Attorney-General
Is it not then preposterous to contend that this was not acase of tetanus? And if every one of the distinctions they have attempted to set up I show you to have really nothing to do with the case (because I produce you at once an undoubted case in which the administration of strychnia is beyond the reach of question, in which those particular symptoms and appearances were manifested and observed) I get rid at once of all those vain, futile attempts to distinguish this case, either in its premonitory symptoms or in the appearances either before or upon post-mortem examination. I get rid of all those difficulties, and I come back to the symptoms which attended this unhappy man’s demise. I ask whether you can doubt that, when I have excluded all those cases of tetanic convulsions, epilepsy, and arachnitis, or angina pectoris, which occurred, you recollect, in a young girl after an attack of scarlet fever—in all human probability the scarlet fever had been thrown back upon the system, and had produced all those consequences—when I exclude all those cases, and then, lastly, exclude traumatic or idiopathic tetanus, what remains? The tetanus of strychnia, and the tetanus of strychnia only. I pray your attention to the cases of which evidence has been given, in which there was no question as to strychnia having been administered, there not being the shadow of a doubt about it, and in which the circumstances were so similar, and the symptoms so analogous, that I think you cannot hesitate to come to the conclusion that this was death by strychnia. Medical witnesses of the highest authority, both on the part of the Crown and on the part of the defence, agree that in the whole range of their experience and knowledge they know of no natural disease to which these remarkable symptoms can be referred. If that be so, and there is a known poison that will produce them, how strong, how cogent, how irresistible becomes the inference that to that poison, and to that poison alone, are those symptoms and this death to be ascribed!
Attorney-General
Nevertheless, gentlemen, on the other hand, the case is not without its difficulties; and I will not shrink from the discussion of them, nor from the candid recognition of these difficulties, so far as they in reality exist. Strychnia was not found in this body; and we have it, no doubt upon strong evidence, that in a variety of experiments which have been tried upon the bodies of animals killed by strychnia, strychnia has been detected by the tests which science places at the disposition of scientific men. If strychnia had been found, of course there would have been no difficulty, and we should have had none of the ingenious theories which gentlemen from a variety of parts have been brought forward to propound in this Court. The question for your consideration is, whether the absence of its detection leads conclusively to the view that this death could not have been caused by the administration of that poison.Now, in the first place, under what circumstances was the examination made of which Dr. Taylor and Dr. Rees have spoken? They tell you that when the stomach of this man was brought to them for the purpose of analysis, it was presented to them under the most unfavourable circumstances. They say that its contents had been lost, and that they had no opportunity of experimenting upon them. It is very true that those who put up the jar make a statement somewhat different. They say that the contents of the stomach were emptied into the jar, but there appears (at all events I will not put it higher than accident), by accident, to have been some spilling of the contents; and there is, I think, the clearest and most undeniable evidence of very considerable bungling in the way in which the stomach was cut, and the way in which it was emptied into the jar. It was cut from end to end, says Dr. Taylor. It was tied up at both ends; it had been turned inside out into the contents of the intestines, and lay there in a mass of fœculent matter, and was therefore in a condition the most unsatisfactory for analysis and experiment. It is very true that the witnesses upon the other side—Mr. Nunneley, Mr. Herapath, and Dr. Letheby—say that, no matter how contaminated or how mixed with impurities, they would have been able to ascertain the presence of strychnia in the stomach, if strychnia ever had been there. I own I should have more confidence in the testimony of those witnesses if their partiality and partisanship had not been so much marked as they are. I should have more confidence in the testimony of Mr. Herapath if he had not been constrained to admit to me a fact which had come to my knowledge, that he has again and again asserted that this case was a case of poisoning by strychnia, but that Dr. Taylor had not known how to find it out—he admits that that is a statement he has again and again made.
Mr.Serjeant Shee—It was in the newspapers, he said.
