This day week the trial of Mr. G. V. Townley
for the murder of Miss Goodwin, at Wigwell Hall, terminated in his conviction. The most striking element in the case for the defence was Dr. Forbes Winslow's cross-examination on the evidence which he gave to prove the insanity of the prisoner. The physician rested his opinion partly on the eccentricity of the prisoner's views of property in the young lady ; partly on the prisoner's apparent belief in the existence of a conspiracy against him. This is, no doubt, a well-known sign of mania ; but it does not appear to have manifested itself till months after the murder ; and if made the ground of any commutation of sentence, will be caught up by all prisoners awaiting trial under a capital charge as an expedient for .obtaining a reprieve the genuineness of which no one can possibly disprove. It would appear to be a very strange course, to commute a sentence of death in order that a lunatic life may be prolonged, -when it would not be done in order that a sane life might be pro- longed.
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