Thus, if a person is injured or insulted, the propensities of Self-esteem and Love of Approbation, being disagreeably affected, become active, and excite Combativeness and Destructiveness, which prompt to instant retaliation and infliction of pain upon the aggressor. But the intellect, also, when it is possessed, comes into play, and takes the circumstances and motives into consideration; and if it finds the provocation to have been unintentional, it excites Conscientiousness and Benevolence and the other higher powers to direct or restrain the blind impulse of the propensities. If, however, the intellect perceives the injury to have been a deliberate act, it excites Conscientiousness and Benevolence to go so far along with the Combativeness and Destructiveness, in the infliction of punishment, as shall prevent a repetition of the aggression. But supposing the intellect, which ought to judge of the motives, to be very weak, and the sentiments which approve or disapprove to be also weak, while the propensities remain very strong; then, instead of the actions being the deliberate result of the activity of all the three orders of faculties, it is clear that they will be the result of the activity of the propensities alone; or, in other words, that, when the injury is received, the impulse to retaliate will be yielded to without hesitation or demur, and thus the general conduct of the individual will be characterized by the purest manifestations of the lower propensities. This unfortunate effect is aggravated by the very constitution of the propensities themselves. All of them, in the daily occurrences of life, easily meet with and recognize the objects which call them into activity, while the moral sentiments require a much greater degree of intellect to operate with effect, and to enable them to see their true objects. Thus a stupid man's Combativeness is much more easily roused by the appearance of opposition than a stupid man's Conscientiousness by the simple statement of a wrong; and hence the propensities, like all other parts in constant use, acquire a facility or proneness to enter into action on every occasion,

till at last the actions proceed as entirely from them as if neither intellect nor sentiments existed. Now Pallet's cast is one of those which exhibit this great and unfavourable deficiency in the organs of intellect and moral sentiments, joined to a great endowment of all the animal propensities. Hence we may expect to find him yielding to his strongest feelings without either consistency or restraint, and his general conduct to be characterized by every species of brutality, violence, and passion. Accordingly we are told "that his profligate conduct had long been a subject of ani"madversion in the neighbourhood in which he lived," and that his aged mother "often expressed the greatest anxiety "as to his fate, and that she tried, but tried in vain, to "check him in his career of guilt." The prisoner himself seemed quite aware of the strength of his passions, and of the difficulty of restraining them within bounds, and feelingly lamented his own fate in being born to be hanged.

The crime for which he suffered, like that of Thurtel, was clearly committed under the impulse of revenge, which, as already stated, arises from large Self-esteem, Combativeness, and Destructiveness, uncontrolled by Conscientiousness or Benevolence, prompting to the destruction or annoyance of the offending object. All these propensities are strongly developed in Pallet, and his low state of intellect, obscured as it was by these violent passions, altogether prevented him from perceiving either the propriety of Mumford's behaviour, or the folly of yielding to the brutal purpose which agitated his breast.

It has been frequently and justly remarked, that where Self-esteem is largely possessed the individual prides himself on those qualities in which he supposes himself to excel, and this was obviously the case with Pallet. His Self-esteem was large, and it seemed to him the very essence of degradation that he should be thwarted in his favourite actions by a man for whose diminutive size, and peaceful habits, he had often felt and expressed the most sovereign contempt. He esteemed a man in proportion to his muscular strength

and combative propensities; and to be thwarted even by his equal would have been galling to his Self-esteem; but to find himself set at nought, and, as he conceived, wantonly trampled upon, by one so immeasurably his inferior, and more especially to find that person completely in his power, was too much for such a combination to withstand, heated as it was by his afternoon's dissipation. He therefore proceeded to execute his purpose; and, having come up behind Mumford unperceived, he "was about to strike the fatal "blow, but his heart failed, and he desisted. Mr Mumford "heard some person near him, but from the defect in his vision, "and the darkness of the night, he could not see who it was ; "he, however, asked, in a tone of alarm, 'Who's there?' The prisoner made no answer, but stood still, and withheld his "breath; Mr Mumford then again went on; and the prisoner, by a short cut through a field, got before him, and stood by a gate, ready once more to strike; his heart again misgave him, "and he again desisted; Mr Mumford went on to the spot in "which his body was first seen by Mr Smith, and thither the "prisoner followed him, and made finally a desperate blow at "his head with the bludgeon, which knocked off his hat; with a second blow he felled him to the ground, and then, by repeated strokes, literally smashed his skull to atoms." Pallet, however, declared that he did not mean to murder him, but only to beat him with such severity as he should not soon forget. Nor is this statement altogether inconsistent with his organization; for when we see in ordinary individuals, with good and even powerful intellects, how completely reason often yields to passion in directing the conduct, we cannot wonder that Pallet's enormous Combativeness, Destructiveness, and Self-esteem, once called into activity to chastise his foe, should so far master the feeble glimmerings of his benighted intellect as to render him for the time insensible to the extent of the crime which he was committing. 'Accordingly, on retiring into an adjoining field, and reflecting on what had passed, he put his hands upon his face, and exclaimed, "Good God! what have I been doing." He seems even to have been struck with a degree of remorse and compassion for his fallen victim; for, after having accomplished his dreadful purpose, he retired a short "distance from the scene of slaughter, and resolved to run away; but, overpowered by the consciousness of his villany,

