Serjeant Shee
Just see another transaction of that date; it is not quite so clear, as it strikes me, but yet it makes it to my mind exceedingly improbable that Palmer should have desired the death of Cook. Exceedingly improbable! Mr. Wetherby told us to-day that though frequently stakes won at a race were sent up by the clerk of the course to the winner’s bankers within a week, it was not always so, and it would not be a matter of complaint if it was not. On the 20th of November, the day before Cook dies, and on which he was perfectly comfortable and happy, enjoying the society of his friend Mr. Jones, with whom he was on terms of the greatest intimacy, and to whom he could confide any troubles that he had, and who appears to be a gentleman in every way respectable and intelligent—on that day Cook was well, and Mr. Jones was with him, and there is no doubt that on that day, according to the evidence of Mr. Wetherby, he did sign and give this cheque for £350. If Palmer killed him that night, and by any chance the £350 should not have been sent up by Mr. Frail, so as to be there on the next morning, he (Mr. Wetherby) would not pay that cheque, and would never pay it after notice of Cook’s death, though the money should come up. He never did pay it. The end of that transaction was this, that Mr. Frail did not send it up, but made a claim upon Cook in respect of it. Cook’s executors disputed that, and Cook’s executors finally recovered the money, but they did not send it up to Mr. Wetherby. I do not put it as strong as the other case, because Palmer might think that the money would be there; but he also might think that it would not be there. It is not at all likely that, having got the cheque for £350 from Cook, he would run the risk of losing that money by destroying him in the night, Cook’s friends being there, and sure to institute an immediate inquiry into his affairs. Is that probable? I submit to you it is not. It is not likely that Palmer could have got a cheque for £350, or Cook should have given it to him, which should not be payable until the next day, when there might be no funds to meet it; and with that uncertainty, is it likely that Palmer should destroy Cook. That, therefore, is in the last degree improbable. It does not end there—what they have said on the other side is, you know, that he got this cheque fraudulently—he got possession of this money, and then, lest Cook should detect it, he destroyed him. It is not at all probable that that would answer his purpose. The moment the breath was out of Cook’s body his friends would surround the corpse. He might be perfectly certain that Mr. Jones would go to Mr. Stevens, that Stevens and Bradford, his brother-in-law, would be down, and that a post-mortem examination would take place, and instead of settling with Pratt as to this £500 bill and the £350 cheque, he would have tosettle with hard men of business, men who cared nothing for him, looked upon him as a blackleg, and would care neither for his feeling, his interest, nor anything, but would let him go to ruin which way he liked, not stirring a finger to save him. Do you think that was probable? I submit to you not. It does not end there. We know from Herring that at that very time Herring held one bill for £500 on which Cook’s name was.
TheAttorney-General—I do not think there is any proof of that.
Mr.Serjeant Shee—Whether it be so or not as to the £500, he had three £200 bills, one of which, I think, was drawn by Cook and accepted by Palmer, and the other two drawn by Palmer and accepted by Cook, or the other way.
TheAttorney-General—You are quite right as to the £500.
Serjeant Shee
Mr.Serjeant Shee—And another bill of £500, which my friend stated and gave proof was not his mother’s signature. So that there was a bill for £500 not in her handwriting to which Cook was a party, for all of which Cook either in whole or in part, unless he rushed upon his own ruin, must provide; in respect of which, for the accommodation of Palmer or not, Palmer could go to Cook and say, “Now, Cook, it is true enough all these bills are for my accommodation, but what is the use of your making a fuss about that? If I cannot pay, you must, or your stud will be sold up; had you not better give your name to some more bills and make it easy?” If he put Cook to death that was gone. Again, in addition to the £500 bill, for which the bill of sale on “Syrius” and “Polestar” was given, the bill for £500 held by Herring was a forgery, according to their case, which there would be no excuse for not meeting; a £500 bill in the hands of a man who wants the money is not so easily put on; that £500 bill would very soon find its way to his mother. It would not have suited Palmer that his mother should know—his mother was a woman of large fortune, a respectable person I am told—she disliked his gambling propensities though she liked her son; neither did the excellent and most honourable man his brother, before me, who stands by him now, but who was estranged from him simply because he disapproved of his gambling, neither would he have given to him any countenance. If Palmer was pressed to pay that £500, and Cook was dead, there was nothing to save him from the exposure. Nothing! If you doubt what I say is the truth, look through the whole of the case—find me in any portion of this most voluminous evidence the slightest trace that there was a man in the world who would lend his name to Palmer to enable him to get money. Is not the fact that he forged, if he did forge, the name of his mother conclusive that he had no other resource? Is there the leasttrace of evidence that he had any other resource than the good nature, the easiness, perhaps the folly, of Cook, who could have renewed these bills for him—the three £200 bills and the £500—and put them on as they say? And was it not quite certain that if Cook, the acceptor of them, dropped, the claim would come upon Cook’s executors, and then the executors would ascertain all about it and sell him up? When you come to think of it, is it credible that the man under those circumstances should desire to bring not merely