O'Connor, the lad who insulted the Queen, was sentenced on
Thursday to one year's imprisonment and twenty strokes with a birch rod,—by no means a severe penalty. He at first pleaded guilty, but his family tried to prove that he did not know what he was doing, and a jury was empanelled to try the question of his sanity. The evidence adduced was singularly weak, resolving itself, in fact, into the opinion of Dr. Take, who thought him insane because "his bead was irregularly shaped," and "he could not be made to see the position in which he was placed." Dr. Tuke even alleged that it was a sign of insanity to reason in a circle, an argument which would prove that nearly half mankind is mad. The jury, of course, found O'Connor sane, and will, we dare say, be pronounced by the medical journals insane for doing so, the idea being that anybody who says anybody else is sane when a doctor says he is insane, demonstrates his insanity by his vicious in- dependence.
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