We think that the court below erred in refusing to set apart the combined harvester as exempt; and therefore, the order appealed from is reversed.

Temple, J., and Henshaw, J., concurred.

EXEMPTION STATUTES-CONSTRUCTION OF-FARMING IMPLEMENTS.-Exemption statutes should be liberally construed in favor of debtors: Collier v. Murphy, 90 Tenn. 300; 25 Am. St. Rep. 698; Pickrell v. Jerauld, 1 Ind. App. 10; 50 Am. St. Rep. 192, and note. Under a statute exempting "all household and kitchen furniture," but fixing no limit upon the value of the exemption allowed, a piano kept and used for the purpose of instructing the children of the family may be held as exempt: Alsup v. Jordan, 69 Tex. 300; 5 Am. St. Rep. 53.

In the exemption of tools or implements of a debtor's occupation, the distinction between simple instruments and machines of a complicated nature has often been noted in excluding the latter from the benefits of the exemption laws: Extended note to Kilburn v. Demming, 21 Am. Dec. 553. Thus a threshing machine requiring eight or ten horses or men to work it is not exempt as a "necessary working tool" of a farmer: Extended note to Baker v. Willis, 25 Am. Rep. 66. In these latter cases the statute had limited the value of the exempted articles beyond which the machines in question did not go: Extended note to Kilburn v. Demming, 21 Am. Dec. 552.

PEOPLE V. HUBERT.

[ 119 CALIFORNIA, 216.]

INSANITY-INSTRUCTIONS TO THE JURY CONCERNING INSANE DELUSIONS.-It is not proper to instruct the jury that certain beliefs, which the defendant claims constituted a delusion, impelling him to commit a homicide, were, if entertained by him and unsound, existing only in the imagination, insane delusions as a matter of law. Matters of science are always to be proved; they are treated as matters of fact, and the court

should not instruct in regard to them.

INSANITY EVIDENCE IN REBUTTAL.-Though the only evidence offered on behalf of an accused was that he was insane as to certain matters, persons, and things, evidence in rebuttal. given by certain of his intimate acquaintances, that they knew nothing of his insanity is properly received, as, if he had such delusions, it is probable that they would have heard or known of them.

INSANE DELUSIONS AS AN EXCUSE FOR CRIME.-If an accused had certain delusions which completely possessed him, but was perfectly sane on other subjects, he must be judged as though the facts with respect to which the delusion existed were real, and, if being real, they would not have constituted any defense, the delusions cannot amount to such defense.

INSANITY-EVIDENCE, WHAT ADMISSIBLE.-A witness who had a business acquaintance and conversation with the accused may be permitted to testify that he was sane as a business

man.

Upon the question of admitting evidence of this character a very large discretion is usually allowed to the trial court.

INSANITY.-INSTRUCTIONS as to justification of homicide on account of an insane delusion are properly refused when there is no evidence tending to prove such delusion.

INSANE DELUSION AS A JUSTIFICATION OF CRIME.An insane irresistible impulse is not a defense to a criminal charge. Though the criminal act is the offspring of an irresistible impulse, and the impulse was irresistible because of mental disease, still defendant must be held responsible if he, at the time, had the requisite knowledge of the nature and quality of the act and its wrongfulness.

REASONABLE DOUBT.-To tell the jury that a reasonable doubt is a fair doubt is to give an explanation which does not explain; but such instruction is not prejudicial.

AN INSTRUCTION TO A JURY that, after weighing the evidence, they must decide according to their consciences is not prejudicial to the accused. It is only equivalent to telling them to weigh the evidence and decide conscientiously.

F. J. Solinsky and Reddy, Campbell & Metson, for the appellant.

W. F. Fitzgerald, attorney general, and C. N. Post, deputy attorney general, for the respondent.

218 TEMPLE, J. The defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree, and appeals from the judgment and from an order refusing a new trial. The defense was insanity of the defendant, caused by excessive indulgence in alcoholic drinks for a number of years, inducing chronic alcoholism, through which his brain became permanently diseased, causing delusions and rendering him incapable of knowing the wrongfulness of the act, for the commission of which he stood charged.

The evidence tended to show that he had been almost constantly drunk for some years, and during the last few months before the homicide had frequently declared that his wife was putting poison in his food, and that the poison caused sores. upon his body, and he was in the habit of showing the sores in proof. He also declared that a dog had been poisoned by eating some of the food. He said his wife was a natural born criminal, and that the shape of her head indicated it. He further charged his wife and her brother with stealing eggs and other articles of personal property from his place. He had even attempted to have some food prepared by his wife analyzed, and he made complaint before a magistrate against his wife and her brother, and procured a warrant for their arrest. During all this time he was on very bad terms with his wife and treated her brutally. He wished 219 to obtain a divorce, and tried to

induce her to accept five hundred dollars for her share in the community property. He said she had been guilty of adultery with a person whom he named, and often declared his intention to take her life. On one occasion, he said he would kill her if it took the shirt off his back to clear him.

