Advantages of Drinking.
By Editor
SOME weeks since we noted a horrible crime committed by a man while drunk, and remarked that in a legal point of view no crime was committed, as the man was too drunk to be responsible for the action, and the man who made him drunk had a Government license to do that kind of business. Somebody in Oakland, who had not manliness enough to sign his name to his letter, ridiculed our position, assumed wondrous knowledge of the law, and intimated that the most desirable qualification for an editor was ignorance of the subject under discussion. We exposed the folly of his assumptions at the time, and in corroboration of our position copy the following from the Chronicle's report of a case in Oakland:— "It being urged that the circumstance had somewhat unsettled his brain and that he was drunk when he took the purse, the Court discharged him, holding that the money was not taken with criminal intent." Can a man in a drunken frenzy be said to have any intention at all? Has he any power of self-control left to him? If not, can he legally be convicted of criminal intention? It is well-known to every one conversant with Court matters that this plea is often urged, and often to good effect before both judges and juries. Perhaps a desirable quality in some half-fledged lawyers is to be ignorant of current events.