TRIAL OF WILLIAM PALMER FOR THE RUGELEY POISONINGS. (continued 5)

Mr. Stevens was here recalled, and having examined the endorsement on the check for £375, said—This endorsement is not in the handwriting of Cook. I never saw him write his name otherwise than “J. Parsons Cook,” whereas this is written “J. P. Cook.”

Mr. Strawbridge was shown some acceptances purporting to be by Mrs. Sarah Palmer, and said that none of them were in Mrs. Palmer’s handwriting.

William Cheshire, who had been a clerk in the bank at Rugeley, in September last, proved that Palmer had an account there, and that the check already in evidence had been received by him, and carried to Palmer’s credit.

Cross-examined: I did not know Cook; he never had any transactions with us.

Mr. Pratt was then cross-examined by Mr. Serjeant Shee: Previous to May, 1855, I knew nothing at all about Cook. I then held a sum of £310 due to Palmer, and he wished me to add £190 to it, and to pay £500 to a Mr. Sargent. I declined to do that without further security. He proposed the security of Cook’s acceptances, and represented Cook to be a gentleman of respectability and substance. On his representation I agreed to accept a bill drawn by him on Cook for £200, and to make the advance. He thus got the £500. I wrote to Cook about the first transaction. I also wrote to him before his death, on the 13th of November, reminding him that £500 was due on December 2. I sent the letter to him at Lutterworth.

Re-examined: The first £200 bill was due on the 29th of June, but was not then paid. I wrote about it, and Cook came up on the 2nd of July and paid it. I did not see him.

John Armshaw, examined by Mr. Welsby: I am an attorney, practising at Rugeley. About the 13th of November I was employed to apply to Palmer for payment of a debt of about £60, due to some mercers and drapers at Rugeley. On the 19th of November I sent up to London instructions for a writ. On the next morning (the 20th), I went to Palmer’s house. He gave me two £50 notes, and said he hoped he should not be put to the cost of the writ. One was a Bank of England, the other a local note. I took them to my employer to get the receipt and change, and to settle about the costs.

John Wallbank, examined by Mr. Welsby: I am a butcher at Rugeley. On the Monday in Shrewsbury race week, Palmer’s man came to me and fetched me to Palmer’s house. Palmer said, “I want you to lend me £25.” I said, “Doctor, I’m very short of money, but I’ll try if I can get it.” He said, “Do, that’s a good fellow; I’ll give it you again on Saturday morning, as I shall then have received some money at Shrewsbury.” On the Saturday I met him in the street, went to his house with him, and he paid me the money.

Cross-examined by Mr. Serjeant Shee: Palmer had lent me money sometimes when I had asked him. His mother lived in the town, in a large house near the church. He was in the habit of going there.

John Spillbury, examined by Mr. Bodkin: I am a farmer, near Stafford, and have had dealings with Palmer. In November last he owed me £46 2s. On the 22nd of November (Thursday), I called on him and he paid me that amount. He gave me a Bank of England note for £50. I called casually. I had not applied to him for the money. That was the first transaction I had with him.

Mr. Strawbridge, examined by the Attorney-General, said: On the 19th of November Palmer had an account at the bank, and there was a balance of £9. 6s. in his favour. Nothing was paid to his account after that. The 10th of October was the last date on which anything was paid to the account. The amount then paid was £50.

Herbert Wright, examined by Mr. E. James: I am a solicitor, in partnership with my brother, at Birmingham. I have known Palmer since July, 1851. In November, 1855, he owed my brother £10,400. We had a bill of sale upon his property. [It was produced and read. It recited that Palmer was indebted to Edwin Wright in the sum of £6,500, on account of bills of exchange accepted by Sarah Palmer and endorsed by Palmer to Wright, and as security for that amount, and a further sum of £2,300, which had been advanced to him, a power of sale, subject to redemption, was given by Palmer over the whole of his property, including his horses.] All the advances were made upon bills, together with other collateral security. All the bills are here. [The bills purporting to be accepted by Palmer’s mother were produced; also an acceptance of Palmer’s for £1,600.] In the early part of November I was pressing Palmer for payment. Many of the bills were overdue. Palmer always said the money would be paid after the Cambridgeshire races at Newmarket. I put the bill of sale in force in December, after the verdict of the coroner’s jury was returned. I was present when the property was taken. I found no papers in the house.

Cross-examined by Mr. Sergeant Shee: A sheriff’s officer effected the seizure, and an auctioneer followed him.

Should you have objected to give Palmer more time for payment if you had been asked?—I hardly know; probably I should not. I was not hostile to him. I never accommodated Cook. I had offered to do so, but the transaction never assumed completion. (A laugh.)

Re-examined by the Attorney-General: These bills were discounted at 60 per cent. per annum, and would have been renewed probably at the same rate of interest.

