34
novel. Monomania, that word of modern creation, was not then accepted. Public opinion did not believe, any more than the magistrates, in these passing aberrations of the mind, in these involuntary impulses, in this irresponsibility for crime. M. Hardouin, the President, clearly summed up the facts in the case, and after an hour's deliberation the jury found Papavoine guilty. The President pronounced the sentence of death. No trace of emotion was visible upon the features of Papavoine, who arose and said calmly, " / appeal to Divine justice!" In spite of every exertion made by his family to obtain royal clemency, the unhappy
THE
man was executed, on the 25th of March, in the Place de Greve. It will be observed that science was not called upon to establish the mental condition of Papavoine. It was not the same a few months later when all Paris was horrified by a similar crime. A young girl named Henriette Cornier, without motive, without con sciousness of her actions, cut off the head of a little girl whom she did not even know. Three physicians were appointed by the court to examine as to the mental condition of the girl Cornier. Papavoine's death saved this girl's life. She was sent to a hospital instead of to the scaffold, as she would have been but a few short months before.
SELDEN
WE print below a paper, signed by dis tinguished legal names, which can hardly fail to bring it home to lawyers, as a debt due to their profession, that they should join the Selden Society. Much which is very important to our legal scholars lies still in manuscript, and the only way in which it can be made accessible here is through such an organization as this. The first year of the Society was 1887. The volume for that year, and also that for 1888 (which will soon be published), can be had by subscribing for the year named. The yearly subscription (due for each year on January 1 of that year) is one guinea ($5.18), payable to the General Secretary, or to any of the Local Secretaries. We append also a list of the American Secre taries; but we are compelled to omit from this number the full circular of the Society, which can be obtained on application to any of the Secretaries. It should be added that an increase in the number of members will enable the Society to publish more than one volume a year for the same annual subscription. The material for several volumes is now ready.
SOCIETY.
The undersigned have assured themselves of the great importance of the work of The Selden Society, — an organization formed with a view, as one of its main purposes, to put into print certain legal records and manuscripts hitherto unpublished. The circular of the Society is appended to this paper. Such an organization cannot accomplish much unless its membership be large. It has seemed to us that our brethren of the legal profession might be widely induced to join The Selden Society, if their attention were directly called to the matter; for we are persuaded that in every way our law will gain much from the careful historical and scientific investigations which are now going forward in many quarters, and which this Society will materially assist and promote. Melville W. Fuller. Horace Gray. Oliver W. Holmes, Jr. Russell S. Taft J. I. Clark Hare. Theodore W. Dwight. C. C. Langdell. Wm. G. Hammond. Edmund H. Bennett Geo. Tucker Bispham. December, 188S.
Henry Wade Rogers. J. D. Cox. Henry Hitchcock. M. M. Bigelow. Wayne McVeagh. R. C. McMurtrie. Joseph H. Choate. Geo. W. Biddle. Wm. Henry Rawle.
