Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1875 — A Pathological Liar. [ARTICLE]

A Pathological Liar.

The disease known among alienist physicians as aphasia, and the symptom of which is the patient’s inability to express his meaning by a proper use of words, so that should ha wish gruel he will call for snuff or his hoots, has recently caused some curious developments in the case of the Corqttier, about whose moral and social accountability there has been much discussion. She is utterly unable to tell the truth on any subject—at least she has not for years been known to tell it—and in her defense on the charge of perjury her advocate, M. Henri Bernouilli, has pleaded her cause on grounds very similar to those so often urged in America in behalf of criminals—temporary insanity, moral insanity and the like—first used, I believe, by the late Mr. Seward in his defense of the negro Freeman. In a trial that grew out of a case of inheritance Mme. Corottier swore so wildly that at its close she was immediately held for perjury, and her counsel proved by physicians that, beyond all manner of doubt, there was such a nervous disorder as aphasia, and that those afflicted with it are not always and in every instance subject to its influence. They can at times call things by their right names; the disease is an obscure one, nor is it possible to detect its presence by other external signs than this misnaming of facts and objects. This being proved, M. Bernouilli next called numbers of witnesses who had known the prisoner foryears, and whose testimony was to the effect that it always seemed impossible for her to tell the truth. In questioning the prisoner during the proces-wrbal she had been detected in numerous misstatements; she called one physician a cow; said that a slop-bowl examined her, and addressed M. Bernouilli under the title of “ hairbrush.” M. Bernouilli is one of the most eloquent and subtle of Parisian advocates, and, on the grounds shown above, actually succeeded in acquitting his client of the crime with which she was charged. To many her caae will seem to be simply that of an enormous liar; but, as her swearing was gratuitous, and she was in no way benefited or could have been benefited by it, her position was peculiar. But how many gratuitous liars are there in the world, and if aphasia can be used as a plea for them what is to become of morals and of criminal justice?—Ccxr. W. K Grap/zjc.