Pullen’s property at Dorking against his ownadvice. The solicitor had refused to negotiate asettlement of part of the old man’s estate on Hinksand had taken steps to protect the property bysecuring the appointment of a committee in .lunacy.

Plainly the most significant medical evidence wasthat of the medical attendant who knew better thananyone else the old man’s physical capacity. Muchtime was devoted at the trial to the bruise on theback of the head. The prosecution said that chemicaltests indicated tL,t the blood in the bruise showed notrace of carbon-monoxide poisoning ; therefore thebruise, a severe one, was inflicted before death. Theyoffered no theory as to the weapon used, if any, butthey said the bruise disproved Hinks’s story, since itcould not have been caused by the head dropping6 or 7 inches on to the linoleum floor after the gas-poisoning. The defence contested the conclusionsand the value of the tests made several days afterdeath. This was the part of the medical evidencewhich, on appeal, was said not to have been appre-ciated by the judge at trial and not to have beenadequately stressed by him to the jury. The mainissue, however, was whether Pullen was capable ofsqueezing his head and shoulders into the gas-ovenafter the preparations described. The jury evidentlythought he was not. A curious feature of the casewas that, on the night before death, Hinks had saidhe found Pullen in his bath with his head underwater and his face black. Medical help being sum-moned, the doctor did not quite accept the story asconsistent with Pullen’s condition. The defence saidthe incident showed that Hinks had no design ofmurdering his father-in-law. Perhaps an alternativetheory would have been that Hinks was already busywith the illusion of suicide.

It is interesting to note that Pullen’s death wasfully examined by the Bath coroner, the inquest notbeing interrupted (under Section 20 of the 1926 Act)by the initiation of criminal proceedings in anothercourt. This fact, suggesting that the police authoritiesdid not at first regard the case as strong enough totake up, shows that the coroner’s inquest has by nomeans spent its force as an instrument for the investi-gation of crime and the detection of the criminal.Since the case has ceased to be sub judice a Bathnewspaper has published details of Hinks’s previouscareer which, had they been known to the jury attrial, would certainly have been fatal to his prospectsof acquittal. On the other hand the Law Journalhas twice referred to the verdict and the result ofthe appeal with a certain misgiving. While agreeingthat the judges had strong grounds for not interferingwith the verdict of the jury, it observes that theverdict of a jury is not infallible. Too much attention,it considers, was paid to the probable cause of death,and too little to the improbable circumstances whichmay have been the real cause.

Marriage Annulled for InsanityAlthough the subsequent insanity of husband or

wife is not yet a ground for divorce, the law willannul a marriage if either of the parties was insaneat the time of the ceremony. This is because marriageis a contract and, as the court observed long ago inthe Earl of Portsmouth’s case, " the very essence ofthat most important engagement is consent ; withoutsoundness of mind there can be no legal consent."Last week Mr. Justice Bateson annulled a marriageon the petition of the husband, who alleged his owninsanity at the time of the supposed contract. Hehad, it was proved, been mentally unfit for severalmonths before October, 1932, when he went fromManchester to Nottingham and met a woman whomhe had known for some time. They agreed to marryand were married next day by special licence. Thepair went back to Manchester and lived together fora few days ; a fortnight after the wedding thehusband was admitted to a mental hospital. Oneventual discharge from the hospital he remainedunder treatment and was now sufficiently recoveredto be able to understand his petition though notyet fit to give evidence. The judge had to apply atest formulated in 1825 in Durham v. Durham :"was there a capacity to understand the nature ofthe contract and the duties and responsibilities whichit creates ? " Mr. Justice Bateson said the doctorshad satisfied him that the petitioner might verywell be, and in their opinion was, incapable of under-standing what he was doing when he went throughthe ceremony of marriage ; he was insane at the timeand in the circumstances the marriage was a nullityand must be so pronounced.The petition last week was more successful than

that of the Earl of Durham in the case already cited.The Earl called three doctors to describe the mentalstate of Lady Durham, who after marriage becamemanifestly insane. The judge, Sir James Hannen,took into account her present condition, and askedhimself if it was recent and sudden or whether it hadbeen of slow growth and had already existed at thedate of the marriage so as to invalidate the contract.He came to the conclusion that Lady Durham’smental illness did not exist until a visit she paid toCannes after her marriage. The Earl’s petition wastherefore dismissed with costs. In the Portsmouthcase the marriage was pronounced void because,though the husband was weak-minded rather thaninsane, there was an element of something like fraudin the conduct of other parties. The Earl ofPortsmouth was brought up to London in 1814 byhis medical attendant and was delivered over to histrustees, one of whom was Harrison, the familysolicitor. A week later the Earl was married to oneof Harrison’s daughters ; it was a clandestine

wedding between a man of weak and deranged mindand the daughter of his trustee and solicitor. Nosuch suspicious circumstances were present in thecase decided last week, where the medical evidencewas found sufficient to make the contract voidab initio.

IRELAND

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT)

THE CUTS IN MEDICAL SALARIES

THE Temporary Economies Bill, affecting thesalaries of the officers of local authorities, underwenta radical change last week in the Senate. Sir EdwardCoey Bigger, formerly medical member of the Local