ath by the Regent's Canal, and later her
body was fished from the water. _Verdict: Suicide during temporary
insanity_.

Such verdicts are crimes against truth. The Law is a lie, and through it
men lie most shamelessly. For instance, a disgraced woman, forsaken and
spat upon by kith and kin, doses herself and her baby with laudanum. The
baby dies; but she pulls through after a few weeks in hospital, is
charged with murder, convicted, and sentenced to ten years' penal
servitude. Recovering, the Law holds her responsible for her actions;
yet, had she died, the same Law would have rendered a verdict of
temporary insanity.

Now, considering the case of Ellen Hughes Hunt, it is as fair and logical
to say that her husband was suffering from temporary insanity when he
went into the Islington Workhouse, as it is to say that she was suffering
from temporary insanity when she went into the Regent's Canal. As to
which is the preferable sojourning place is a matter of opinion, of
intellectual judgment. I, for one, from what I know of canals and
workhouses, should choose the canal, were I in a similar position. And I
make bold to contend that I am no more insane than Ellen Hughes Hunt, her
husband, and the rest of the human herd.

Man no longer follows instinct with the old natural fidelity. He has
developed into a reasoning creature, and can intellectually cling to life
or discard life just as life happens to promise great pleasure or pain. I
dare to assert that Ellen Hughes Hunt, defrauded and bilked of all the
joys of life which fifty-two years' service in the world has earned, with
nothing but the horrors of the workhouse before her, was very rational
and level-headed when she elected to jump into the canal. And I dare to
assert, further, that the jury had done a wiser thing to bring in a
verdict charging society with temporary insanity for allowing Ellen
Hughes Hunt to be defrauded and bilked of all the joys of life which
fifty-two years' service in the world had earned.

Temporary insanity! Oh, these cursed phrases, these lies of language,
under which people with meat in their bellies and whole shirts on their
backs shelter themselves, and evade the responsibility of their brothers
and sisters, empty of belly and without whole shirts on their backs.

From one issue of the _Observer_, an East End paper, I quote the
following commonplace events:-

A ship's fireman, named Johnny King, was charged with attempti