158
The Green Bag
sions; a plea of guilty meant a light penalty. "Did not Beattie confess to the mur der of which he was charged?" asks the doctor, "and did not the McNamaras confess at Los Angeles, because their con science could not withstand the strain?" True, Beattie confessed, but he did not do so until after he had been sen tenced to death. And to the end that his confession might not weaken any chance he might have in the direction of executive clemency, he insisted that it should not be made public until after his death. The McNamaras confessed, but the clearest possible evidence shows that they did so to save their necks, and not to unburden their souls. We say they confessed; we should have said, they pleaded guilty to the particular offenses with which they stood charged at Los Angeles, but they confessed practically nothing of their criminal operations at large — at least nothing that will inter fere with any effort they may make in the future for pardon. The Richeson case is somewhat different, but not altogether so; as in the case of Dr. Webster, his only hope lay in the mercy of the court; certainly there is nothing in his conduct, from the time of his leaving school in Missouri to the time of his confession in the Charles street jail in Boston, to indicate that anything like remorse could so quickly possess him, and we doubt if it is saying too much to say that the hope of clem ency moved him to confession, rather than the prompting of an awakened con science. We can see little in these cases to prove the presence of a psychic wave, and so long as Dr. Zellar has nothing but forced confessions to offer in sup port of his theory, we are not much in clined to consider it a rational state
ment. And until the thousands of bribe-takers and bribe-givers outside of Adams county, Ohio, who are now silent, voluntarily confess their guilt; until the dozens of murderers who are now fighting to defeat the ends of justice, voluntarily surrender themselves to be punished; until the court calendars that are now flooded with cases of per sons who are striving by every means in their power to thwart the purposes of the law; until that psychic wave succeeds in securing convictions that antedate those of the state's attorney, — until then we shall be exceedingly doubtful of its existence. THE INSANITY OF WILLIAM HUNDLEY Thaw case reminds me of a case which was much talked of when I was practising law down in the country, years ago," said an old lawyer, as he sat in his office chair with his feet elevated in proper rural and free-andeasy style, his Missouri meerschaum between his teeth, in a reminiscent mood and a moment of leisure. "It was in the "60's," he continued. "The war had ceased but the bitter feel ing between Northern and Southern sympathizers had not yet died out, par ticularly in Missouri, the borderland of the great contest. Here neighbor was against neighbor, town against town, and county against county. William Hundley, a young man, member of a well-known familyof Gentry county, had just returned from the Confederate service. William Boyer, a young man and neighbor, had been in the Federal service. Hundley and Boyer met one day. There may have been a woman in in the case. I do not know whether there was or not, but I do know that there was whiskey and bad whiskey,
