gleman in question will doubtless hold us excused, if any mistake appears in his name.

Cranial Development of Perrie, as indicated by Mr. Sidney Smith.

"As my observations are taken merely from the bust procured after the execution, their accuracy, of course, depends upon the care with which it was moulded from the head."

Mr. Macgeorge's Report of Perrie's Conduct, &c.

"Perrie was a native of Glasgow, but had resided for some eight or twelve years in Paisley, prior to the commission of the offence for which he suffered. He was by trade a tobaccospinner, and was generally esteemed a quiet inoffensive man. He was twice married. His first wife was a respectable woman, but though she always conducted herself with propriety he was continually manifesting the utmost jealousy of her, keeping up a constant espionage upon her motions, and finding cause for suspicion where none such existed. In illustration of this, I was informed that many years ago, being at a merry-making where he was playing the violin to the company, his wife who accompanied him was asked to dance by one of the party. Though the whole company were engaged in this amusement, Perrie got immediately anxious and restless, and at length his absurd jealousy completely getting the master of him, he sprung from his seat, tore his wife from her partner,

and broke his bow over her head. Perrie's second wife was a woman of light character, who had borne several natural children to a man in Paisley. Perrie was aware of this fact before he married her, and exacted a promise that she would give up all intercourse with other parties. His attachment to her seems to have amounted to infatuation. They had not lived long together, till his tendency to jealousy manifested itself more strongly than ever; and though there was no reason to conclude that his wife was positively unfaithful to him, she had a lightness of manner which excited, instead of allaying his disease. Worried out by his unceasing charges of infidelity, she used to return taunt for taunt, and was in the habit of hinting that some cause existed for his suspicions. His companions also, seeing his failing, used to amuse themselves by hinting that all was not right at home, and by jokes and insinuations frequently wrought him up into a state of frenzy. On the day of the commission of the murder, some such scene as the above took place, and he left the workshop at an earlier hour than usual under the pretence of indisposition. Having dined at the usual hour he dismissed his two children (which he had had by the first marriage) on the pretence of sending them to play, and having then bolted the door, he began in unmeasured terms to tax his wife with infidelity. She, as usual, recriminated, and after the scene had lasted for some time he got up in a fit of ungovernable passion and stabbed her several times with a small file, with which he used to polish the heads of violins: she died almost immediately. The deed had scarcely been perpetrated, when his remorse became dreadful. He tore his hair, beat his head against the wall, and kneeling beside the murdered body of his wife, he wrung her hands in an agony of grief. "Oh! my dear, dear Mary!" he exclaimed, "I loved her. I could not live without her. Oh that I had never loved her with the love I loved her!" and though his mind subsequently got calmer, he never could allude to the scene without a shuddering remorse. He had strong hopes of acquittal on the score of great provocation; and while he admitted his guilt to a certain extent, always spoke of his fate being a hard one. He conducted himself both in the cell and on the scaffold with a decent fortitude, and paid a marked and intelligent attention to the instructions of his religious advisers. His love to his children was very great. The thought of leaving them unprotected, with the stigma of their father's guilt upon them, seemed to agitate him more than his own fate. His last interview with them, on the night preceding his execution, was heart-rending in the extreme. He wept like an infant, pressed them to his breast, through the intervening bars

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of the cell, and had to be eventually separated from them by force. Even after sentence was pronounced, he manifested the habitual tendency of his mind, expressing his suspicion of every body, even of the clergyman, the Rev. Mr. M'Naughton, to whom he was much attached; and expressed his belief that every one was in a conspiracy against him, to get him hanged. Before his trial it was with great difficulty his counsel could gain his confidence, so as to obtain the necessary materials for his defence; as he conceived that that gentleman was employed by the relatives of his murdered wife, to procure his conviction. He had some taste for music, and was a tolerable performer on the violin. He had also, as before hinted, some degree of mechanical talent, and was employed occasionally in the manufacture of musical instruments. He was a good deal under the influence of religious impressions, though frequently yielding to intoxication and sensual gratifications; particularly after the death of his first wife. He had an intimate acquaintance with the Scriptures, was for some time in the habit of receiving the communion, and took pains to instruct his children in their religious duties."