Mr. Strawbridge proved that the acceptances produced by the last witness were not in the handwriting of Mrs. Palmer.

Cross-examined: They are a bad imitation of her hand.

The Attorney-General said that Mr. Weatherby was the only remaining witness for the prosecution, and, as he was not now in court, he hoped their Lordships would allow him to be examined in the morning, before his learned friend opened the defence.

Mr. Sergeant Shee asked the Court to permit the witness Mills to be recalled, in order that he might examine her as to where she was now residing.

The Attorney-General: She was cross-examined upon that point.

Lord Campbell: We are of opinion that there is no ground for recalling her.

Mr. Sergeant Shee asked permission to put some further questions to Dr. Devonshire with regard to his having been pushed by Palmer during the post-mortem examination.

Lord Campbell: By all means.

Mr. Justice Cresswell observed that he did not think it was a circumstance to which much importance could be attached; he had not taken a note of it.

Mr. Baron Alderson expressed a similar opinion. There was nothing extraordinary in a person who was interested in the examination being anxious to see all that was going on.

Mr. Sergeant Shee, after that intimation of their Lordships’ opinion, would not press his request.

Lord Campbell hoped that the jury would have an opportunity given them of breathing the fresh air that fine evening.

The Court adjourned at half-past 3 o’clock until 10 o’clock Wednesday morning.

SEVENTH DAY, May 21.

The court was even more crowded this morning than it has been since the commencement of the trial. By nine o’clock every available seat was occupied, and a great number of persons waited in the passages leading to the various entrances during the whole day, without being able to obtain admission. Among the distinguished persons who were present we noticed the Lord Chief Baron, the Earl of Denbigh, Lord G. Lennox, Mr. Monckton Milnes, Mr. L. Gower, Mr. G. O. Higgins, Mr. Forster, and several other members of the House of Commons.

The learned Judges, Lord Campbell, Mr. Baron Alderson, and Mr. Justice Cresswell, entered the court at about ten o’clock, accompanied by the Sheriffs, Sir R. W. Carden, and other Aldermen.

The prisoner was immediately placed at the bar. He listened with great attention to the address of his learned counsel, and maintained the same calmness and self-possession that he had exhibited since the first day of the proceedings.

Counsel for the Crown—the Attorney-General, Mr. E. James, Q. C., Mr. Welsby, Mr. Bodkin, and Mr. Huddleston; for the prisoner—Mr. Serjeant Shee, Mr. Grove. Q. C., Mr. Gray, and Mr. Kenealy.

Charles Weatherby, examined by Mr. Welsby, said: On the 21st of November I received a letter from Palmer, enclosing a cheque for £350. I produce that letter:—

“Rugeley, Nov. 20, 1855.

“Gentlemen,—I will thank you to send me a cheque for the amount of the enclosed order. Mr. Cook has been confined here to his bed for the last three days with a bilious attack, which has prevented him from being in town.

“Yours respectfully, “Wm. Palmer.”

On the morning of the 23rd I received another letter from him, which I also produce. In this letter Palmer requested Messrs. Weatherby to send a cheque for £75 to Mr. Pratt, and a cheque for £100 to Mr. Earwaker, and deduct the same from Cook’s draft. On the 23rd I sent a letter to Palmer, of which I produce a copy:—

“Nov. 23, 1855.

“Sir,—We return Mr. Cook’s cheque, not having funds enough to meet it. When Mr. Frail called to-day to settle the Shrewsbury Stake account, he informed us that he had paid Mr. Cook his winnings there. We could not comply with your request as to paying part of the money even if we had had sufficient in hand to pay you the sums you mention, which we have not. Be so good as to acknowledge the receipt of the cheque.”

On the 24th the following notice, signed by Palmer, was left at my office:—

“Nov. 24, 1855.

“Gentlemen,—I hereby request you will not part with any moneys in your hands, or which may come into your hands, on account of John Parsons Cook, to any person until payment by you to me or my order of the cheque or draft in my favour, given by the said John Parsons Cook for the sum of £350, sent to you by me, and acknowledged in your letter received by me at Rugeley on Wednesday morning, the 20th of this month of November.

“Yours, &c. “Wm. Palmer.” “Messrs. Weatherby, 6, Old Burlington-street.”

On the 23rd I sent a letter to Cook at Rugeley, which was subsequently returned to me through the dead-letter office.

Cross-examined by Mr. Serjeant Shee: The cheque for £350 was, as far as I recollect, signed by Cook.

The Attorney-General: Was it signed J. P. Cook, or J. Parsons Cook?—I did not observe.

By Lord Campbell: I observed that the body of the cheque was not in Cook’s handwriting, but that the signature was.