the creditors and executors of Cook—who might be supposed, though Mr. Stevens is not one of that class, to have some pity for Cook’s friend—but men of business, down upon him, who have no right to have any pity? A man dies, his affairs are put into the hands of solicitors; they have a plain duty to perform, they cannot be compassionate, they must be just; they must see the rights of their clients the executors established in due course of law, and compromise and arrangement with them is wholly out of the question. Can you find in any part of this case a single living person who was willing to have done for Palmer what Cook had been doing for him for two or three years? Does it appear that there was one? Does it appear that Cook was a close-fisted fellow, and did not care to do Palmer a turn? When Palmer needed the £200, which the harpy wanted from him, Cook at once wrote and said it is a matter of great importance to him as well as Palmer that this £200 should be paid; and he even risked the displeasure of Fisher in doing it. Then, again, Cook was in his senses perfectly on the Tuesday. He cannot have been very rich at that time. He gave him the cheque for £350. How is it possible to conceive that under those circumstances Palmer should have an interest in the death of Cook, and yet what is the theory of the Crown? That Palmer was convinced that he could settle his affairs as to Cook better with Mr. Stevens than he could with Cook himself—settle these word-of-honour transactions; these things, half of which would not bear inquiry in any way as reasonable business transactions, with a shrewd and probably a penurious man—deliberately thought that it would answer his purpose better to come in contact with his executor, Mr. Stevens, whom Mr. Jones might rush up to town and bring down with him. I submit to you with confidence, though what I say may be inconsistent with the views generally entertained by the public—the public, however, have never had an opportunity of looking at all these letters—but it seems to me as clear as anything can be, that it was the manifest interest of Palmer that Cook should live. But, in addition to its being his interest that he should live, was it safe for him that he should die? Palmer was a man who added to a shrewd knowledge of the world a knowledge of his profession, and, among other things, a knowledgeof chemistry. Palmer knew perfectly well, and he had studied his profession sufficiently when he was a young man to know perfectly well, that, if strychnia was administered, it would in all probability throw the victim into horrible convulsions in a very short time, and in a way so striking as to be the talk of a small neighbourhood like Rugeley for a month or two, which would be time enough to alarm everybody, and to provoke inquiries into the circumstances of the death, which must certainly end, or in all probability end, if he was guilty, in his conviction. If that was so, was he so circumstanced at that time as to make it safe for him to run the risk of such suspicions? His brother, Walter Palmer, had died in the month of August, and his only hope, unless his mother forgave him or recognised those acceptances, his only hope of extrication from his difficulties was the getting the amount due by the Prince of Wales Insurance Company to him as the assignee of the policy on Walter Palmer’s life; that was his only chance. He had a chance that way, and it is plain that it was so good a chance, as I will show you presently, that he refused an offer of return of premium from the company; it does not appear what the amount was—and Pratt, who was his attorney, believed the chance to be so good that he had actually got the discounts of these large sums of money upon it, and had resolved, under the directions of Palmer, to put it in suit. It was really the only unpledged property he had, and how was he situated respecting it? It is plain from the letters which were put in yesterday, and it is further plain from a piece of evidence to which you will, I am sure, find it worth your while to pay great attention. We had Mr. Deane called yesterday, who is the attorney to the Prince of Wales insurance office; and for some time—though it had ceased just at that time—but for some time previously to this month of November, the insurance company, which, I believe, is not a very old insurance company, were annoyed at being called upon to pay so large a sum, and they determined to do all they could to resist it. They accordingly sent down Inspector Field to Stafford and his man Simpson to make inquiries, which he could not do without talking and insinuating suspicions and raising a cloud of doubt and conjecture about Palmer, and this had been going on for some considerable time. Now, observe the evidence of Deane, and you will see if it is not so. He says, “The name of my firm is Chubb, Deane & Chubb. I had been to Rugeley some time previously to the inquest. I know Field, the detective officer; we were solicitors to the Prince of Wales insurance office; it was in our employment that Field went to Rugeley; he was at Rugeley only a part of one day; he was at Stafford for three or four days altogether; he did not see the prisoner Palmer; this visit had been preceded by thatof another officer named Simpson. Simpson went from Stafford to Rugeley with myself and Field; he told me he had seen Palmer; I think he went into Staffordshire in the first week in October.” Then my learned friend asked him what they went down for; he said that they went down to make inquiries as to the habits of life of Mr. Walter Palmer, of whose death the Prince of Wales insurance office had shortly before received notice; so that you see just before the death of Cook Palmer knew himself to be an object of suspicion, but he acted as if he thought it was the most unfounded and unwarrantable suspicion, putting the policy of insurance into the hands of an attorney to enforce payment of it, and the office meeting the claim by insinuations and inquiries which were of a nature to destroy his character and to bring around his head the suspicion of another murder.