It seems that he was afflicted with eczema, which caused the breaking out of sores upon his body which he attributed to poison. It was not claimed by anyone that there was any foundation for his cruel charges against his wife. On one side, it was claimed that they were the offspring of malice; on the other, that they constituted an insane delusion which took firm possession of his diseased intellect, and that the homicide was entirely caused by this partial insanity; for the defense also claimed, and counsel induced the court to charge the jury that such was their defense, and counsel here contend as part of the defense that in all other respects and upon all other subjects, except as to the subject matter of the delusions, he was perfectly sane.

The homicide was committed on the nineteenth day of April, 1895. The defendant had a wine cellar, and on that day had employed three of his neighbors to assist him in washing his casks and to rack off his wine. Whether defendant drank any liquor on that day is not shown, expressly or at all, unless from testimony showing that he was nearly always drunk, and that whenever he met acquaintances where there was liquor he insisted upon their drinking with him, we are at liberty to infer that he did not work all the morning in the wine cellar with three acquaintances without drinking. His wife prepared dinner for him and his three assistants, laying out the table in the kitchen. She placed upon the table four plates of soup, and goodnaturedly boasted to the neighbors of its quality. All sat down and commenced eating except the deceased who continued to busy herself about the stove. The defendant tasted his soup three times deliberately, and then without a word got up and went into an adjoining room, from which he immediately returned with a pistol with which he shot his wife through the head. She became at once unconscious and died a few hours later. He said she had put poison in his soup and asked one of the company to taste it. He wanted it preserved for examination. He then ordered 220 them all out of the house, and said he would go for the doctor. When one of them objected to leaving the wife there, he said: "You can't do anything for

her. I have brained her." While they were getting up his horse he walked about distractedly, repeating to himself: "O Lord! What have I done," or some equivalent expression.

He then went to John K. Petty, justice of the peace, and told him he had killed his wife and expected that they would hang him for it. A few days before he had told the same judicial officer that he would have to kill her, and, when told that he would get into trouble, said he didn't care a damn.

He then went to the constable and gave himself up, saying that he had shot his wife, but didn't know if she was dead. He said he took his pistol intending to make her eat some of the soup, and it went off and killed her. Soon after, however, he said he was not sorry, but was glad, and would do the same thing again.

At the trial, at the request of the defendant, the court told the jury that the defense was partial insanity, otherwise called monomania; and that defendant "was laboring under insane delusions which so permeated his reason as to incapacitate him from knowing the difference between right and wrong, as to the acts charged in the information, and his relations with the deceased, and her actions, motives, and intentions toward him, and that he acted in pursuance of such delusions."

The court also, improperly, but at the request of defendant, declared as law certain medical opinions upon the pathology of mental disease. Among them this: "The law recognizes partial as well as total insanity-that a person may be insane upon one or more subjects, and sane as to all others." And again: "A man's mental faculties may be in full vigor, but upon some one subject he seems to be deranged," etc. An instruction was also given enumerating and setting out the special belief which the defense claimed constituted the delusion which impelled the defendant to commit the homicide, and the jury were told that if the defendant entertained such beliefs, and they were unsound, existing only in his imagination, then they were insane delusions, as matter of law. Of course, there is no such rule of law. Matters of science are always to be proven, and are treated as matters 221 of fact, and the court should not instruct in regard to them. The fact that these matters are discussed in legal treatises or judicial opinions does not convert them into propositions of law. In some jurisdictions there is not the same objection to such instructions as here.

The reason for emphasizing the position that counsel for the

defendant only claimed that the defendant was insane as to certain matters, persons, and things, and that he was sane in all other respects, seems to be to furnish a position of advantage from which to attack certain rulings admitting in rebuttal the testimony of acquaintances of the defendant as to his insanity. The objection was, that the evidence did not rebut anything, because defendant did not attempt to prove general insanity, and the witnesses did not pretend to know anything of the alleged delusions. Of course, if no such partial insanity existed, intimate acquaintances could know nothing of it, and the fact that they did not was some proof that defendant had no such delusions. Besides, as a matter of fact, the defense did attempt to prove general insanity, and some of their witnesses testified as to the existence of such insanity.

And, if we admit that partial insanity was shown, this opened the door to the prosecution to show, if it could, that he was in other respects sane. If insanity were shown, the extent of it became at once material, and wherever the burden of showing its limits may have been, it was proper for the prosecution to introduce evidence upon the subject. If the defendant had certain special delusions which completely possessed him, but was perfectly sane on all other subjects, as counsel claim was their position at the trial, then he must be judged as though the facts with respect to which the delusions existed were real: McNaughten's case, 10 Clark & F. 200. I do not find in the record any offer to admit that in other respects the defendant was perfectly sane, and it is at least doubtful if the defense could make such an admission. In this case, such an admission would have been fatal, for there is nothing in the alleged delusions which would constitute a defense.

I think the court ruled correctly in admitting the testimony of C. Burger, but, were it doubtful, we would not, under any ordinary 222 circumstances, reverse a case upon such a point. Upon that subject a very large discretion is necessarily allowed the trial court.

The fourth and fifth instructions were properly refused. There is no evidence tending to establish a delusion as to facts which, if the facts had been as he believed they were, would constitute such jeopardy as would justify the homicide. And, if there had been such evidence, the instruction asked was incorrect. The fifth instruction asked contained propositions in regard to medical science which no court in this state should give.