Attorney-General
Mr.Attorney-General—He did not venture to say that the newspaper statement in any way differed from the fact which he admitted in this Court. I have seen that gentleman not merely contenting himself with coming forward, when called upon for the purposes of justice, to state that which he knew as a matter of science or of experiment, but I have seen him mixing himself up as a thoroughgoing partisan in this case, advising my learned friend, suggesting question upon question, and that in behalf of a man whom he has again and again asserted he believed to be a poisoner by strychnia. I do not say that alters the fact; but I do say that it induces one to look at the credit of those witnesses with a very great amount of suspicion. I reverence a man who, from a sense of justice and a love of truth—from those high considerations which formthe noblest elements in the character of man—comes forward in favour of a man against whom the world may run in a torrent of prejudice and aversion, and who stands and states what he believes to be the truth; but I abhor the traffic in testimony to which I regret to say men of science sometimes permit themselves to condescend. I ask you therefore to look at the statements of those witnesses with dispassionate consideration before you attach implicit credit to them. But let me assume that all they say is true, that it is the fact that they in their experiments have succeeded in discovering strychnia when mixed with other impurities, and contaminated, no matter by what cause—they say that no extent of putrefaction, no amount of decomposition, will alter the character of that vegetable matter, so that it may not be detected if it is in the human stomach. Be it so. But then must it always be found in every case where death has ensued? Professor Taylor says no; and he says it would be a most dangerous and mischievous proposition to assert that that must necessarily be so—that it would enable many a guilty man to escape who, by administering the smallest quantity whereby life can be affected and destroyed, might by that means prevent the possibility of the detection of the poison in the stomach of the individual. All the witnesses seem to agree in this, or, at all events, the great bulk of them agree in this, that the poison acts after it has been absorbed into the system; taken up by the absorbents of the stomach, it is carried into the blood; passing by means of the circulation through the tissues, it is deposited there; at some stage or other of its progress it affects the nervous system; and as soon as the nerves affecting the muscles of motion become influenced by its baneful power, then come on those muscular spasms and convulsions of which we have heard so much. If the minimum dose be given, and that operates by absorption, it is perfectly clear—and must be clear—that the whole must be taken up by absorbents and pass into the blood, and that none therefore will be found in the stomach. Nay, a further proposition is also clear. If it is necessary that it should be first passed by means of the circulation into the solid tissues of the body, before it acts upon the nervous system, it will cease to be found in the blood. Again, a portion of it, if in excess, will be eliminated in the kidneys, and pass off in watery excretion. You do not know, therefore, in what part of the human body to put your hand upon it. But this is undoubtedly the fact, if there has been an excess over the quantity necessary to destroy the life of a particular individual, then, as soon as the absorbents have taken up the necessary quantity, the nervous system will at once be affected and life destroyed; you will find the excess in the stomach, if you adopt the proper means of seeking for it. Now, whatdid these gentlemen do? They gave never less than a grain—often as much as two grains; and yet we now know that a quarter of a grain is enough to destroy a small animal like a rabbit, and that no man could venture to hope for life who took half a grain or three-quarters of a grain of it. Therefore in the cases of their experiments, and experiments made, allow me to say, for the purpose of this case, after those parties had been retained—I use the word “retained,” for it is the appropriate word; no parties can be more thoroughgoing partisans than scientific men who have once taken up a case—after they have been retained for this case, and desire that their experiments should have a certain result, they take good care to have doses large enough to leave a small portion in the stomach. But be this as it may, I have only now to deal with the experiments of Professor Taylor and Dr. Rees; they may, for aught I know, be a pair of bunglers; it is no part of my business to uphold them if their professional reputation will not do it; but they tell us that they tried its effects upon four animals of the same species with fully adequate doses. Where they administered two grains they reproduced the poison in abundance; where they administered one grain they found a small indication of it; and when they administered half a grain to two rabbits they found no traces of the poison at all. It may well be that that may result, as Mr. Herapath says, from Professor Taylor not knowing the right way of going about it. It may be, if Mr. Herapath had had the stomach under his more scientific manipulation, he would have produced the strychnia. It is enough for my purpose when, as I show, the man who did in this case experiment upon the stomach of Mr. Cook, in two cases out of four when he had given a smaller dose to rabbits failed to reproduce the poison. What is the conclusion I draw from it? Why, that although I cannot have the advantage here which the positive detection of the strychnia would have afforded if it had been found, there is no room for the opposite conclusion—the converse of the proposition for which my learned friend and his witnesses contend—that the fact of the strychnia not having been reproduced or discovered affords negative conclusive proof that the death was not produced by strychnia. I have no positive proof on the one hand, but on the other hand my learned friend is in the same predicament—he cannot say that he has negative proof conclusive of the fact of this death not having taken place by strychnia.
Attorney-General
But now is there no other evidence in the case? Do I ask you to come to the conclusion that he administered strychnia to his friend, simply because the symptoms of that friend’s death are reconcilable with no known form of disease which the most enlarged experience or knowledge can supply? No,gentlemen, it does not rest there. Not because those symptoms are precisely those which show themselves in cases of poisoning by strychnia. No, the case does not rest there; I wish it did. But, alas! it does not. I must now draw your serious attention to a part of the case which has not been met, and has not been grappled with. My learned friend said that he would contest the ground with the prosecution foot by foot. Alas! we are upon that ground upon which, as it were, is centred the crisis of this momentous question; and, alas! my learned friend has not grappled with it for an instant. We have here a death of which the dread manifestations bore upon their face the character of strychnia poisoning. Was the prisoner at the bar possessed of that poison? Did he obtain it upon the eve of the death into which we are inquiring? These are matters of fearful moment. They are matters with which it behoved my learned friend, indeed, to have grappled with all the