Serjeant Shee
Mr.Serjeant Shee—Yes; that is so; I am much obliged to your lordship. He states he was mad for two minutes, and what did he ascribe it to? Nothing but sudden alarm at the noise of a quarrel in the street. Does that happen to us, gentlemen? Does it happen to those of us who live regular lives, and who are of good average constitution? Do we awaken in a state that we can describe as madness, and without any mode of accounting for the paroxysm but a quarrel in the street? It must have been a very high state of nervous excitement. It must have been something violent while it lasted—transient in its character—but something that arosefrom a disordered state of the stomach and an agitated and anxious mind, probably in some degree weakened by the medicine he was taking, the calomel and the morphia.
The next day, the Monday, he was well the whole day; not well in the sense of being strong and able to take a walk in the fields, or mount his horse and gallop about the country, but well in the sense of being able to get up, after trying to breakfast in bed, to talk of sending for the barber, and, I believe, actually sending for him; of seeing his trainer and his jockeys, and discussing his plans for his next campaign—well to that extent, but not out of his bedroom, taking no substantial food, not vomiting much that day, though a little I think in the morning, which is ascribed by the theory of the Crown, or by those whose case the Crown has been forced by public opinion or by public excitement to take up, to Palmer’s absence all that day. We do not hear that Cook took anything solid. We do not hear that he lunched at one o’clock, and then, as most probably he was in the habit of doing, took his beefsteak and his leg of mutton, or his chicken, at five or six o’clock. He had no insuperable dislike to brandy and water; he could, on occasion, take his glass or two, though Palmer was not there; but he does not appear to have been in the condition, ill as he was, to have any gratification in food or drink of any kind; and Palmer was in London all the time. Then, in the middle of the night, at twelve o’clock, he was seized with a paroxysm, which Elizabeth Mills describes. We will take her description. That is the account of Cook’s illness on Monday night. It might have been a much less serious fit than the one on the Sunday night. Nothing took place which could justify any man in saying that he was mad for a minute—nothing of the kind. But let us be fair. Afterwards, in talking of it, he says, speaking to Elizabeth Mills, “Did you ever see anybody in such agony as I was last night?” We have the description of Elizabeth Mills, and his own statement afterwards; “I saw him again about seven o’clock, and he asked me whether I ever saw anybody in such agony as he was the previous night.” Not to tie the young woman down to a word, the fair inference of the whole of that statement is that for some time during the whole of that paroxysm he was in pain, and in great pain, but that he never lost his senses. He could not very well be in such a state as that which he described on the Sunday night. Now, let us have the statement of Mr. Jones, who is, we must take it, a perfectly competent man, and whose evidence must be attended to. Mr. Jones was requested to go there by Palmer, Palmer having written to him on the Sunday. He was not able to go then, being himself indisposed, and he could not get there till Tuesday. He went there on the Tuesday, and got there by three o’clock, and he was for some time with Cook alone.
Serjeant Shee
Now, just observe the consequence of that, looking at the circumstances of this case. Mr. Jones was the most intimate friend, as far as we can judge, that Cook had. Probably he was. He had a great regard for Mr. Stevens, who had been the husband of Cook’s mother, but he was not so intimate with Mr. Stevens. Mr. Stevens was probably a gentleman who did not approve—in fact, he frankly told us he disapproved—of the course Cook was pursuing. Probably he was more austere to him during life than we should imagine from the way he speaks of him after death. His best friend seems to have been Mr. Jones. No doubt Mr. Jones, though he was a respectable man, did not take on himself to rebuke or reprove Cook for what he might think it not correct to do. He lived in his house at Lutterworth, and appears to have been on such good terms with Cook that Palmer knew it would not be disagreeable to Cook if Mr. Jones would come and stay and sleep in the same bedroom, and so long as he required the attendance of a friend; and, as far as we can understand, Mr. Jones has Cook to himself from three to seven o’clock. He has him to himself for some considerable time. You know part of the suggestion in this case for the Crown is that Cook thought that Palmer had played false with him at Shrewsbury; part of the suggestion in this case is that Cook thought at Shrewsbury Palmer laid a plan for circumventing him, and of getting his money. Mr. Jones had the opportunity, during the afternoon, if Cook had wished it, of being the recipient of the whole confidence of Cook; Cook might have said to Mr. Jones, “I am glad you have come; I have been acting the fool with Palmer; I suspect him; I think he means to get my money.”
TheAttorney-General—You must not say that. You would not let me ask him any questions about it.
Mr.Serjeant Shee—I do not say that it did pass. I use it in this way, it might have passed, and that it did not is clear, because Mr. Jones entertained no suspicion of the kind; he having been with Cook during the whole of the evening shows that it did not pass, and that nothing occurred in the entire and unbounded confidence which may be supposed to have existed between Cook and Mr. Jones to raise a suspicion in the mind of Mr. Jones; and so much was that the case that, at the consultation which took place between seven and eight o’clock on Tuesday evening, between Mr. Jones and Palmer and Mr. Bamford, as to what the medicine ought to be, the fit of the Monday night was never mentioned; it was not alluded to at all.
