13 JULY 1850, Page 1
The trial of Robert Pate has had a peculiar result.
The in- sanity of the man was attested by a vast number of circumstances, to which witnesses, including medical men, deposed ; it was not contradicted; but the prisoner was condemned in the charge of the loyal Judge, and the Jury accepted that condemnation. It does not distinctly appear whether they disbelieved the insanity ; or whether, admitting insanity, they concurred in the refinement of a medical witness, and concluded that, although Pate was insane, he was capable of distinguishing between right and wrong. Hess to be transported for seven years. The trial raises very subtile questions as to the bounds between sanity and insanity, and the faculty of identifying " right " or " wrong " ; but it by no means settles those questions.