vigour of which he was capable and with all the means that his case afforded. But I grieve to say that this part of the case is left untouched as regards the defence. Did the prisoner at the bar obtain possession of strychnia on the Monday late? Did he get it again upon the Tuesday morning? The fact of his having got it on the Monday night rests, it is true, upon the evidence of an individual whose statement, as I said to you at the outset, and as I repeat now, requires at your hands the most careful and anxious attention before you adopt it easily. Newton tells us that on that night when Mr. Palmer came back from London, he came to him and obtained from him three grains of the poison of which, supposing it had been administered, the symptoms and effect both in life and death would have been precisely the same as those which have been described in Cook’s case. Is Newton speaking the truth, or is he not? It is open to observation—I said so from the beginning, and my learned friend has done no more than reiterate the warning I gave you—it is, I say, open to serious observation, that Newton never made that statement until the day previous to the commencement of the trial. He has explained to you the reasons which induced his silence. His employer had been for a long time upon unpleasant terms with Palmer. The young man, who knew him, however, and who appears to have been more or less upon familiar terms with him, did not hesitate to give him the three grains of strychnia. Palmer was a medical man, and strychnia is often used by medical men. There was nothing extraordinary therefore at that time of night, when chemists’ shops might be expected to be shut up, that, upon Mr. Palmer’s coming to him for three grains of strychnia, he gave them to him, and probably thought little more about it. But when afterwards the question of the mode by which this man’s life had been taken away became rifein Rugeley, and suspicions arose of strychnia, and Roberts came forward and said that upon the Tuesday morning Mr. Palmer had bought strychnia off him, and this young man was called to confirm the circumstance of Mr. Palmer having been at the shop, he heard that this question of strychnia was involved, and it began to occur to him that it might seriously implicate him with his employer, might cast even the shadow of doubt and suspicion upon himself, if he came forward and voluntarily stated that he had supplied Palmer with the poison the night before. Then he locked this secret in his breast. But when the eve of the trial came, and he knew that he was to be subjected to examination here, he felt a sort of oppression at having this secret locked up in his breast, and he voluntarily came forward and made the statement which he has repeated here. It is for you to say whether you are satisfied with that explanation. It is unquestionably true that it detracts from the otherwise perfect credibility which would attach to his statement. But then, gentlemen, on the other hand, there is a consideration which I cannot fail to press upon you. What possible conceivable motive can this young man have, except a sense of truth, for coming forward to make this statement? My learned friend, with justice and with propriety, has asked for your most attentive consideration to the question of motives involved in this case. Before you can charge a man with having taken away the life of another by aforethought and deliberate malice, it does become important to see whether there were motives that could operate upon him to do so foul a deed. That does not apply to this witness, for, even though the hideous crime of taking life by poison is not perhaps so horrible to contemplate as the notion of judicial murder effected by false witness against a man’s neighbour, can you suppose that this young man can have the remotest shadow of a motive for coming forward upon this occasion, under the solemn sanction of an oath, in a Court of justice like this, to take away the life—for, alas! if you believe his evidence, it must take away the life—of the prisoner at the bar? If you believe that on the night of Monday, for no other conceivable or assignable purpose except the deed of darkness which was to be done that night upon the person of Mr. Cook, the prisoner at the bar went to Newton and obtained from him the fatal and deadly instrument whereby life was to be destroyed, it is impossible that you can come to any other conclusion than that the prisoner is guilty, and that your verdict must pronounce him so.
What says my learned friend? He says that Newton does not speak the truth—first, because he did not come forward till the last minute; and, secondly, because he lays the time of his communication with the prisoner, and affording him the strychnia, at nine o’clock, and the prisoner was not in Rugeley until ten.
Attorney-General
Now, in the first place, I must remark upon this that the young man does not say nine o’clock. He says, “about nine,” and every one knows how easy it is to make a mistake as to time with reference to half an hour or three-quarters of an hour, or even an hour, when your attention is not till perhaps a week or a fortnight or three weeks afterwards called to a particular circumstance. A man may be sitting working in his study or his surgery, and have no clock before him, and have nothing particular to impress upon his mind the precise hour of time at which a certain transaction took place; and to say afterwards, when he comes to speak to it under the sanction of an oath, that because he makes some slight difference as to the time therefore he must be taken to be speaking untruly, appears to my mind a most untenable and unsatisfactory argument. It is due to my learned friend to say that he has sought to meet this part of the case. He has produced to-day a witness of whom all I can say is this, that I implore you, for the sake of justice, not to allow the man who stands at the bar to be prejudiced by the evidence of that most discreditable and unworthy witness who has been called to-day on his behalf. I say that not to one word which that man has uttered will you attach the slightest value. Before I come to him, however, I must make this remark—that, if Newton could not be mistaken as to the time, how is it possible that the prisoner could be mistaken as to the time? Yet he clearly was. He told Dr. Bamford (and we have it from Dr. Bamford himself) the next morning that he visited Cook between nine and ten o’clock the night before. And now there comes a witness who tells us that it was a quarter past ten that he had with him alighted from the car that brought them from Stafford, and he could not till after that have gone to visit Cook. My learned friend reminds me that it was ten minutes past ten. Then he had to go to Cook. One of the maid-servants, Lavinia Barnes, like every other witness, may be mistaken; but she asserts that on that night, the Monday evening, Mr. Palmer came to the hotel, and went to see Mr. Cook before nine o’clock. It is clear that she must have been mistaken. It is clear that he could not have been there much before ten. I am told that they get over in about an hour. There was a carriage waiting for him, and he would come over to Rugeley with as much rapidity as he could, which would not be before ten o’clock. As to the fact of the witness pretending that he saw him alight from the car, and that he went to Cook and stayed a certain time so as to cover the whole evening, I ask you not to believe a single word, and I do so because in my heart I do not believe a single word of it.
