Note 121 — Chapter VI · (continued 2)

As to the evidence for the defence, that L’Angelier had on one occasion threatened to throw himself out of the window at the “Rainbow” Tavern, his lordship observed, “As the witness was in bed at the time the deceased had ample opportunity to have thrown himself over, if he had been so inclined, before the witness could interfere; and the jury would consider whether, when going about the room in that excited state, he had only thrown open the window to get air. As to the other stories that he would drown himself, if jilted, they did not amount to much, as on one occasion he had been jilted, and had not drowned himself. You will consider whether all this is merely the vapouring of a loose, talkative man, fond of awakening an interest in the minds of others about himself, or whether it affords any indication that he was likely to commit suicide. As to the evidence about giving arsenic to horses in France, which would be useless unless given constantly, he did not see its importance. If he was in the habit of taking it in small quantities, he knew its qualities, and therefore this did not aid the notion that he took an immense quantity on the 22nd to destroy himself. No doubt the prisoner was not bound to prove that he poisoned himself, but it was a hazardous thing to set up a defence that L’Angelier went out that night carrying such a quantity of arsenic in his pocket, and that he swallowed it, how, when, and where, no human being could conceive.”