Serjeant Shee
Gentlemen, that that was so I will show you by the letters which were put in yesterday. You see that the pressure by Pratt upon Palmer to meet the two £1000 bills never took place until the office disputed the payment of that policy. All went as smooth as possible so long as Pratt held what he believed to be a good security, the policy upon Walter Palmer’s life, who was dead; but when they began to dispute it, then you will find that Pratt writes to Palmer and tells him the situation of things is quite changed; he could manage the bills very well while that policy was undisputed; but now it is disputed that quite alters the state of things; he says, as he had somewhat anticipated, he finds they can do nothing till the 24th, that is nothing towards compelling the office to pay, because insurance offices generally take three months to pay; and then, stating some other circumstances, he says, “This you will observe quite alters the arrangement, and I therefore must request you to make preparations for meeting the two bills due at the end of this month”; that was where the difficulty was, that was where the pinch was. Then, he says, he shall not flag in his exertions, and so on, and he refers to the circumstances connected with the dispute; Mr. Pratt says—“You, Palmer, know whether they have any ground to dispute that policy upon your brother’s life; you are enforcing it, and if you have no right to do it it is at your peril.” That is what it means, and then he goes on to say, “We must try and make them pay”—that was the position in which Pratt, who was acting for him, stood as to this Prince of Wales insurance office. He says, “In any event, bear in mind that you must be prepared to cover your mother’s acceptances for the £4000 due at the end of the month”; there was the pinch, the office would not pay, the £4000 was becoming due, the holder of the bills saw he was without security, and if anything occurred to increase the suspicions of the insurance office, which wasvery reluctant to pay, the £13,000 was lost for ever, lost beyond hope. Gentlemen, that £13,000 is sure to be paid unless that man is convicted of murder; and that has a great deal to do with the clamour and alarm which have been excited. So sure as that man is saved, and saved I believe he will be, that £13,000 is paid; there is no defence, no pretence for a defence—the letters of the office make that plain; they took an enormous premium—knowing that the man was only thirty, they took a premium for a man of fifty.
Mr.Attorney-General—That is not in evidence; do you mean to prove that?
Mr.Serjeant Shee—I do not know whether I can show that to be the actual premium, but the letters which were put in show that the premium was enormous; and I say that as sure as he is saved that £13,000 is good for him, and will pay all his creditors.
Now, observe the position in which he was at the moment—all the correspondence turns upon that. This correspondence saves the prisoner, if there is common sense in man.
Serjeant Shee
Now, observe, there is another letter from Pratt containing this passage, “I have your note, acknowledging receipt by your mother of the £2000 acceptance, due the 2nd of October; why not let her acknowledge it herself? You must really not fail to come up at once, if it be for the purpose of arranging for the payment of the two bills at the end of the month; remember I can make no terms for their renewal, and they must be paid. I will, of course, hold the policy for as much as it is worth,” and so on. At this time Simpson and Field were making inquiries how a young man of thirty had died, who had had delirium tremens three times, as their own physician, Dr. Hastings, and Mr. Wardell had informed them. Then in a postscript he says he “casts no doubt upon the capability of the company to pay, but that in the nature of things, with so large an amount in question, it is not surprising that, if they think they have grounds for resisting, they should temporise by delay.” Does not that show that at that date at least, the 6th of October, suspicions were hanging in menacing meteors about Palmer’s head, which would come down with irresistible momentum and crush him upon suspicion of a sudden death by murder? Do you believe that a man who wrote what the effects of strychnia were in his manual would risk such a scene as a deathbed by strychnia, in the presence of the dearest and best friend of Cook—a man whom he could not influence, a medical man, who liked him and loved him well enough when he knew he was ill to sleep with him in the same room that he might be ready to attend to him in case he wanted assistance during the night? Is that common sense; are you going to endorse such a theory as that upon the suggestion of Dr. AlfredTaylor about the effects that strychnia produced upon his five rabbits? Impossible, perfectly impossible! as I submit to you. But to proceed—I will prove to you, most clearly, the position in which he was. On the other side of the letter of the 10th of October Mr. Pratt writes, “Copy of solicitors’ reply”; that is, the solicitors to the Prince of Wales insurance office. He says, “I may add that I hear the office have been making inquiries in every direction.” To be sure, Field was employed; he is not now in the police, but he is employed as a detective officer; he was at Stafford, and was at Rugeley, and was making inquiries in all directions; inquiries could be made at Stafford as well as Rugeley, and all that had taken place at Rugeley just as easily ascertained there as at Rugeley itself; whatever had taken place there would be known. He says they have been making inquiries in all directions. It is plain, then, that he knew that suspicions were then rife, or that they were endeavouring to create suspicions, against him about the policy on the life of Walter Palmer. Here is the very letter which the company wrote in answer to the claim, dated 8th of October, 1855; it is from Messrs. Chubb, Deane & Chubb, the solicitors to the office, addressed to Thomas Pratt, Esq., acknowledging the application; and shortly afterwards Messrs. Chubb send a reply to the application—there is no date to it, but it is enclosed in a letter of the 18th of October from Pratt to Palmer. After apologising for not answering the letter of the 16th instant, owing to the absence of Mr. Deane, they refer to the “local investigation having been made, and decline to pay the claim upon the ground that the facts disclosed in the course of the inquiry are such as fully to warrant them in doing so.” These are letters which my learned friend thought it right to put in yesterday; they are evidence for the Crown, and what is the inference from them? Judge, if you please, from some of the letters to Pratt, and the one which I read first from Pratt to Palmer. Palmer determined that the policy should be paid; he took the advice of Sir Fitzroy Kelly. I see here it is said, “The case will be laid before Kelly to-morrow.” This letter came just before the end of the long vacation; the time to take proceedings had only just commenced, in any event, because the three months had only just expired. But so sure as anything happened by foul play to Cook, he had no more chance of getting the £13,000 than £130,000 from the Prince of Wales insurance office—none whatever. That was the only means he had at that time of extricating himself from those incumbrances.