Attorney-General
It is a remarkable fact, which has not escaped your attention, I dare say, that my learned friend did not open a single wordof the testimony that he was going to call. He said he hoped and thought he should be able to cover that whole period at Rugeley. Did he tell us what the witness was going to prove, that Jeremiah Smith had been upstairs in the inn, and seen by some of the people at the inn going upstairs to Cook’s room? No, he did not. If he had we should have had plenty of time between that and this to ascertain how the fact stood, and I believe have been ready to meet Mr. Jeremiah Smith with contradictory evidence. It was well to follow that course when you were uncertain what your witness would say, or what your case might be, because you might be met and confronted by contradictory evidence. I need not say that any evidence would have been better than the evidence of that miserable man whom we saw exhibited to-day. Such a spectacle I never saw in my recollection in a Court of justice. He calls himself a member of the legal profession. I blush for it to number such a man upon its roll. There was not one that heard him to-day that was not satisfied that that man came here to tell a false tale. There cannot be a man who is not convinced that he has been mixed up in many a villainy which, if not perpetrated, had been attempted to be perpetrated in that quarter, and he comes now to save, if he can, the life of his companion and his friend—the son of the woman with whom he has had that intimacy which he sought to-day in vain to disguise. I say, when you look at the whole of those circumstances, balance the evidence on both sides, and look at the question of whether Newton can by any possibility have any motive for coming here to give evidence which must be fatal to a man who, if that evidence be not true, he must believe to be an innocent man—when you see that he can have no motive for such a purpose—to suppose that he would do so without a motive is to suppose human nature in its worst and most repulsive form to be one hundred times more wicked and perverse than experience ever yet has found it—I cannot but submit to you that you ought to believe that evidence, and I cannot but submit to you deferentially, but at the same time firmly and emphatically, that if you do believe that evidence it is conclusive of the case.
Attorney-General
But it does not stop there. On the morrow of that day we have the clearest and most unquestioned evidence that Mr. Palmer bought more strychnia. He went to Mr. Hawkins’ shop, and there purchased six grains more, and the circumstances attending that purchase are peculiar in the extreme. He comes to the shop, and he gives an order for prussic acid, and, having got his prussic acid, he gives an order for strychnia. Before the strychnia is put up, Newton, the same man, comes into the shop. What does the prisoner do? He immediately takes Newton by the arm, and says he has something particular to say to him, and takes him to the door.What was it he had to say to him? Was it anything particular? Was it anything of the slightest importance? Was it anything that might not have been said in the presence of Roberts, who was putting up the strychnia? Certainly not. It was to ask a most unimportant question, namely, when young Mr. Salt was going to the farm which he had taken at Sudbury. In that question there could be nothing which might not be put in the presence of anybody, no matter who. He takes him to the door, and then puts this question. At the same time a man of the name of Brassington, a cooper, comes up, and Brassington had something to say to Newton upon business, having some bills against Newton’s employer, Mr. Salt. Upon that Brassington and Newton get into conversation at some little distance from the door. The prisoner immediately takes advantage of those two being in conversation, and he goes back and completes the purchase of the strychnia. But while the strychnia was being made up he stands in the doorway with his back to the shop, and his face to the street, where he would have a perfect command of the persons of Newton and Brassington, and where, if Newton had quitted Brassington to return into the shop, the prisoner would at once have been in a position to take every possible step for not letting Newton go in, by renewing the conversation with him until the strychnia had been taken away. I ask you, having this description of the transaction given to you by Roberts, in the first place, confirmed by Newton afterwards, can you entertain any reasonable doubt that the prisoner was desirous of not letting Newton know that he was purchasing strychnia there? You can very well understand that he would be desirous of keeping that fact from Newton, because, if it be true that Newton had let him have three grains the night before, Newton’s attention would be naturally immediately aroused by so strange a circumstance, because nine grains of strychnia were enough—three grains were enough—to kill three, perhaps six people. What could a man want with nine grains of strychnia in so short a space of time? It would attract Newton’s attention, and it did; for Newton immediately went and asked what he wanted there, his attention being, in the first place, directed, not so much to what he had come to purchase as to the singularity of his coming there at all, because for two years past the prisoner never bought an article of any sort or kind at the shop of Mr. Hawkins. His former assistant, Mr. Thirlby, had two years before set up in business as a chemist, and from that time, naturally enough, Mr. Palmer had withdrawn his custom from Mr. Hawkins, and had given it to his former assistant, Mr. Thirlby. It was a remarkable thing that he should go to Mr. Hawkins’ shop upon this occasion to get strychnia. Why did he not go to Mr. Thirlby? I will tellyou. Mr. Thirlby would have known perfectly well that he could have no legitimate use for such an article. Mr. Thirlby had taken his practice. Mr. Palmer was no longer in practice, except in the circle of his relatives and his own immediate friends; and if he had gone to Mr. Thirlby for strychnia, Mr. Thirlby would have said, naturally enough, “What are you going to do with it?” and therefore he did not go to Mr. Thirlby. Why he should have gone to purchase strychnia (I agree with my learned friend it is one of the mysteries of this case) on two successive days I cannot tell; but that he did is undeniably true; and if on the one hand some little difficulty arises, on the other hand is not the difficulty infinitely greater in accounting for the motive that induced him to go and get this strychnia either on the Monday night or upon the Tuesday? If it was for the purpose of professional use for the benefit of some patient for whom small doses of strychnia might have been advantageous, where is the patient, and why is he not produced? My learned friend did not even advert to the question of the second purchase of