Mr. Serjeant Shee: When that cheque of Cook’s was presented, you had not funds in hands to meet it?—No.

Were funds afterwards sent up by Mr. Frail, the clerk of the course at Shrewsbury?—They were to have been, but were not eventually.

In the ordinary course of things, ought they to have been in your hands on the day you received the cheque?—I can’t positively say. Clerks of the course pay at different times. But Cook might reasonably have supposed that they would be in hand, as it was then a week after he had won the race. I informed Palmer, when I did not pay his cheque, of my reasons for not doing so.

Mr. F. Butler examined by the Attorney-General: I attend races, and bet. I was at Shrewsbury races, and had an account to settle with Palmer. I had to receive £700 odd from him in respect of bets made at the Liverpool races. I had no money to receive in respect of the Shrewsbury races. I endeavoured to get my money at Shrewsbury, and I got £40. I asked him for money several times, and he said he had none, but had some to receive. He did not say how much. He gave me a cheque for £250 upon the Rugeley bank, which was not paid. I know Cook’s horse Polestar. After she had won the race at Shrewsbury she was worth about £700. She was worth more after than before she won.

Cross-examined by Mr. Grove: I won £210 on Polestar for Palmer, and kept it on account.

Mr. Stevens proved that Polestar was sold at Tattersall’s on the 10th of March, by auction, and fetched 720 guineas.

The Attorney-General: That is the case for the prosecution.

THE DEFENCE. (Seventh Day Continued.)

Mr. Serjeant Shee then rose to open the defence. He said: In rising to perform the task which it now becomes my duty to discharge, I feel, gentlemen of the jury, an almost overwhelming sense of responsibility. Once only has it before fallen to my lot to defend a fellow-creature charged with a capital offence. You can well understand that to take a leading part in a trial of this kind is sufficient to disturb the calmest temper, and try the clearest judgment, even if the effort only last for one day. But how much more trying is it to stand for six long days under the shade, as it were, of the scaffold, conscious that the least error in judgment may consign my client to an ignominious death and public indignation! It is useless for me to conceal that which all your endeavours to keep your minds free from prejudice cannot wholly efface from your recollection. You perfectly well know that for six long months, under the sanction and upon the authority of science, an opinion has almost universally prevailed that the blood of John Parsons Cook has risen from the ground to bear witness against the prisoner; you know that a conviction of the guilt of the prisoner has impressed itself upon the whole population, and that by the whole population has been raised, in a delirium of horror and indignation, the cry of blood for blood. You cannot have entered upon the discharge of your duty—which, as I have well observed, you have most conscientiously endeavoured to perform—without, to a great extent, sharing in that conviction. Before you knew that you would have to sit in that box to pass judgment between the prisoner and the Crown, you might with perfect propriety, after reading the evidence taken before the coroner’s jury, have formed an opinion with regard to the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. The very circumstances under which we meet in this place are of a character to excite in me mingled feelings of encouragement and alarm. Those whose duty it is to watch over the safety of the Queen’s subjects felt so much apprehension lest the course of justice should be disturbed by the popular prejudice which had been excited against the prisoner—they were so much alarmed that an unjust verdict might, in the midst of that prejudice, be passed against him, that an extraordinary measure of precaution was taken, not only by Her Majesty’s Government, but also by the Legislature. An act of Parliament, which originated in that branch of the Legislature to which the noble and learned lord who presides here belongs, and was sanctioned by him, was passed to prevent the possibility of an injustice being done through an adherence to the ordinary forms of law in the case of William Palmer. The Crown, also, under the advice of its responsible Ministers, resolved that this prosecution should not be left in private hands, but that its own law officer, my learned friend the Attorney-General, should take upon himself the responsibility of conducting it. And my learned friend, when that duty was intrusted to him, did what I must say will for ever redound to his honour—he resolved that, in a case in which so much prejudice had been excited, all the evidence which it was intended to press against the prisoner should, as soon as he received it, be communicated to the prisoner’s counsel.

I must therefore tell my unhappy client that everything which the constituted authorities of the land—everything which the Legislature and the Law Officers of the Crown could do to secure a fair and impartial trial has been done, and if that unhappily an injustice should on either side be committed, the whole responsibility will rest upon my Lords and upon the jury. A most able man was selected by the prisoner as his counsel not many weeks ago, but, unfortunately, was prevented by illness from discharging that office. I have endeavoured, to the best of my ability, to supply his place; but I cannot deny that I labour under a deep feeling of responsibility, although the national effort, so to speak, which has been made to insure a fair trial is a great cause of encouragement to me. I am moved by the task that is before me, but I am not dismayed. I have this further cause for not being altogether overcome in discussing the mass of evidence which has been laid before you. When the papers in the case came into my hands, I had formed no opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. My mind was perfectly free to form what I trust will prove to be a right judgment upon the case, and—I say it in all sincerity—having read these papers, I commenced his defence with an entire conviction of his innocence. I believe that truer words were never pronounced than the words he uttered when he said “Not Guilty” to this charge, and if I fail in establishing his innocence to your satisfaction, I shall have very great misgivings that my failure is attributable only to my own inability to do justice to his case, and not to any weakness in the case itself. I will prove to you the sincerity with which I declare my conviction of the prisoner’s innocence by meeting the case for the prosecution foot to foot, and grappling with every difficulty which has been suggested by my learned friend. You will see that I shall avoid no point which has been raised. I will deal fairly with you, and I know that I shall have your patient attention to an address which must, I fear, unavoidably be a long one, but in which no observation will be introduced which does not necessarily and properly belong to the case.