Serjeant Shee
Gentlemen, I have detained you a long time upon this, but not, I trust, too long, if the view I have submitted be one worthy of your consideration. I infer from all this that Palmer had no interest whatever to put Cook to death; that it was contrary to his interest in a pecuniary point of view, andbrought claims upon him, some of them small, others of a larger amount, of which he might have shared the liability with Cook, if not have thrown it entirely upon Cook; that it forced an immediate settlement of the affairs of Cook, not with Cook himself, who was an easy man—it is plain he was—and probably their solicitors, and that therefore in a pecuniary sense he had every motive of interest to desire that Cook should live; and further, he had no chance of getting a ready payment from these documents—but with hard and exacting executors of the £13,000, no chance of the sudden death of Cook passing without suspicion and inquiry, and therefore he could not think it safe for him that he should die.
I cannot, I think, be so much mistaken as that a considerable portion of these observations is not well worthy your attention. I humbly contend that the suggested motive altogether fails; and I conclude that head of the observations which I have to address to you by saying that I submit respectfully to you, to the Court, and to my learned friends that that portion of this case has failed. It could not be the interest of Palmer that Cook should die.
I now proceed to the next head, and it is impossible in dealing with this evidence to observe altogether the order of date. I must group the facts as well as I can in order to deal with the whole of the evidence. The question is whether the symptoms of Cook before his death and the appearance presented by his body after death were consistent with the theory of his having died by strychnia poison, and inconsistent with the theory of his having died from other and natural causes. It is under this head, gentlemen, that I shall discuss, I hope not at undue length, the medical evidence in this cause, and present to you such observations as occur to me upon the witnesses who have been called to support the view which the Crown takes of the effect of that medical evidence.
Serjeant Shee
For this purpose let us briefly, in a sentence or two, run over the facts. Cook died on Wednesday morning, the 21st of November, at one o’clock, in violent convulsions; he died in the presence of Mr. Jones. It was no sooner light than Jones posted up to town to see Cook’s stepfather and executor, Mr. Stevens, who came down, and was introduced to Palmer. Palmer took him up to the corpse, and uncovered the corpse to the thighs—brave man he must have been, if he was a murderer, to do that—uncovered the corpse to the thighs before him. Stevens observed the body, and wondered he could have died, he looked so calm, so composed, so well, so little emaciated; he observed, indeed, some slight rigidity about the muscles. I refer to his deposition. I am not sure whether Stevens’ deposition was read—but it is evidence supplied to us. He took his hand, and wondered that he should have died; his suspicions were immediately aroused. He dined that dayat Rugeley, and asked Palmer to dinner with him, and questioned him about the betting-book; got angry that it was not produced, dissembled with Palmer, cross-examined him, went up to town, met him afterwards at the station at Euston Square, afterwards at Rugby, afterwards at Wolverton, again at Rugeley, and at last threw off the mask, and, addressing him in a tone to which I shall call your attention presently, gave Palmer clearly to understand that he suspected him, and intended to probe the whole matter to the very core. He resolved upon a post-mortem examination, and a post-mortem examination took place. The appearances which were presented at the death of Cook were such as might have been expected by those who had been acquainted with his course of life and his general health, his pursuits—it is a pity to say anything hard of him—his vices—I will not say more than this—his vices, and the company, the drinking, idle, racing company which he kept. His father had died at the age of thirty, his mother about the same age, a year or two after she had married Mr. Stevens; his brother was delicate, his sister was delicate; he was believed by his physicians to have something of a pulmonary complaint, and, when his body was opened, his lungs were found to be emphysematous, that is, their air vessels were distended with air. On further inquiry, for I take both the examinations together, it was found that for a length of time he had been troubled with a very ugly sore throat—a sore throat bad enough to render it necessary that it should be constantly touched with caustic, as well as his tongue; he would not have been able to swallow without it. The tonsils of his throat were at the very time he left for Shrewsbury races, though much better than they had been, sore and inflamed—one of them was very nearly gone, the other was very much reduced in size; and he knew so much better about himself and the cause of it all probably than his medical adviser, that he very much preferred mercury to any other specific for his complaint. He had, besides that, traces about his person which have been so often referred to, the result of disease, that they need not be more particularly mentioned than they have been already, as to the extent of which and the character of which some little doubt exists; but they did not come by an ordinary and chaste mode of life, you may depend upon it; and altogether, as far as it went, he seems to have been about as loose a young man as one is in the habit of meeting, without being utterly lost to all sense of honour and propriety, which I do not mean to suggest that he was.
Serjeant Shee
His body was opened; the soreness of his tongue was manifest; I rather collect that it was not actually sore at the time of his death—yet that there were what they call follicles, and symptoms, if not recent, at least not very ancient, of actual ulcers; the inside of his mouth, too, had been ulcerated, orthe skin taken off by some sort of soreness attributed to decayed teeth. We all of us probably have decayed teeth; but that does not happen to us which happened to him—it was sore on both sides. The sores about his mouth he thought himself were syphilitic, and could not be persuaded by the very respectable gentleman, Dr. Savage, to attend readily to his advice. He thought he was not weak enough, I think he said fool enough, to take quack medicines; but weak enough to take the advice of any medical quack who had assurance enough to give advice to him, believing that the best thing for his complaint was mercury; and he was apprehensive, I believe, that what are the worst symptoms of that disease for which mercury is given, namely, spots upon the body, would make their appearance, and that possibly (I believe such things do happen) some day or other he would find on the morning of a race his face covered with large copper-coloured blotches, which would plainly show what life he had been leading. That was the sort of man he was. Many such a man has reformed and become a good and respectable member of society. I should be sorry to say anything unduly harsh upon a man who is gone; but the state of his health is a material subject for our inquiry here. It is plain that he had in his own opinion been affected by virulent syphilis, and that that had not corrected his habits, for he had become recently diseased. The medical men who attended him before concurred in this opinion; and when his body was opened, in addition to all those plainer symptoms of illness to the eye, on the second post-mortem examination, there was between the delicate membrane which covers the spinal marrow, and which is called the arachnoid, I believe—I think I am right—there was pressing upon the arachnoid, and embedded to some extent in the next covering, not so delicate, though still delicate, called the dura mater, granules, as given in evidence, of such an extent as I will satisfy you by men competent to inform you would, if his body had been opened in the dead-house of any hospital in this metropolis, have been said and determined to be the cause of his death.