Serjeant Shee
Gentlemen, that is a very remarkable fact; it is remarkable in two ways; the Crown might say it is remarkable in this sense, that Palmer knew it, and said not a word about it. But it seems it was a matter, in the opinion of Cook, so little serious, that he never said a word of it to Mr. Jones, because,if Cook had thought that those words which he used to Elizabeth Mills were not an exaggerated description of what had occurred, do you not think, when Mr. Jones came to see him, and felt his pulse, and inquired what his symptoms were, that Cook would have said (he being in full possession of his senses), “You cannot judge now from my appearance how I am—I was in a state of madness last night—I was in the greatest possible agony—I do not know what it was—I was attacked in the middle of the night in such a way that I thought I was going to die”? As he had Mr. Jones with him, would he not have mentioned that in the conversation? My inference from that is, that in all probability this first statement of Elizabeth Mills was the correct statement of what occurred; and if we find it is consistent with what Mr. Jones says as to what occurred the next night in its general character, it would be very nearly the same on both nights. We may reasonably infer that anything in excess of that, on which the medical evidence was given, has been the result of imagination, and not so strictly consistent with the truth as the original statement. Let us see what Mr. Jones says. (The learned Serjeant read a portion of the deposition of Mr. Jones before the coroner.) Observe the significance of that. Palmer, in the presence of Mr. Jones, brings up two pills, which it is supposed were the pills that poisoned him—pills containing a substance which sometimes does its work in a quarter of an hour, which has done it in less, but never hardly exceeds half an hour; and so we are to be asked to believe that Palmer, Jones being present, and Cook in his presence objecting to take the pills, positively forced them down his throat, at the imminent peril of his falling down, like the rabbit, in two or three minutes afterwards in convulsions evidently and manifestly tetanic. He states what did take place. (The learned Serjeant read a further portion of Mr. Jones’ deposition.) But, as I am reminded by one of my lords, that in the course of the examination of Mr. Jones the word “tetanus” is used, it is right I should say a word on that, lest I should forget it. The word “tetanus” is not in the deposition, and it is very remarkable that the suggestion which has been put forward by the Crown was the suggestion of Dr. Taylor. I do not think it is impossible that Mr. Jones, when he gave that evidence, had in his mind’s eye what he had seen that night and not seen very correctly. He had not light enough to see the patient’s face. There was only one candle, and he could not tell whether there was any change in his countenance on the Tuesday—a very important symptom. They say it cannot have been tetanic, because there is a peculiar expression in the face—a fact which nobody observed. It was too dark, in this case of Cook’s, to takenotice. Mr. Jones gave his evidence, and he is a competent professional man, and it is quite clear that the notion of tetanus, tetanic, tetaniform, or something like tetanus, must have entered into his mind, because the clerk has put down “tetinus”; he probably had not heard of the word before, and the probability is something like it was used. He said he did use it, and afterwards it was struck out, and Mr. Jones corrected his deposition, read it all over, and signed it, and left it with the word struck out. There are strong symptoms of “compression,” that is, one word struck out; then afterwards there is the word “tetinus,” and then those two words are struck out, with Mr. Jones’ entire approbation, because otherwise he would have corrected it when he signed it; and he said he read it over, and the words “violent convulsions” were substituted. What is the fair inference from that?—that the man who saw Cook in the paroxysm did not think himself justified in saying it was tetanus. It might be very like; it might have a tetaniform appearance; but it was not tetanus.
Gentlemen, I will call your attention to the features of general convulsions. I cross-examined several of the medical witnesses for the purpose of inducing what I consider to be a true belief as to this case, that the convulsions in which Cook died were not tetanus or tetanic properly speaking; but that they were convulsions of that strong and violent character which are tetaniform, though not classed under idiopathic or traumatic tetanus, but under the head of general convulsions.
Serjeant Shee
Gentlemen, I now propose to read a description of general convulsions from the work of Dr. Copland. I called the attention of the very learned gentlemen who were examined for the Crown to what was laid down in that work, which is admitted to be one of authority, and I cannot conceive how you, to whom this matter of fact is to be submitted, can form an opinion whether or not my theory, or rather my belief, that he died by the visitation of God, in violent general convulsions, be a probable one, unless you hear from what was not written for the purposes of this case what the features of general convulsions are; so, if you please, I will read to you what I have myself copied from the work of Dr. Copland. This, I may say, as I am upon the point, that the only persons in the profession who can be supposed to have any competent or reliable information on the subject of tetanus, not traumatic, are physicians; and not one physician—properly so speaking—not one of that most honourable body of men who see the sudden attacks of patients in their beds, and not in hospitals, has been called to speak to this. Dr. Todd was called, and Dr. Todd gave his evidence in a way to commandthe respect of everybody; but Dr. Todd is a gentleman whose practice does not appear to have been so much that of a physician as that of a surgeon; he is physician to the King’s College Hospital, and has held that office about twenty years; he has lectured on diseases of the nervous system and tetanus, but he does not appear to have been a physician in general practice.