strychnia in the whole of his powerful observations. He passes it over in mysterious but significant silence. Account for that six grains of strychnia, the purchase of which is an undoubted and indisputable fact. Throw doubt if you please—I blame you not for it—upon the story of the purchase on the previous night; but on the Tuesday it is unquestionably true that six grains of strychnia were purchased. Purchased for whom? purchased for what? If for any patient, who is that patient? Produce him. If for any other purpose, at least let us have it explained. Has there been the slightest shadow of an attempt at explanation? Alas! I grieve to say, none at all. Something was said, in the outset of this case, about some dogs that had been troublesome in the paddocks where the mares and foals were, but that proved to have been in September. If there had been any recurrence of such a thing, where are the grooms who had the care and charge of those mares and foals, and why are they not here to state the fact? If this poison was used for the purpose of destroying dogs, some one must have assisted Mr. Palmer in the attempts which he resorted to for that purpose. Where are those persons? Why are they not called? But, not only are they not called, they are not even named. My learned friend does not venture to breathe even a suggestion of anything of the kind. I ask, gentlemen, what conclusion can we draw from these things, except one, and one alone? Death, with all the symptoms of strychnia—death in all the convulsive agonies and throes which that fatal poison produces in the frame of man—death with all the appearances which follow upon death, and mark how that death has come to pass—all these things, in the mindsof those who can discuss and consider them with calm, dispassionate attention, who do not mix themselves up as advocates, partisans, or witnesses, leading to but one conclusion; and then the fact of the strychnia being purchased by the prisoner on the morning of the fatal day, if not obtained by him, as was sworn to, on the night before, is left wholly uncovered and wholly unmet, without the shadow of a defence. Alas! gentlemen, is it possible that we can come to any other than one painful and dread conclusion? I protest I can suggest to you none.
It is said by my learned friend, “Is it likely that Mr. Palmer should have purchased strychnia at Rugeley when he might have got it in London?” I admit the fact. I feel the force of the observation. If he could have shown that he had done anything with this strychnia—if he could have shown any legitimate purpose to which it was intended to be applied, and to which it was afterwards applied—then I should say that it would be an argument worthy of your gravest and most attentive consideration. But just see on the one hand how the fact may stand. He was in town on the Monday, and he had the opportunity, as my learned friend suggests, of purchasing strychnia there. But on the other hand he had much to do; he had his train to catch by a certain time; he had in the meanwhile his pecuniary embarrassments to solve if he could. Time may have flown too fast for him to be able to go and obtain this strychnia; and even if he had had time, I do not believe it is sold in chemists’ shops in London without the name of the party purchasing it as a voucher. If he had given his name, of course, it would have been still worse if he had bought strychnia in London than if he had bought it in Rugeley. I do not say that it is not worthy of your consideration, that it is not a difficulty in the case; but I say there is plain, distinct, positive proof of the purchase of strychnia, and under circumstances which cannot fail to lead to the conclusion that he shrank from the observation of Newton at the time he was buying it; and there is a total absence of all proof, nay, of all suggestion, of any legitimate purpose to which that fatal poison was to be, or was in point of fact, afterwards actually applied.
Attorney-General
Then, gentlemen, it is said that there are two other circumstances in the case which make strongly in favour of the prisoner, and negative the presumption of a guilty intention, and those are, the fact that he called in two medical men. Here, again, I admit that this is a matter to which all due consideration ought to be given. He called in Dr. Bamford on the Saturday, and he wrote to Mr. Jones on the Sunday, and desired his presence to attend his sick friend. It is perfectly true that he did. It is perfectly true, as medical men, theywould be likely to know the symptoms of poisoning by strychnia, and they would be likely to suspect that death had ensued from it; and yet even here it strikes me that there is a singular inconsistency in the defence. See the strange contradiction in which the witnesses called for the defence involve my learned friend who puts them forward, if all those symptoms were not the symptoms of strychnia. If they are referable to all the multiform variety of disease to which those witnesses have spoken, why, then, should Mr. Palmer have the credit of having selected medical men who would be likely to know from those symptoms that they were symptoms of strychnia? I pass that by; it is not a matter of very much importance. It is true that he did have those two medical men. He called in old Dr. Bamford. I speak of that gentleman in terms of perfect respect; but I think I do him no injustice if I say that the vigour of his intellect and his power of observation have been impaired, as all human powers are liable to be impaired, by the advancing hand of time. I do not think he was a person likely to make very shrewd observations upon any symptoms exhibited to him, either immediately after death or upon the subsequent examination of the body; and the best proof of that is to be found in that which he has actually done and written with reference to this case. As regards Mr. Jones the same observation does not apply. He was a young man in the full possession of his intellect and the professional knowledge which he had acquired. Nevertheless, about him the observations I am about to address to you I think are not unworthy of notice. The prisoner at the bar selected his men well, for what has come to pass shows how wisely he judged of what was likely to take place. This death occurred in the presence of Mr. Jones, with all those fearful symptoms which you have heard described; yet Mr. Jones suspected nothing; and if Mr. Stevens had not exhibited that sagacity and firmness which he did manifest in the after parts of this transaction, and if Mr. Palmer had succeeded in getting that body hastily introduced into the strong oak coffin that he had had made for it, the body would have been consigned to the grave, and nobody would have been aught the wiser. The presence of Mr. Jones, and the presence of Dr. Bamford, would not have led to detection, would not have frustrated the designs with which I shall presently contend before you this death was brought about.