Such was the condition of Cook, only partially discovered on the post-mortem examination which took place at the desire of the executor, Mr. Stevens. That examination was not conducted with that entirety, so to speak—with that thorough determination to investigate the whole matter—that afterwards was thought to be necessary.
Serjeant Shee
Dr. Taylor attends the coroner’s inquest, which is held in consequence, I presume, of his letter. I do not know whether that is so or not, but in consequence of suspicions entertained, and probably in consequence of the letter which he sent in answer to Mr. Stevens’ inquiries, and he hears the evidence of Jones, and of Mills, and of Roberts, and of others; but I call your attention to the evidence of those three witnesses, becauseI think, in fairness to Dr. Taylor, it must be presumed that they principally influenced his opinion. Now, then, I say that upon the loose evidence of chambermaids, and waitresses, and housekeepers, against the opinion of the medical man who attended Cook in his last illness, or, at any rate, with no encouragement, as I will satisfy you presently (for there is an observation to be made upon that)—with no encouragement from the medical man, Mr. Jones, the surgeon at Lutterworth, who was of an age and character, having seen the whole illness, to form an opinion upon the matter—Dr. Taylor, having heard the evidence of Elizabeth Mills, and the evidence of Mr. Jones, and of Roberts, came at once boldly to the conclusion that his notion that antimony was the cause of death was a mistake; and he had the incredible imprudence—an imprudence which has led to all this dreadful excitement—an imprudence which has rendered it necessary that this inquiry should take place in this form and in this place, if at all—to state upon his oath before that jury that he believed that the pills which were administered to Cook on the Monday and Tuesday night contained strychnia, and that Cook was poisoned by it.
Serjeant Shee
Allow me for a moment to ask your attention to what the real character of that opinion was. That opinion as delivered was irrevocable. By it Taylor’s reputation was staked against Palmer’s life. Instantly followed by the verdict of wilful murder it flew upon the wings of the Press into every house in the United Kingdom. It became known that, according to the opinion of a man whose whole life had been devoted to science, a gentleman of personal character perfectly unimpeachable, a man who stood well with his friends in the medical profession—that on his opinion, not conjectural, not delivered, as an opinion of the kind might properly be delivered, in a private room, to persons on whose discretion reliance was placed, but delivered upon oath in a public room, in the public inn of a little village where everything that took place was known—and he must have known, I cannot but think, that suspicions had been, as I say, and as I think you will be satisfied unduly, excited about the death of Walter Palmer—that, according to his opinion, Cook’s death had been caused by strychnia. “In fact,” said Dr. Taylor, “though I find no trace of strychnia, and though there is nothing to induce me to believe that there is strychnia in the body, except the suggestion that on the Tuesday Palmer bought it off Roberts” (which would not account in any way, supposing the mere purchase of strychnia could account for anything, for the paroxysm on Monday night), “yet, having heard that evidence, knowing that I have failed to discover the presence of strychnia, I will undertake upon my oath to say, and on my credit publish to the whole world, that the pills which were given to him on Monday and Tuesday nightcontained strychnia, and that he died from that poison.” Observe what it amounts to. It ascertains, not upon scientific, or well-informed, or consistent testimony, but upon testimony ill-informed, of the humblest class, the least fitted to detail accurately the symptoms of such a disease as it is imputed to be, on evidence not consistent with itself, as respects the evidence of Elizabeth Mills in all particulars, or with the evidence of a much better informed person, Mr. Jones, or with the opinion of Mr. Jones—it ascertains, and pronounces positively, that the disease of which Cook died was not simply convulsions of a tetanic form, however violent—not convulsions with many features of tetanus, but that it was actual tetanus, and that description of it which could only be caused by one poison, and that poison strychnia. That is the evidence—he lays that down as a proposition on which he is perfectly satisfied to rest, and on that the verdict goes.