Serjeant Shee
Gentlemen, I am instructed—I shall be able to show—by eminent men that what I am about to read from Dr. Copland’s book, as part of my speech, is a true description of convulsions that are not idiopathic or traumatic, but of a general kind. He first gives the definition of “general convulsions,” which he says are “violent and involuntary contractions of a part or of the whole of the body, sometimes with rigidity and tension (tonic convulsions), but more frequently with tumultuous agitations, consisting of alternating shocks (clonic convulsions), that come on suddenly, either in recurring or in distinct paroxysms, and after irregular and uncertain intervals.” We will see what he says about it—“If we take the character of the spasm in respect of permanency, rigidity, relaxation, and recurrence as a basis of arrangement of all the diseases by abnormal action of involuntary muscles, we shall have every grade, passing imperceptibly from the most acute form of tetanus through cramp, epilepsy, eclompsia, convulsions, &c., down to the most atonic states of chorea and tremor. Also if we consider the affections called convulsions, and which are usually irregular in their forms, with reference to the character of the abnormal contraction of the muscles, we shall see it in some cases of the most violent and spastic nature, frequently of some continuance, the relaxations being of brief duration, or scarcely observable, and in others nearly or altogether approaching to tetanic. These constitute the more tonic form of convulsions, from which there is every possible grade, down to the atonic or most clonic observed in chorea or tremor. The premonitory signs of general convulsions are,inter alia, vertigo and dizziness, irritability of temper, flushings or alternate flushing and paleness of the face, nausea, retching or vomiting, or pain and distension of the stomach or left hypochondrium, unusual flatulence of the stomach and bowels, and other dyspeptic symptoms. In many instances the general sensibility and consciousness are but very slightly impaired, particularly in the more simple cases, and when the proximate cause is not seated in the encephalon; but in proportion as this part is affected primarily or consecutively, and the neck and face tumid and livid, the cerebral functions are obscured, and the convulsions attended by stupor, delirium, &c., or pass into or are followed by these states. The paroxysm may cease in a few moments, or minutes, or continuefor some or even many hours. It generally subsides rapidly, the patient experiencing at its termination fatigue, headache, or stupor, but he is usually restored in a short time to the same state as before the seizure, which is liable to recur in a person once affected, but at uncertain intervals. After repeated attacks the fit sometimes becomes periodic (the convulsio recurrens of authors). The most common causes are,inter alia, all emotions of the mind which excite the nervous power and determine the blood to the head, as joy, anger, religious enthusiasm, excessive desire, &c., or those which greatly depress the nervous influence, as well as diminish and derange the actions of the heart, as fear, terror, anxiety, sadness, distressing intelligence, frightful dreams, &c., the syphilitic poison and repulsion of gout or rheumatism.”
Serjeant Shee
Now, do you believe that if Dr. Taylor had read that before he went to the inquest he would have dared to say that this man died of strychnia poison? Is there one single symptom in the statement made in the depositions of Elizabeth Mills and Mr. Jones which may not be classed under one of the varieties of the degrees of convulsions which Dr. Copland describes? Now, it is not for me to suggest a theory, but the gentlemen whom I shall call before you, men of the highest eminence in their profession, not mere surgeons of hospitals who never see anything hardly except it is of that nature, that is, of the traumatic kind—gentlemen, do not suppose that I should be capable of speaking disrespectfully of Sir Benjamin Brodie, or of any of the gentlemen called except in terms of the highest respect; but they are surgeons of hospitals, and obtain a certain experience as to those misfortunes under which, through violence, the human frame suffers; who have not so much opportunity of witnessing and of knowing the symptoms of the class of convulsions which constantly attack people in their own residences in the dead of the night—those convulsions which heads of families and brothers and sisters are most anxious to conceal from anybody but the medical man—those convulsions, the known existence of which deprives a young woman of the hope, or a young man of the hope, of marriage. It is the men who have that sort of experience—the general practitioners—men who enjoy the entire confidence of numerous families, and have the opportunity of visiting, in the way of their profession, the poor at their lowly dwellings, suffering under sudden convulsions when affected by serious disease—those are the men that we want to tell us about convulsions. Do not let me mislead you for a moment—the evidence I have read to you is not the whole of the evidence of Elizabeth Mills. There is her evidence, differing in some material particulars from the evidence given by her before the coroner. As to Mr. Jones, the evidence does not so much differ, though theremay be some particulars in which