Attorney-General
On the other hand, gentlemen, the matter is perhaps capable of this aspect, it may have been that a man whose cunning was equal to his boldness may have thought it the best course to adopt to avoid suspicion—to prevent its possibility—was to take care that medical men should be called in and should be present at the time of death; nor is there anything to showthat the prisoner had the most distant notion that Mr. Jones intended to sleep in this room that night; and if he had not the man would have been found dead in the morning; he would have gone through his mortal struggle and intense and fearful agony; he would have died there alone and unbefriended; he would have been found dead the next morning; the old man would have said it was apoplexy, and the young man would have put it down to epilepsy. If any one had whispered a suspicion, the same argument would have been used which has been used now with so much power and force by my learned friend. Can you imagine that the man would have called in medical men to be the witnesses of a death which he himself was bringing about? But, gentlemen, as I have already said, if you believe the evidence of Newton, and if you believe that that same night pills were administered to Cook by Palmer—and that, I believe, will be your opinion and conclusion, notwithstanding that wretched witness to-day said he heard Cook say to Palmer that he had taken the pills already, because he, Palmer, was late, whereas the woman witness, Mills, told you that the next morning Cook reminded her that his agony was such as she never could have witnessed in any human being, and he told her he ascribed it to the pills which Palmer had given him at half-past ten—if you believe that statement, and that the pills were given him by Palmer at half-past ten, and you find that Palmer a few short minutes, perhaps, before went to Newton, and got the poison from Newton, and you find upon that night the first paroxysms, though not so violent and not fatal, yet similar and analogous in character to those which preceded the death, can you doubt on the first night the poison was administered to him? though with what purpose I know not; I can only speculate—whether it was to bring about by some minute dose convulsions which should not have the complete character of tetanus, but would bear a resemblance to natural convulsions which should justify his saying afterwards that the man had had a fit, and so prepare those who should hear of it on the next night, when the death was to ensue, for the belief that it was merely a succession of the same description of fit that he had had before. That is one solution. The other may be that he attempted on that Monday night to carry out his fell purpose to its full extent, but that the poison proved inefficacious. We hear that an adulterated form, or, at all events, an inferior form, called bruchsia, is occasionally sold, and it may have been that it failed in its effect. It is only one-tenth of the strength. We know that he purchased poison on Tuesday, and that on that night Cook died with all the symptoms of poison; and why he purchased that poison is not in any way accounted for. The symptoms were the same on the Tuesday night in character, though greater in degree, thanthey were on the Monday; and there is found a witness who comes forward and says, with no earthly motive to tell so foul a falsehood, “I found the character of the convulsions the two succeeding nights the same.” I cannot resist the conclusion to which my reasoning impels me that poison was administered upon both nights, though it failed upon the first. I can only speculate as to what was the cause of failure. There are the facts, and you must deal with them.
Attorney-General
Alas! gentlemen, it does not stop there; there is another part of this case which, though it may not have been the means of death, is of the highest value in estimating the credit that is to be given to the point which we advance of this death having been produced by strychnia—I allude to the antimony. We have had medical men and analytical chemists who have told us a great deal about strychnia, but not one has said a word about antimony. On the Wednesday night, at Shrewsbury, when Cook drinks his glass of brandy and water he fancies there is something in it that burns his throat; he exclaims at the time, and he is seized immediately with vomiting, which lasts for several hours. On that same night Mrs. Brookes sees the prisoner shaking something in a glass, evidently dissolving something in fluid. A man has been called here to-day, the boon companion, the chosen associate, the racing confederate of the prisoner, to come and tell you that all that story is untrue—that the woman never came down stairs—that Palmer never carried out the brandy and water—that there is not a word of truth in it—and the fact is that Palmer and Cook only came in at twelve o’clock, when Myatt, forsooth, had been waiting for two hours. Mrs. Brookes’ story is, according to him, an entire invention from beginning to end; he swears that he must have seen if anything had been mixed with the brandy and water, and nothing was mixed with it. I think you will be more disposed to believe Mrs. Brookes than to believe any of those persons who were the associates of the prisoner, and who had been partners in his transactions. It is a remarkable fact that Cook drinks that brandy and water and a few minutes after is taken ill. There were other persons taken ill at Shrewsbury; it may be within the verge of possibility—although ten minutes after he had drunk the brandy and water he was taken with vomiting—that it was the same form of complaint to which other persons were subject in Shrewsbury; I do not want to press it one jot further than it ought to go, but it is a remarkable circumstance that the man is seen with a glass and with a fluid which he is mixing up and holding to the light, and shortly afterwards his friend who is drinking with him or drinking at the same table at which he is drinking, who, if Myatt be telling the truth, was somewhat in liquor, and ought not to have been pressed to take brandyand water—Palmer says that he will not take anything until Cook has exhausted his portion—and then immediately afterwards the man is taken ill. These are circumstances not altogether incapable of producing certain impressions upon one which it is difficult to shake off.