Serjeant Shee
Gentlemen, let me ask you in what position we are placed for the safety of our lives and families if, upon such evidence as this, upon suspicions so excited and so sanctioned by hasty opinions of medical men, we are liable every time a sudden death takes place in a family to be put upon our trials on suspicion of foul play to those with whom we live? In the cases which are usually discussed in this Court, witnesses are called to give evidence respecting processes and means of arriving at truth with a knowledge of the facts in question, with the operation of which processes the prosecuting counsel, the judge, and the jurors are as well acquainted as the witnesses themselves. The witnesses come to speak to facts, a great portion of which are within the ordinary knowledge and appreciation of mankind; but if science is admitted to dogmatise in our Courts—science not exact in its nature—science not successful, but baffled even by its own tests—science bearing upon its forehead the motto that “a little learning is a dangerous thing”—if that is to be introduced to state processes of arriving at truth, conclusive to its satisfaction, but which we cannot follow, and opinions respecting the cause of death which those processes have not discovered, judges and jurors will have an amount of responsibility thrown upon them too great for human nature to bear. This gentleman, Dr. Taylor, if he had found the poison by his own tests, after long experience of their efficacy, would have been a very good witness to have proved unquestionably that strychnia was there; but not having found it, not having seen the patient, and knowing nothing about him but what Elizabeth Mills told him, and what he heard from Mr. Jones, who did not agree with him, or who gave no evidence agreeing with him—with no better means of information than that he thinks himself justified, upon his oath in a public Court, to say that the pills administered by themedical man (of course, he did not mean to impute any misconduct to Mr. Bamford) contained strychnia, that murder was committed, and Cook poisoned by it. If he is allowed to say that, what family and what medical practitioner is safe? Gentlemen, I beg to ask you on what ground does he say that? Not on any peculiar knowledge, for he has not any knowledge as to the effects of strychnia more than any of us—myself, if you please; for when we come thoroughly to look into it he does not appear, of his own knowledge, to have seen a single case of strychnia in the human subject; and yet he has been daring enough, knowing that the consequences would be disastrous to this man—knowing perfectly well that all the world, or, at all events, the great majority of the world, would take for granted that a medical man in his position would not give a hasty opinion—he has the incredible courage to declare, on his oath, that the pills that were given, as far as he knew, by Dr. Bamford, contained strychnia, and that Cook was poisoned by them!
Serjeant Shee
I have said “a little learning is a dangerous thing,” and it appears to me that there never was a case in which the adage was so applicable as it is in this. Of all the works of God, the one best calculated to fill us with wonder and admiration, and convince us of our dependence on our Maker, and the utter nothingness of ourselves, is the mortal coil in which we live, and breathe, and think, and have our being. Every minute of our lives functions are performed at our will, the unerring accuracy of which nothing but Omniscience and Omnipotence could have secured. We feel and see exactly what takes place, and yet the moment we attempt to explain what takes place, the instant we endeavour to give a reason for what we know, and see, and do, the mystery of creation—“God created man to His own image; to the image of God created He him”—arrests our course, and we are flung back upon conjecture and doubt. We know in a sense—we suppose—that the soft medullary substance which is within the cavity of the head is the seat of thought, of sensation, and of will. We know that that soft medullary substance is continued down the middle of the back, protected by a bony duct or canal, within which bony duct or canal it lies embedded; and we know that from the sides of this bony duct and from this medullary substance proceed an infinite variety of nerves, the conduits of sensation from all parts of the body to the soul, and of muscles connected and dependent on them, the instruments of voluntary motion. This we know, and we know that by that process all the ordinary actions of our lives, at our own will, are effected with the most wonderful precision. Sometimes, however, these nerves and muscles depart from their normal character, and, instead of being the mere instruments ofthe will of the soul, become irregular, convulsive, tumultuary, vindicating to themselves a sort of independent vitality, totally regardless of the authority to which they are ordinarily subject. When thrown into this state of irritation and excitement their effects are known by the general name of convulsions. It is remarkable, unlike most other fine names, they are not a modern adaptation. The ancients had them to express the very same thing; the spasmodic and tetanic affections were known then, and as much about them hundreds and thousands of years ago as is known now. Tetanic convulsions have in later times been divided into two specific branches of tetanus—idiopathic and traumatic. We have heard a great deal of these two descriptions of tetanus. One question my lord asked, which was answered by Dr. Todd—it would have been more satisfactory if my lord had asked what the meaning of the English of “idiopathic,” viz., self-generating, was; the answer given to the question, What does idiopathic mean? was “constitutional.” True, but that means nothing, or, if anything, it means “unaccountable.”
Lord Campbell—Without external injury.
Mr.Serjeant Shee—Just so, my lord; without external injury, but attributable to no known cause, unless in some few instances, perhaps, where there is some injury in the interior of the body; but the meaning of the word “idiopathic” is unquestionably what I have stated; not that it follows they never can be traced to a cause, but that they constantly occur in which the cause may be attributed to one thing or to another, and in that case we say that it is idiopathic tetanus, because we cannot with certainty say it is traumatic, that is, arising from any external injury.
Serjeant Shee
Now, gentlemen, we have had a great deal of evidence produced by my friends directed to show—assuming that the disease of which Mr. Cook died was tetanus—that it must have been strychnia tetanus. It is a mere assumption they begin with—the merest assumption in the world. I will give you my reasons for saying so, and I think I am justified in so saying. That the deceased died in convulsions is beyond all question, or immediately after convulsions; that they were convulsions that had occurred exactly or about the same hours on the previous night, and something like those which had occurred on the night preceding, something which he described as madness for two minutes, is beyond all doubt. What pretence is there for saying they were tetanus at all? Mr. Jones was examined, and I will read to you presently what the evidence he gave was. Mr. Jones, in the copy of the depositions delivered to me, stated that Mr. Cook died of convulsions, and in the copy of the depositions, which he signed and read over and corrected, there was not a word of tetanus. My learnedfriend interposed, and said, on looking to the original depositions, it did appear that he had mentioned it, and he said so because in the course of his examination he found a half-written word, “tetinus”—he availed himself of it, not unfairly, to suggest, that though he did not positively say it was tetanus, yet that what he observed was something which put him in mind of tetanus. It bore some of the characteristics of a tetanic convulsion; but, gentlemen, it may do so, and yet not be tetanus; and I submit to you that it is bad reasoning, and I will prove it presently. I put a question to the witness on the subject. It is bad reasoning to say without positive proof of the fact that it was tetanus, and it cannot be traumatic tetanus, because it did not appear it had presented the distinct features of traumatic tetanus, and therefore it must be tetanus by strychnia. That is the argument. They assume it cannot be traumatic tetanus, they have not discovered the poison, but still they say it must be tetanus by poison!