there is a difference—and there is one remarkable one. He said in his depositions, “The body was resting on its head and its heels”; but in his evidence he says, “It was so bent that if it had been turned on its back, it would, or might, have rested on its head and its heels”—that is, if it did not rest on the back; but he in substance says it did. Mr. Bamford says he found it resting on its head, its back, and its heels, thereby excluding the supposition that a part of the body was not supported by the back. However, before I go to that, perhaps you will permit me to call your attention to the symptoms of traumatic disease. My belief is, and I submit it to you, and it is what I shall hope you will confirm by your verdict, that this complaint was not strychnia tetanus at all, but it was, according to this description—the description to which I will call your attention—it may well have been some form of traumatic tetanus or idiopathic tetanus—there being no broad general distinction or certain confine between idiopathic or self-generating tetanus, or tetanus not arising from any extreme hurt or any violence to the interior part of the system; and many forms of convulsions, that is tetaniform, are pretty much the same as idiopathic tetanus, and we have had numbers of medical gentlemen who have told us they never saw a case of idiopathic tetanus. The answer to that is, you have had very limited experience. They are not very frequent; but there are gentlemen here who have seen cases of idiopathic tetanus, and they are not of such unfrequent occurrence by any means. There is one gentleman who is here, and whom I will call before you—a gentleman who attended at the bedside of the lady at Leeds who was suffering under strychnia, who has himself seen four cases of idiopathic tetanus; and there are other gentlemen here who have seen them also—they are not so rare, but they very rarely fall under the notice of surgeons of hospitals; they are not so frequent as traumatic tetanus. Cases of traumatic tetanus do frequently supervene from the operations of the surgeons themselves; sometimes after operations, however skilfully performed, a lockjaw is the consequence. The persons to give you information on the subject are the general practitioners.
Serjeant Shee
Now, we shall see that none of those symptoms which were spoken to on the day of the inquest by Elizabeth Mills and Mr. Jones may not range under one of these forms of tetanus, the idiopathic or traumatic. The idiopathic mingling in all directions with general violent convulsions is not to be distinguished from them, inasmuch as convulsions have constant tetaniform appearances; and the meaning I take it of that is this, it is true, as Dr. Watson says in a passage which I called to the attention of one of their witnesses—it is true that in fourcases out of five traumatic tetanus begins with a seizure of the lower jaw, unless, as Sir Benjamin Brodie tells us, it may begin, as it did in two cases which he attended many years ago, in the limbs. He told us so when he was here; it began there before it attacked the jaw; but generally trismus or lockjaw is the first symptom. But there is a fifth case in which it is not, and Mr. Curling told us that that was about the proportion—four out of five; so that even traumatic, or that kind of tetanus which sets in after a wound, does not always begin with some affection of the jaw or neck. Now, gentlemen, having gone so far, and having endeavoured to satisfy you that the symptoms which were spoken to by those two witnesses on the depositions may be the symptoms, as I think—that is to say, as I am told, having no experience of my own in the matter—that these symptoms are rather referable to that violent description of general convulsions than to any form of tetanus, let us go to the question, whether or not the symptoms are consistent with what we know of tetanus produced by strychnia, because if we are satisfied on a full inquiry that they are not consistent with the symptoms unquestionably produced by strychnia tetanus, then the hypothesis of the Crown entirely fails, and John Parsons Cook cannot have died of strychnia poison.
Now, gentlemen, whether that be so or not will depend in a great degree, as it strikes me—but, of course, it is entirely for you—on what you think of the evidence of Elizabeth Mills; but before I go to the evidence of Elizabeth Mills I will call your attention to what the description of strychnia tetanus is, as given us by two very eminent gentlemen who were called the other day for the Crown—Dr. Taylor and Dr. Christison; and if we find on looking at it that that description of the poison of strychnia tetanus, given by them, is a different thing from the picture first given of the complaint, of the paroxysms of John Parsons Cook by Elizabeth Mills and Mr. Jones, I think it would be rather too bad on their mere opinion to say that this is strychnia tetanus. Let us take Dr. Taylor’s description of strychnia tetanus—I am not sure whether Dr. Taylor stated he had ever seen strychnia tetanus in the human subject; however, we must be just to Dr. Taylor. Dr. Taylor has had an extensive reading upon the subjects upon which he writes, and it is not to be supposed that Dr. Taylor would hastily set down in his book what he did not find established on high authority; therefore, though having it at second hand, Dr. Taylor knows something upon the subject.