Attorney-General
Nevertheless, I pass on from that, and go to Rugeley. From the Saturday morning until the Monday morning I find this poor man suffering under the influence of constant vomiting; that was not the Shrewsbury disease—he had got rid of it; he was well on Thursday and he was well on Friday. On Saturday morning, after dining at Mr. Palmer’s, he is taken ill; and then we have the fact of Mr. Palmer administering his food, administering his remedies, sending over toast and water, sending over broth; and, no sooner has this poor man taken those things than he is seized with incessant vomitings of the most painful description. What about the broth? The broth is said to-day by Smith to have been sent from the Albion. Yes; and where does it find its way to? It is taken, not to the Talbot Arms, but to the prisoner’s kitchen. After that, instead of leaving it, as one would suppose he would leave it, to the woman to take to the Talbot Arms, he takes it himself from the fire, puts it into the cup, gives it to her, it is taken over, and the man vomits immediately after he has drunk it. On the Sunday the same thing is done again; the broth is brought from the same quarter, and attended with the same results. Of that broth the woman takes a couple of spoonfuls, and she is sick for several hours. She vomits twenty times, and is unable to leave her bed for some hours. My learned friend said she did not state that before the coroner. Nevertheless, it is sworn to by the other servant that the woman was ill. I can quite understand why the woman did not state it before the coroner. It shows the honesty of the woman’s character. It did not occur to her to connect the sickness from which she suffered with the taking of the broth; but afterwards, when the story of the antimony came up, and Cook’s sickness was connected with it, then she remembered perfectly well, after the evidence had been given, how she, having taken the broth, immediately became ill. The fact is not one capable of dispute, although it may be that she did not mention it before the coroner. And I think you will regard it as a very important and significant fact in the case, that, on the Monday when Palmer is absent, Cook is better. On the Tuesday he vomits again, though not in the same degree. But after death—now comes the important fact—antimony is found in the tissues of that man’s body, and his blood shows the presence of it; the blood shows distinctly that it must have been taken recently, within the last eight-and-forty hours previous to his death. How came it there? Thesmall quantity that is found does not form the slightest criterion of the quantity that had been administered to him. Part of it, you know, would be thrown up by the act of vomiting which it provokes; part of it would pass away in other forms, but none would be there unless he had taken some. When did he take it? If you find that he is suffering from vomiting for days before his death—that a person is constantly administering things to him, and after taking those things he vomits—when the prisoner sends him over a basin of broth he vomits, and when the servant takes a couple of spoonfuls she is reduced to the same condition—what other conclusion can you come to, knowing that antimony is an irritant that will produce vomiting and retching in the human system, than that the antimony must have been administered to him by some one? By whom? Who but the prisoner at the bar could have done it? My learned friend says Cook might have taken antimony at some former time—that he might have taken James’ powder for a cold. There is not the slightest trace of evidence from the beginning to the end of the case that he ever had a cold, or ever took James’ powder over the whole period we are now ranging. Moreover, as I have even now said, it was in his blood, it must have been administered eight-and-forty hours before death; who could have administered it but the prisoner at the bar? I ask you to form your own judgment upon that matter, but I cannot resist the conclusion, it is irresistible. If so, for what purpose was it administered; it is difficult to say with anything like precision; one can only speculate upon it. It may have been, however, to produce the appearance of natural disease, to account for the calling in of medical men, and to account for the catastrophe which was already in preparation; but it may also have had another and a different object, and it is this—if we are right as to the motives which impelled the prisoner at the bar to commit this great crime, it was, at all events in part, that he might possess himself of the money which Cook would have to realise upon the settling day at Tattersall’s on Monday. If Cook went there himself the scheme was frustrated; Mr. Cook intended to go there himself, and if he had done so the prisoner’s designs would have failed of accomplishment. To make him ill at Shrewsbury—to get him in consequence to go to Rugeley, instead of going to London or anywhere else—to make him ill again and keep him ill at Rugeley might be part of a cleverly contrived and organised scheme. It might have been with one or other of those motives, it might have been with both, that the antimony was administered, and so sickness produced, but that the sickness was produced and that the antimony was afterwards found in the body are incapable of dispute. Put them together and you have cause and effect; and if you aresatisfied that antimony was introduced into that poor man’s body for the purpose of producing vomiting and sickness, then, I say there is no one who could have given it to him within that recent period but the prisoner at the bar. Neither the doctor at Shrewsbury nor the doctor at Rugeley ever gave him one fraction of antimony which had those natural effects which as a cause it was certain to produce; then it will be for you to ask yourselves whether it can have been with any other than a fell purpose and design—with a view of paving the way for the more important act which was afterwards to follow.