Serjeant Shee
Let us see whether there is any pretence for saying anything of the kind. My learned friends may tell me, if you venture to impeach the authority of a man like Dr. Taylor, who, though he had no knowledge on the subject, undoubtedly is a gentleman of great leading in his profession, and a gentleman who has written a book, which I will not treat as a book not worthy of being attended to because I think it right on this evidence to attack a particular part of it—if you choose to say his opinion is not to be depended upon, it is incumbent on you to suggest some other theory of the cause of Cook’s death which will explain the evidence given, and prove not merely negatively it is not what we say it was, but prove affirmatively it is something else. I say I am not called on to do any such thing. The Crown is the party, or rather those out of whose hands this case has been taken by the Crown, who have thought proper to impute the death of this gentleman to the poison of strychnia; they have followed the trail which has been dragged before them by these toxicologists; and, relying on their judgment and discretion, they have made quite sure they will be enabled to establish the fact that it was not either by traumatic or idiopathic tetanus, but by tetanus of strychnia, that he had died. I say I am not bound to suggest any theory upon the subject. It cannot be expected that in the defence I should do so; and, in point of logic, it is not reasonable, when we contradict the fact which it is for them to prove, that our denial of that fact and our reasons should be weakened because we cannot conclusively fix the cause of death, or explain the cause of death in any other way. If we can satisfy you that into any one of the numerous varieties of convulsions this gentleman might have fallen, and might have been either asphyxiated, or by some sudden spasm deprived of life in a way different from asphyxia—it is quite enough for us to prove the probability of that, unless they show conclusively that the circumstances and symptoms which attended his death are irreconcilable with any other theory than that of strychnia poison. Let us see what the symptoms were. I will take the liberty of reading them in the first instance from the depositions, because it is only fair to a person whose judgment I dispute that you should have placed clearly before you the evidence on which they rely.
The Court here adjourned for a short time.
Gentlemen, I have observed in the course of this inquiry, whenever there has been a question of what a witness has said on a previous occasion before a coroner, my lord has thought it right to have the whole of the document read. Now, I propose to read—unless I am corrected by my lord, when, of course, I shall immediately submit—I propose to read, for the purpose of my present inquiry, only that part of the deposition which describes the symptoms.
Lord Campbell—You may read any part of them, completing the sense of the part which you read.
Mr.Serjeant Shee—I am much obliged to your lordship; and my object in so doing is this, I will read all the deposition of Mr. Jones, though in truth, in my view of the case, the deposition of Mr. Jones is not so favourable to my case as his evidence in open Court. If there be a difference, the evidence in open Court is more favourable than the deposition; but substantially they are the same. What I propose to do now is to call your attention to the statements of Elizabeth Mills and Mr. Jones before the coroner of the symptoms they observed in Cook on the Monday and Tuesday nights; and having done so, without accepting any challenge which may be made by my friend to account for the symptoms, I will submit to your judgment, on authority which cannot deceive you, whether those symptoms are not more probably accounted for by the convulsions which are not tetanic at all, and certainly not tetanic in its distinct character of strychnia tetanus, but to be classed under those general convulsions by which it constantly pleases Providence to strike man down without leaving a trace of their course in his system.
Serjeant Shee
Gentlemen, what I have to submit to you is this, that the symptoms described in the depositions of Elizabeth Mills and Mr. Jones were such as to make it quite unjustifiable to resort to the hypothesis of tetanus of any kind, much less of strychnia tetanus. You will recollect—I will not repeat it—the peculiarity of the constitution of this young man, and the evidence of occasional functional derangement, not particularly at that time, which involve grave consequences, to whichI have already called your attention. I submit to you, on the authorities on matters of this kind, it is much more probable that Cook died in general convulsions, not tetanic at all, than that he died from idiopathic, traumatic, or strychnia tetanus.