Serjeant Shee
Now, Dr. Taylor, in his work on strychnia poison, has this under the head of strychnia, “that from five to twenty minutes after the poison has been swallowed the patient is suddenly seized with tetanic symptoms, affecting the whole of themuscular system; the body becomes rigid, the limbs stretched out, and the jaws so fixed that considerable difficulty is experienced in introducing anything into the mouth.” On both the depositions and the other evidence it is stated that Mr. Cook was sitting up in bed, beating the bed-clothes, frequently telling the people about him to go for Palmer, asking for the remedy, and willing to take whatever was given him; there was no considerable difficulty in introducing anything into the mouth, and the paroxysms, instead of beginning within from five to twenty minutes after the poison was supposed to have been swallowed, did not begin for an hour and a half afterwards. Dr. Taylor further on states, “After several such attacks, increasing in severity, the patient dies asphyxiated.” That there were some of these symptoms in this case there can be no doubt, and there will be some of them in every case of violent convulsions, yet it is not the description of such a case as that of John Parsons Cook. Now, let us see what Dr. Christison says—“The symptoms produced by strychnia are very uncommon and striking—the animal begins to tremble, and is seized with stiffness and starting of the limbs. Those symptoms increase till at length the animal is attacked by general spasms.” Is that the description of either of these paroxysms? Who can say with any degree of truth that it is? Just observe these last indications of strychnia tetanus, which are consistent with all the cases stated in their books. It is only justice to those gentlemen who have taken pains to look to the authorities to which they refer to say that the statements which they give of their cases are in the main correct, but not in all their details. The books would be five times their size if they were; but they are in the main correct, when we look to the foreign authorities on which they are founded—“The fit is then succeeded by an interval of calm, during which the senses are impaired or are unnaturally acute; but another paroxysm soon sets in, and then another and another, until at last a fit occurs more violent than any that had preceded it, and the animal perishes suffocated.” I know exactly what Dr. Christison means by this, because there is a gentleman here who will state an experiment which I saw myself; it was an experiment, and for the purpose of this case, and to assist me; and I disagree with Dr. Taylor that there can be a moment’s hesitation in sacrificing ten or twenty dogs for the purpose of ascertaining the truth of this theory when a man’s life is involved. These experiments were performed by Dr. Letheby while I was there. I will state them to you, because he will prove it by and by. A dog had some strychnia put in his mouth, one grain, and then for about—I cannot be sure as to the time exactly, but about twenty or twenty-five minutes—I cannot be sure, it might not be so much—the dog was perfectly well. There were two rabbits on the table which were also about to be subjected to the operation, and the dog, when the chain was sufficiently relaxed to enable him to do so, showed all the indications which a dog naturally does to get at the rabbits; he was pulling at his chain, and was smelling and pawing and taking an interest in the rabbits; suddenly it fell down on its side, and its legs were stretched out in a most violent way. It panted, and then it remained for some time—two or three minutes—quiet, occasionally a little jerking, but generally quiet. It recovered again for a time, got up and looked at the rabbits, but was dizzy, seemed afraid to move; and, if you touched it, shuddered and twitched, to use Miss Elizabeth Mills’ description; seemed to be afraid, and after another moment down it went again. It got up again, and down it went again, and at last it had a tremendous struggle, and it died. That is what Dr. Christison means by this description; it would be true if the dose had been a strong one. If the dose had not been sufficient to kill the dog it would probably be a longer time—at least, I suppose so—in producing its effect, and the interval between the paroxysms, as stated by Dr. Taylor and Dr. Christison, would get longer and longer, until at last the animal would recover. If the dose is strong enough to kill, the interval between the paroxysms is shorter, till at last the violent one comes which destroys life; the eyes are fixed, and there it lies, and just before its death—and I thought it was dead, but I was told immediately before its death—just before it dies, the limbs become as supple and as free as it is possible to conceive the limbs of an animal to be; whichever way you placed them after the animal is quite dead, if you place them in any form, the rigor-mortis comes on, and they remain in the position in which you place them. Dr. Christison says they assume rigidity. I saw this operation performed, and also on the two rabbits, and their symptoms were substantially the same, and their limbs in both cases were quite as flaccid immediately on death. The animals during the time of the intervals between the paroxysms were exceedingly touchy, and seemed afraid of being touched at all; if you were to touch them they would shrink away. It was more so in the dog; it was, in fact, a sort of shudder—that is what Dr. Christison means.
Serjeant Shee
Now, gentlemen, without going through the whole of these details, I will state to you my reasons for saying, on the authorities and from my study of the books of those two gentlemen, that, according to their principles, this cannot have been strychnia poison. Now, I object to the theory of its being strychnia poison, first, on this ground, that no case can be found in the books in which the patient while the paroxysmlasted has had so much command over the muscles of animal life and voluntary motion as Mr. Cook had on the Monday and Tuesday nights. You heard that Mr. Cook was sitting up in his bed, that Mr. Cook was beating the bed-clothes, that Mr. Cook was talking and crying out for Palmer, and to have the remedy given to him; that Mr. Cook, so far from being afraid of people touching him, asked to have his neck rubbed, and it was rubbed. There is not a single instance in the books of Dr. Taylor, or in the books of Dr. Christison, or any other books of any medical man describing the symptoms of the strychnia poison, in which the well-known symptoms the malasaux took place—not one, and it is inconsistent with their description, and what I tell you will be the proof Dr. Letheby will give of the experiment that I saw, and of many others he had performed.