My learned friend has dealt with this case of antimony in no other way than that which I have suggested, namely, casting out some loose, floating, imaginary notion that at some period or other, for which no precise date is given, he may have taken James’ powder for the purpose of getting rid of a cold. Alas! gentlemen, I feel that so idle an objection cannot stand between you and the conclusion which, I submit to you, arises from the fact that this antimony was given to Mr. Cook with a wicked design. If it was, just see the important influence which it exercises upon the other question. If antimony was found—if antimony can have been given with no legitimate object, and if it can only have been given by the prisoner at the bar—how great does it render the probability that to carry out the purpose, whatever it may be, that he had in his mind, he gave him this strychnia, of which the deadly effects and consequences have been but too plainly made manifest.
Attorney-General
Then, gentlemen, let us take the conduct of the prisoner into consideration in the after stages of the case, and also in one remarkable particular—in an incident that took place on the day of the death, on the evening of the preparation of the pills—and in his conduct taken in all its circumstances I fear you will find but too cogent proofs of his guilt. I begin with the Tuesday, the day of the death. Mr. Cook had had what every one will admit to have been a most severe fit on the night before. Dr. Bamford comes upon the Tuesday, but not a word is said to him about it. He comes, and the prisoner is solicitous that he shall not see Cook; and twice in the course of that morning, when old Mr. Bamford is desirous of coming up to see the man, the prisoner said, “He is tranquil and dozing; I wish him not to be disturbed.” That may have been innocent, but on the other hand, if Dr. Bamford had come at that time when the fit was fresh in Cook’s mind, the probability is great that Cook would have told him what had happened the night before. Cook does not see him till seven o’clock, when Mr. Jones had arrived. One would have expected that, having been invited to come by the prisoner, the first thing Mr. Palmer would have done would have been to mention how he found him the night before. He talks ofnothing but about the bilious symptoms—bilious at Shrewsbury, bilious to Dr. Bamford, and bilious to Mr. Jones; and thus he is represented throughout by the prisoner at the bar, yet all this time the medical men agree in saying that there was not a bilious symptom about him from beginning to end; no feverish skin, no loaded tongue, and none of the concomitants of a bilious condition. The moment Mr. Jones sees him, considering he had heard that this man was suffering under a bilious affection, he says, “That is not the tongue of a bilious patient.” The only answer he gets is, “You should have seen it before.” When? When the man saw him at Shrewsbury, or when Dr. Bamford saw him, they both found his tongue perfectly clean; the irritation in the bowels was not the result of natural action, but of the antimony; and not one single word does he say to Mr. Jones of the fit that had taken place the night before. It is a remarkable circumstance, when the three medical men are consulting at the bedside, the patient says, “I will have no more pills—no more medicine to-night,” intimating that his sufferings of the night before he ascribed to the pills which he had taken. There is no observation made by Mr. Palmer as to what had been the nature of the man’s attack the night before, he having been called up in the dead of the night. They go into an adjoining room to consult as to the best thing to be done. The man had declared his aversion to taking any pills or medicine; and Mr. Palmer immediately proposes that he shall take the same pills that he took the night before. He says to Mr. Jones, “Do not tell him the contents, because he has a strong objection to them.” It is arranged to have the pills made up; he does not wait to have the pills sent by Dr. Bamford, though it was early in the evening, but he accompanies Dr. Bamford down to his surgery. I cannot for the life of me understand why Dr. Bamford should have made up those pills at all. The prisoner had a surgery of his own close by, and he could have made up the pills in two minutes, he knew perfectly well their contents, instead of which he goes down with Dr. Bamford to his surgery. One would have supposed it would have been quite enough, as he was the person who every night administered the pills to Cook, if Dr. Bamford put the pills in a box and handed them over to Mr. Palmer, who knew what was to be done with them, instead of which Mr. Palmer asks Dr. Bamford to write the direction. He does write the direction, and then Mr. Palmer walks away with the pills. An interval occurs of an hour or two, during which time he had abundant opportunity of going home to his surgery and doing what he pleased in the way of substituting other pills. He comes back, and before he gives the pills he takes care to call the attention of Mr. Jones, who was present, to the remarkable handwriting of the old gentleman, Dr. Bamford,as being worthy of attention in a man of his advanced age. What necessity was there for all that? Was not it, think you, part of a scheme, that in case there should afterwards be any question as to the cause of this man’s death, or the possibility of his having had poison administered to him, he should be able to say to Mr. Jones, “Why, you know they were Dr. Bamford’s pills. You were present at the bedside of the deceased, you saw that I administered nothing except pills, and you must be clear they were Dr. Bamford’s pills. Did not I show you the address written, and call your attention to the excellence of the handwriting?” Who knows but all that prevented the possibility of suspicion being excited and presenting itself to the mind of Mr. Jones.