Note 69 — Chapter IV · (continued 4)

On this point, which was also put very strongly by Lord Campbell in his charge, the prisoner’s brother, in his letter to that judge, accuses the prosecution of cunningly keeping back a witness of the name of Cockayne, who had been examined before the coroner and whose deposition was before the Court, who would have explained the use for which the strychnia was bought. “Had he been, as he ought to have been called, he would have proved that he kept a gun loaded in the stable, by order of my brother, to shoot the dogs that worried his brood mares, and that he also threatened to poison them, and that the strychnia was purchased for that object, and that he had missed dogs since then, which had been in the habit of prowling about the pastures and hunting the mares.” He also accounts for the non-production of poisoned dogs, by the “medical fact that they go away to die in secret, concealed and quiet places, where they die undiscovered, and would be mortally attacked in so short a time that they could not get to their own home.” He further accuses them of sending this witness, and Sanders the trainer, who would have proved that Cook told him he had given Palmer all his money, out of the way, so that the prisoner’s solicitor could not call them for the defence.—Letter to Lord Campbell, pp. 17, 19. But see ante, p. 188, note.