Serjeant Shee
I will go to the next point on the ground of which I say this is not strychnia poison. I say there is no authentic case of tetanus by strychnia in which the paroxysms were delayed so long after ingestion of the poison as in this case. I will refer, however, to their own statements, knowing that they are here. (Extract from Dr. Taylor’s book read.) There was one case to which his attention was called; it was not a fatal one, but it got better, and still he says the symptoms were those which he described, and thought it was too late to get the poison out of the stomach, as in half an hour it had got into the circulation—what can be more clear? it is a broad, distinguishing feature in the strychnia. The interval which took place between the ingestion of the poison in Mr. Cook’s case and the time when the paroxysm commenced was much too long, three times too long, to indicate the effect of poison by strychnia. It cannot be pretended it was a similar case, if the symptoms are properly described, as I will presently call your attention to them, by Elizabeth Mills in her statement in this Court. Now, gentlemen, thirdly, I submit, and I will prove, that there is no case in which recovery from a paroxysm of strychnia poison has been so rapid as in Cook’s case on Monday night, or in which a patient has enjoyed so long an interval of repose or exemption from its symptoms after they had once set in. It is a very remarkable feature, if it be true—if I am right in saying that there is no case in which recovery has been so rapid as in Mr. Cook’s case on Monday night, followed by so long an interval of relief from the paroxysm. In fact, in the case of Mr. Cook’s, on the theory of the Crown, it would not have come on again if a second dose had not been given. There was an end of it when Elizabeth Mills left Palmer sleeping by the side of his friend in the arm-chair. How easy it would have been for him then, if he had been disposed, when Elizabeth Mills had gone to bedand had retired to her room, to have called out to her that Mr. Cook was in another fit, and to have killed him, almost without suspicion on the part of anybody. Dr. Christison tells us in general terms that these convulsions are succeeded by intervals of calm, during which the senses are unnaturally and unusually acute; another fit then begins, it subsides, and is succeeded by another and another, till at length a fit takes place more violent than any before it, and the animal dies suffocated. Here, I submit to you, is a distinction between the case of Mr. Cook and that which these gentlemen state to be the distinguishing feature, in that there is no recurrence.
Now, I will come to another feature of the disease, the post-mortem symptoms of the disease. I saw three animals killed, of which I have spoken to you, and Dr. Letheby was good enough to have dug up from his garden a rabbit which had been killed by strychnia, and to open it before me, to examine the heart, and the heart was full; the heart of the dog was quite full, and the hearts of the two rabbits which I saw killed were quite full—as full as they could possibly be. I am told that the result of an enormous proportion of such examinations has been, and, if properly conducted, of all of them, that the heart is full on the right side invariably. We will prove to you that the heart of the animal which was killed by strychnia poison is invariably full, and it stands to reason it would be so.
Serjeant Shee
Now, I have discussed what may be said for this purpose to be the theory of the matter, but I have not yet met the strong point which will be made for the Crown on the evidence of Elizabeth Mills. I am, on all occasions, most reluctant to attack a witness examined on his or her oath, and particularly if she be in a humble position. I am very reluctant to impute perjury to such a person. Let me point out to you what occurs to me to be the right opinion to be formed of the evidence of Elizabeth Mills. I submit to you in this case of life and death, or in any one case involving any question of real importance to liberty or to property, that that young woman’s evidence cannot and would not be regarded in the ordinary administration of justice when on material points she has stated two different stories. A jury can really hardly believe such a witness, and in criminal cases the learned judges are, without altogether rejecting the evidence and withholding it from the jury, in the habit of pointing out to the jury the discrepancies between the statements given at different times, and saying that under all the circumstances of the case it would not be safe to rely on the testimony in the last instance, if it differ from, and probably is more strongly adverse to, the party accused than the statements made when the impressionwas fresh in the witness’s mind. Now, observe that since the first time that she gave her evidence she has had the means of knowing what the case of the Crown is. She has had the means of knowing—I do not mean to say she has been tutored by the Crown—it would be a gross injustice to say so; and I know if my learned friend thought that had been done he would not have called her—or by any of the gentlemen who act for the Crown; but since she was examined at Rugeley she has had the means of knowing, by interviews she has had with different people, that the case of the Crown is, that Palmer, having first prepared the body of Cook for deadly poison by the poison of antimony, afterwards despatched him with the deadly poison of strychnia. She has learned that their case is, that there was an administration of something which did not eventually kill him, that is, antimony, but which had the effect of producing retching, and nausea, and irritation of the stomach, which is attributed, according to the hypothesis of the Crown, to the deliberate, persevering intention of the prisoner at the