Serjeant Shee
I have mentioned all that I intend to say about his bodily infirmities—let us now see what has been the state of his mind. He went to the Shrewsbury races in imminent peril of leaving them a ruined man. Mr. Stevens told Palmer, and we have heard nothing to the contrary, that if anybody had claims upon him, there would not be four thousand shillings to meet them. We know, from the necessity under which he was to raise sums of money at exorbitant interest, that he must have been in circumstances of the utmost embarrassment—that it was impossible, morally speaking, unless some wonderful success on the turf restored his fortunes, that he could stand his ground at all; and it is in this state of mind, and with health, at all events, not strong, and a constitution exceedingly delicate, that he had been for a length of time cherishing the hope that “Polestar,” which was hardly his, for it was mortgaged, and which must become another person’s if it did not win at Shrewsbury—in all reasonable probability he had been cherishing the hope that “Polestar” would win, and that he by that winning would possess himself at once of the stakes, which my learned friend stated, and I think it was proved, amounted to nearly £400, besides some considerable winnings to the amount of £600 or £700 by bets on the mare—upwards of £1000 altogether. That has been mentioned several times. Fancy the condition in which that young man rose from his bed on the Tuesday morning. He must have known and felt when he went down to breakfast, “This night I am either a beggar, or a man with hopes of recovering myself, and with the means, at least for the time, of keeping up my appearance of respectability.” He goes to the races—another race takes place before his mare, “Polestar,” is brought to the goal. He waits for it in a state of feverish anxiety and expectation—the hour that intervenes appears to him everlasting. At last the horses start, and his mare wins easily—he is the winner of £1000. We may suppose that to be the sum. What effect has it upon him? Mr. Jones tells us the effect. He is unable to speak for three minutes. He is saved, not merely in purse but in honour and character—saved before his relatives and friends. He will not be a disgrace to them yet, at all events; he may retrieve his fortunes, and become an honourable and respectable man. Conceive him to be a man with right feelings—and it is not because a man falls into the ways of promiscuous licentiousness that he is devoid of all honourable feeling—conceive him to be an honourable man, a man who loved the memory of his father and his mother, who valued the respectability of his family,and who had a desire to appear before his sister, Mrs. Bradford, as an honourable man, instead of being known to her as a levanter and a blackleg, driven from all honourable society. The effect of his success is that for three minutes he cannot speak, though he is with his intimate friend Mr. Jones. He goes back to the inn, though he has to some extent recovered himself, in a state of elation, of which it is my duty to say that one man said he was not more elated than other people when they have won, but still, depend upon it, overjoyed, and with a revulsion from the despair in which he was, which must have convulsed, though not in a sense of immediate illness, every fibre of his frame. His first and his natural inclination was to entertain his friends, and he gives a champagne dinner. The evidence is that he did not drink to excess; that is the evidence—but he had champagne, and we all of us know that when there is champagne there are other things besides, and it very often happens it is not because champagne is drunk the company do not drink as much of other wines. What in ordinary parlance is called a champagne dinner is a good, luxurious entertainment, in which there is no stint and not much self-restraint. I do not mean to say he was drunk. The evidence is he rose from table not drunk, and therefore it is not for me to say, and the evidence will not justify me in saying, he was. That evening he did not spend in the company of Jones. I do not think it is very clear in whose company he spent it after the dinner was over; but we find him the next night, Wednesday, at the Unicorn, with Saunders, the trainer, Mr. Palmer, and a lady. The next morning is cold and wet. He went on the ground, and was observed by Herring standing in the wet, who remonstrated with him for so doing. He was taken ill that night, and you will hear what his symptoms were. I shall call your attention to those under the third head of what I have to address to you. He sent for a doctor, who recommended an emetic. The poor man seemed to know more about it than the doctor. He said he could do it with hot water and a toothbrush. Perhaps he had often relieved his stomach in that way. He was unwell that day, and was ailing till his death at Rugeley. That is the general history, as far as the mental excitement can be referred to—great reason to apprehend ruin when he went to Shrewsbury; immediate, sudden, yet only partial recovery from his embarrassments at Shrewsbury; and home to Rugeley to meet them again in their full intensity, all the winnings and twice the sum, unable to save him from the ruin he had brought on himself. All the property he appears to have had at the time was “Polestar” and “Syrius,” and they were mortgaged for debts due to Pratt. He may have had some few hundreds in money. It is with a weakened body and an irritated andexcited mind that he is affected with a sickness at Shrewsbury, which clings to a system incapable of being recruited by the ordinary necessary food, without which the strongest man gives way, excites his nerves, and makes him in imminent danger of falling a victim to any convulsive attacks to which his constitution would be likely to be disposed. Depend upon it, the thoughts of that young man, when he retired to bed, were not the thoughts with which you lay your heads upon the pillow. He had much to think of which he regretted, much to deliberate upon which was of a nature to excite in his mind the most serious apprehensions. There was neither credit, nor honour, nor anything in his career which would make him respect himself, or respectable in the eyes of others. His rest was only imperfect at the best, and after the gratifications of the animal appetite to which people in some instances resort to alleviate the unhappy recollections of the moment, he had no resource. He desired no society so much as the society of Palmer. His residence was at the Talbot Arms, which was, in fact, a residence with Palmer. He does not appear to have had a sitting-room to himself; he does not appear to have frequented the coffee-room. He had a bedroom at the Talbot Arms, and his real home, where he often was, and would have been nearly altogether but for his illness, was Palmer’s house over the way. That was his condition at Rugeley. He is taken violently ill on Sunday night. We had nothing but his own description of it; but what is that description? He had been poorly for some time. For two nights he had been taking opium pills prescribed by Mr. Bamford. Mr. Bamford is an aged man, but there is no doubt a respectable man, and a man who would be likely, I think we might fairly infer, to consider what the complaint was and prescribe accordingly. In the middle of the night, at twelve o’clock, he was awakened from a dream in a state of affright. He says he was nearly mad; he rang the bell, but nobody would come.
Lord Campbell—He thought they would not hear him; he thought they had gone to bed.