In several respects, the case of Perrie forms a strong contrast to that of Greenacre; although their victims were related to them in ties of the same nature. The cranial development of Perrie, however, is much superior to that of Greenacre; indeed, according to Mr. Smith's report, the head of Perrie was fully as well formed as are the heads of many men who pass through life with characters for respectability. Accordingly, the murder was not committed either from love of cruelty and bloodshed, or from the cold calculations of gain, but was almost a complete example of murder prompted by the mingled feelings of jealousy and revenge, such as we pity, and almost admire, in Othello on the stage. The predominating organs of Self-Esteem and Love of Approbation would render Perrie exceedingly sensitive to disgrace and ridicule, whilst those of Combativeness and Destructiveness would induce the feelings of anger and vengeance. Suspicion was probably the dictates of Secretiveness and Self-Esteem combined. The influence of the preponderating Amativeness is visible through the whole report. One difficulty strikes us; namely, that Perrie is described as a quiet, inoffensive man.

This seems

scarcely in accordance with the large development of the organs just mentioned, and is also in contradiction to the statement of his being "frequently wrought up into a state of frenzy," to the story of his beating his first wife for dancing, and to his quarrels with the second wife.

We have not seen any cast of Perrie, and of course present

to our readers the account of development just as published by Mr. Smith. But in doing this, we wish to warn young phrenologists against expecting to find such reports of development in exact accordance with the manifestations. Leaving out of view the powerful influences of external circumstances, another source of discrepancy occurs in the fact, that such a minute specification of proportions indicates only the external form of the head, and is not a precise indication of the development of brain. It looks very exact and mathematical, as expressed in figures on paper, but in the actions of individuals the differences of 15 and 16, or 17 and 18, &c. &c. are either unappreciable, or if appreciable, they are not always in accordance with such slight differences in the configuration of their heads. If phrenologists bear in mind, that the figures apply only to the external form of the head, and do not always imply the same comparative degrees of manifestation of the mental faculties, there can be no objection to stating the cranial development in this arithmetical manner, and with this minuteness; but it has a tendency to mislead. This tendency to mislead others, by such arithmetical statements, becomes still greater, when Mr. Smith speaks of the average development of the propensities, intellectual faculties, &c. as the proportions of the head, which is an arithmetical paradox. Thus Mr. Smith

The arithmetical presumption from this statement would be, that the two organs of Comparison and Causality constituted between a sixth and a seventh part of the whole head. Doubtless Mr. Smith had no intention that they should be so understood, but to us his words and figures appear to convey this import. The numerical scale, in its present form, is useful as a mode of expressing different degrees in the development of the same organ, but we err in using the figures for direct comparisons between the developments of different

organs.

Appended to the report of Perrie in the Argus, is a paragraph relating to some other criminal; in reference to whose case Mr. Smith enters into arguments against game-laws, contending for the right of any persons to run over the lands of others for the gratification of their organs of Combativeness

and Destructiveness by hunting. As Mr. Smith grounds his reasons upon Phrenology, we deem it proper to express our dissent from his doctrine on this point, in the most decided terms. It is unavoidable in civilized communities, that the right of property in the soil should be vested in some person or persons, and that the possessor, or his tenant, should have the absolute right of taking the produce and excluding trespassers. The right of possession being once established, any individual who enters and takes the produce, whether the herbage or the animals, against the consent of the owner, is equally as much a thief as is one who picks his neighbour's pocket of money, or robs his garden or poultry-yard. We do not deny that the game-laws have been very injudicious and injurious, or that they are now free from all objections. We simply deny the moral soundness of the proposition, that A. has a right to take the game which is bred and fed upon the land of B. Mr. Smith writes,—" No man of common sense can look upon poaching as a crime and the law which makes it so, against the convictions of the people, is doubly infamous," &c.

III. Change in the scientific Tastes and Pursuits of the late DR. TURNER.

IN Dr. Christison's able Memoir of the late Dr. Turner, Professor of Chemistry in the London University (published in the last October No. of the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal), circumstances are mentioned respecting a change of taste or study in that distinguished chemist, which well merit the especial attention of phrenologists. But whilst we must confess ourselves unable to give a sufficient explanation of the causes of change, the fact will not seem altogether so remarkable in the eyes of phrenologists, as it appears to be in those of his biographer. It strikes us as being such a change as implies only a new direction given to mental powers fundamentally the same, and not really a change in the powers themselves, either in kind or (greatly) in degree of manifestation. As a preliminary to the introduction of Dr. Christison's comments upon this change in Dr. Turner's pursuits, we shall briefly allude to some circumstances in his earlier life mentioned by his biographer, and which have also their own interest to those who study the influence of circumstances on the manifestations of mind.

Dr. Turner was born in Jamaica in July, 1796. His father