bar to reduce him bit by bit—making him reject everything off his stomach, so that when once the ingestion of the poison occurred he was certainly dead; that is the case. In her first evidence before the coroner she was asked whether she had tasted the broth, and she said that she had tasted the broth, and thought it very good; she did not say a single word about any ill effects that broth had produced upon her—not a single word. She has since learned it is part of the case for the Crown, or of those out of whose hands the Crown has taken this prosecution—in fact, the theory of Dr. Taylor—that all this retching and vomiting was the result of a constant dosing with antimonial poison, in order to prepare him for an utter inability to resist the fatal dose of strychnia which it was intended to give him. Accordingly, when she is examined here, fitting her evidence to the case, and probably after having been asked many times whether she had not been sick on some Sunday or another, she has persuaded herself, if she has not been persuaded—I do not wish to use the word suborned—that her sickness on some Sunday afternoon took place on the Sunday afternoon that broth was sent, and was caused by her having taken two spoonfuls of it. She did not say so in the first instance before the coroner, but that “she tasted it, and it was very good.” I ask you to consider for a moment whether it is not to the last degree improbable that a man like Palmer—a shrewd, intelligent, clever man—would expose himself to such a chance of detection as the sending of poisoned broth made at the Albion to the Talbot Arms, at the imminent risk of its finding its way to the kitchen, where, sure as fate, the cook would taste it. Can you conceive a cook not tasting broth made by anothercook, and sent over as particularly good? I submit to you it was such a risk as no man in his senses could by any possibility run. A cook is, in the nature of the thing, a taster; she tastes everything; she does not know, of course, if it be her own making, whether it is good until she tastes it; she gets the habit of tasting—and as sure as Palmer sent the broth to the Talbot Arms, and any part of it reached the kitchen, so sure, if it contained antimony, would the cook be ill. Is it credible? I submit to you, it is not credible; and when you find she did not say a word about it in the first instance, and that an ample opportunity was afforded for her so to do in the way I have described, I submit you cannot rely upon her evidence here, as it differs with her evidence before the coroner. Again, she said that on the Saturday Cook had coffee for breakfast about eight o’clock. “He ate nothing but he vomited directly he had swallowed it. Up to the time I had given him the coffee I had not seen Palmer.” When she gave that evidence she was not aware it was part of the theory of the Crown that the traces of antimony (which Dr. Taylor says might have killed him) were to be made to fit into the theory of the strychnia poison—that it was a gradual preparation, by vomiting, for strychnia. That chart of the country over which she was to travel had not been laid before her. She did not then know what at the time she came here she did know—that it was part of the case for the Crown.
Serjeant Shee
The Attorney-General opened the case in that way distinctly, that that was the theory for the Crown; “that Palmer had ordered some coffee for Cook on the Saturday morning; it was brought up by the chambermaid, Elizabeth Mills, and given to Cook by Palmer, who had an opportunity of tampering with it before giving it to Cook.” That was the statement which the Attorney-General was instructed to make. There is all the difference between her first statement, that up to the time she had given the coffee to Palmer for Cook, and that Palmer had an opportunity of tampering with it. The young woman would not go so far as that, but she went to this extent—“Palmer came over at eight o’clock—ordered a cup of coffee for Cook—I gave it to Cook—I believe Palmer was in the bedroom—I put it into Mr. Cook’s hands, but I did not see him drink it—I observed afterwards the coffee had been vomited.” The statement thus made by her before you was not so strong as that of the Attorney-General, but, on the other hand, it was a great deal stronger than the statement she made before the coroner, because, according to her story then, Palmer had not an opportunity of dealing with it—she “did not see Palmer up to the time she had given him the coffee.” From the statement which she made here youmight suppose that Palmer, if he had chosen, might have got the coffee from Cook—but that is in the last degree improbable—and have done what he wanted to do with it; for she says, “Palmer came over at eight o’clock and ordered a cup of coffee, and that when it was made she took the coffee up into the bedroom and gave it into Cook’s hands” (she believed Palmer was there), “but she did not see him drink it, and afterwards she observed the coffee had been vomited.” These two statements, the one before the coroner and the other before you, are essentially different, and the difference between them consists in this, that the last one supports the theory now set up on the part of the Crown, while the first one is totally inconsistent with it. Can you rely on a woman who has altered her testimony to such an extent? But that is not all; the case for the Crown is that Cook was reluctant to take the pills which were given to him, and that he expressed a reluctance which Palmer of his own head overruled, and that Palmer knew that Cook was angry with him, or, at all events, displeased with him, for forcing him to take the pills. In the first statement of Elizabeth Mills before the coroner she said Cook said it was “the pills that made him ill, and that he had taken the pills about half-past ten.” When she came here she swore that Cook