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"he became as it were rivetted to the spot, and had not the power to move one foot before the other, his eyes being still "directed towards the body of his victim. In this state, in a "retired part of the road, he remained until Mr Smith came up ; " he saw him approach the body and ride away; but still he "did not move. Once more he essayed to escape, and to quit "the dreadful spectacle, but he could not resist the impulse to again approach the body; and, without exactly determining on what he should do, kneeling down upon one knee, he placed it upon the other, and rested his chin upon his left "shoulder, when the blood poured down his neck, and dyed the "collar of his shirt."

After some pause, he took up the body on his back, and proceeded to Widdington, with the idea that he should be able to convince the family that he had found it on the road, and thus throw all suspicion off himself. This notion was clearly dictated by large Secretiveness, aided by his moderate but excited Cautiousness, the one prompting to concealment, the other to apprehension for his own safety; but again the deficiency of intellect betrays his scheme. As he proceeded with his burden, he soon met with four men, who had been sent out by Mr Smith, whose horse had started at the sight of the body, while Pallet was lying in the field. One of the four men gave the following account of the meeting :"And I heard some person say, Hoy!' the person was in the "road, and within three or four rods of us; I knew the voice "to be John Pallet's; besides Hoy,' he said here is Jem Mumford; he added, "I picked him up in the road;' the body was across Pallet's back. I put the lantern close to the "deceased's face, and said, I am sure it is not James Mum""ford;' my brother also said the same; I had known the de"ceased for many years; I took the body off Pallet's back and "set it on my son's knee, until the cart came up; Pallet "remained, and assisted in putting the body into the cart; "Pallet walked voluntarily towards this house, and insisted "that the body was that of Mr Mumford, but I thought not; "when he was brought to this house and put into a chair, I "examined his cheek for a mole, which I found, and then be"lieved it was Mr Mumford; his shirt was marked J. M.' "which confirmed it; his head was knocked to pieces, a large "piece being cut out from the head; Pallet then sat down, " and commenced drinking in the tap-room!" Now, considering the darkness of the night, and that the head was so mangled as not to be recognizable even with a lantern, and

more especially after hearing this witness, who knew Mumford well, repeatedly declare the body not to be his, if Pallet had had a particle of reflection, he must instantly have perceived that no one but the murderer himself could positively assert the contrary; and that by persisting in his assertion, he irresistibly pointed to himself as the guilty man. So far from being aware of their giving any just grounds for suspicion, Pallet, under the influence of Secretiveness, which assured him, that because he wished to be hidden, he therefore must be hidden, or like a child, who, when it shuts its eyes and sees nobody, imagines that it also in its turn becomes invisible to others, went to the tap-room, and renewed his drinking, as if nothing had happened.

The obvious inference that Pallet must have been concerned in the murder did not escape those about him. For when Mr Campbell, the minister of Widdington, arrived, and heard the manner in which the deceased was found, he ordered Pallet to be taken into custody; and the scene which took place upon his apprehension shews still more the debased nature of the man. Pallet said at first, that he was willing to go with the constable, but when removed to another room, he insisted on having something to eat and drink. Upon being denied this, he swore with many oaths that he would have something, and jumping up, knocked over the table, and broke the plates, glasses, and decanters upon it, but after much resistance was secured. Here, his whole lower propensities seem to have been extremely excited, and to have acted without any restraint either from the intellectual faculties or moral sentiments. The violent resistance and breaking of the table and glasses were a pure manifestation of Destructiveness and Combativeness, aided by Self-esteem and Firmness, as was the murder itself; and his call for food and drink in such circumstances, is a curious confirmation of an idea, which there is some ground for entertaining, of hunger and thirst being connected with some part at the base of the brain, which in Pallet is obviously of great size and breadth.

VOL. I.-No. III.

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