said “the pills which Palmer gave him at half-past ten made him ill”; thereby, you see, fixing the fact that Palmer gave him the pills, and fixing the time at which Palmer gave them to him, she having had an opportunity of learning that the later the pills were given the more favourable it would be to the suspicion that death had been occasioned by this poison. Before the coroner she did not say that Palmer was in Cook’s bedroom between nine and ten o’clock on the Monday night, but she did when she was here. You will see that makes him more about the bedside of Cook, having more opportunity of dealing with the pills. By these variances from her first statement she shows the animus which now, for some reason or other, actuates her. Perhaps it has been the result of the persuasion that Palmer was the murderer of Mr. Cook, as Dr. Alfred Swayne Taylor swore he is, and of her horror of so great a crime; that gives it the just, charitable construction; still, I say, she is not to be relied upon. I have mentioned the particulars in which her statements vary, but these are nothing to the important particulars to which I will now call your attention. I impeach her testimony on the ground that she adopted here a manner and a gesticulation in describing the symptoms under which Cook laboured which, if true, would have exhibited itself at the inquest, and would have at once attracted the attention of Dr. Taylor. The contortions into which she put her hands, and her neck, and her mouth, before you, could not by anypossibility have escaped the attention of Dr. Taylor. If anything like it took place there it would have been observed by him, and questions would have been put to reduce, so to speak, those gesticulations into verbal expressions, that they might be recorded in the depositions. But that is not all. I am told, and you will have an opportunity of hearing it from Mr. Nunneley, Dr. Letheby, Dr. Robinson, and other eminent medical men, that the description of the symptoms which she gave to you is inconsistent with any known disease—that they were grouped by her in a manner so extraordinary as to be quite inconsistent with strychnia tetanus.
Serjeant Shee
Let me call your attention to this part of the evidence. You are aware that in the months of February (the last week of February) and March a very frightful case of strychnia poisoning occurred at Leeds. It was a case in which a person, having constant access to the bedside of the patient, was supposed to have administered repeated small doses of strychnia so as not at once to strike her down, but gradually to destroy her; and that after having kept her in a state of irritation for a lengthened period, he at last consummated the work and killed her. That was the case. It appeared in all the newspapers. The nurse who attended the patient and the medical gentlemen spoke of symptoms which she exhibited from the 24th or 25th February to the 1st of March, and they described it in this way—She had “prickings” and “twitchings” in the legs, coming on without any violent paroxysms or spasms, and was alarmed at the thought even of being touched by anybody in the intervals of the spasms which occurred from time to time. Now, let me call your attention to the evidence before you of Elizabeth Mills. She says, “He said, ‘I cannot lie down’; his body and neck were moving and jerking; he would throw himself up, jumping and jerking all over his body all the time; he asked me to rub his hands; I noticed him to ‘twitch’ while I was rubbing his hands.” (The learned serjeant read a portion of the evidence.) Now, I submit to you that some of these expressions, particularly the twitching, are very remarkable; and it may well have been that, this case coming before the public and exciting no little degree of attention, although not to the same extent as this Rugeley case, persons who had been in the habit of going to see her and conversing with her may have been asking her questions about this case, of which she admitted she had heard, “Did you observe in Cook any such symptoms as these?” her attention being called to them in such a way as to induce her to alter the statement made by her at the inquest. You cannot, indeed, account, as I submit to you, for so remarkable a difference between the first and second statements, without supposing something of that kind. Now, is it improbablethat that did take place? From the time she left the Talbot Arms till she came here she seems to have been a person of very remarkable importance. She went to Dolly’s, and Mr. Stevens visited her six or seven times. Why did he visit here? What for? Mr. Stevens is unquestionably—and if under proper self-restraint, no one can blame him for it—very indignant at what he fears to have been the foul play of Palmer with Cook. He is not in the same condition of life as Elizabeth Mills. Why should he have gone to visit her six or seven times, conversing with her in a private room? She says, “He only came to see whether I liked the place; he called to inquire after my health.” Gardner also, his attorney, saw her once, but only asked her how she was, and they talked about other things. She said she gave the last authentic account of her evidence to a man she did not know—whom she had never seen before; and when I found out, after much questioning, that Mr. Stevens was with him, and asked her why she had not told me so, her answer was, “Because you never asked me.” That raised a laugh, and she enjoyed her triumph. All this looks like having been tutored. I put it to you that you cannot, with any degree of satisfaction, rely on the evidence of the young woman; and you will learn that the confusion and the variety of the symptoms she has put together, taking them partly from her depositions and partly from this new version, have made the case which she described not only not a case of tetanus, but not of any known disease.