The proposition which my learned friend undertakes to establish entirely by circumstantial evidence, may be shortly stated. It is, that the prisoner, having in the second week in November made up his mind that it was his interest to get rid of John Parsons Cook, deliberately prepared his body for the reception of a deadly poison by the slower poison of antimony, and that he afterwards despatched him by the deadly poison of strychnine. Now, no jury will convict a man of the crime thus charged unless it be made clear, in the first place, that he had some motive for its commission,—some strong reason for desiring the death of the deceased; in the second place, that the symptoms before death, and the appearances of the body after death, are consistent with the theory that he died by poison: and, in the third place, that they are inconsistent with the theory that death proceeded from natural causes. Under these three heads I shall discuss the large mass of evidence which has been laid before you; and I must, by adhering to that order, exhaust the whole subject, and leave myself no chance of evading any difficulty without immediate detection. Before, however, I proceed to grapple in these close quarters with the case for the Crown, allow me to restore to its proper place in the discussion, a fact which, although it was by no means concealed by my learned friend in that address by which he at once seized upon your judgments, appeared to me to be thrown too much into the shade—the fact, I mean, that strychnine was not found in the body of the unfortunate deceased. If he died of the poison of strychnine—if he died within a few hours, or within a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes of the administration of a strong dose—if the post-mortem examination took place within six days of the death, there is not the least reason to suppose that between the time of the injection of the poison and the paroxysms of death, there was any dilution of it, or any ejection of it by vomiting. Never, therefore, unless chemical analysis is altogether a failure in the detection of strychnine, were circumstances more favourable for its discovery. But, beyond all question, strychnine was not found. Whatever we may think of the judgment and experience of Dr. Taylor, we have no reason to doubt that he is a very skilful chemist; we have no reason to believe—in fact, we know to the contrary—that he and Dr. Rees did not do all that the science of chemical analysis could enable men to do to detect the poison. They had a distinct intimation from the executor and near relative of the deceased, that he, for some cause or another, had reason to suspect that poison had been administered. They undertook an analysis of the stomach (which, without now going into details upon that point, was not on the whole in an unfavourable condition) with a firm expectation that if it was there it would be found, and without any doubt as to the efficiency of their tests. Then, in December, they say,—

“We do not find strychnine, prussic acid, or any trace of opium. From the contents having been drained away” (not drained out of the jar, you know) “it is now impossible to say whether any strychnine had or had not been given just before death, but it is quite possible for tartar emetic to destroy life if given in repeated doses; and, so far as we can at present form an opinion, in the absence of any natural cause of death, the deceased may have died from the effects of antimony in this or some other form.”

But they afterwards attended the inquest, and having heard the evidence of Mills, of Mr. Jones, of Lutterworth, and of Roberts (who spoke to the purchase of strychnine on the morning of the death), they came to the conclusion that the pills administered to Cook on the Monday and the Tuesday night contained strychnine. Dr. Taylor came to that conclusion, notwithstanding his written opinion that Cook might have been poisoned by antimony, and notwithstanding the fact that no trace of strychnine was found in the body. I call your attention now to this circumstance in order to claim for it its proper place in the discussion. The gentlemen who have come to the conclusion that strychnine may have been in the body, although it was not found, have arrived at that conclusion from experiments of a very partial kind indeed; they contend that when strychnine has once done its fatal work and become absorbed into the system it ceases to be the thing it was when taken into the system; it becomes decomposed, its elements are separated from each other, and therefore are no longer capable of responding to the tests which would certainly detect its presence if undecomposed. That is their case. They account for its not being found, and for their belief that it destroyed Cook, by that hypothesis. Now, it is only an hypothesis. No authority for it can be drawn from experiments, and it is supported by the opinion of no eminent toxicologists but themselves. It is only fair to them, and to Dr. Taylor in particular, to say that Dr. Taylor does propound that theory in his book. It is, however, only a theory of his own; he does not support it by the authority of any distinguished toxicologist, and when we recollect that his knowledge of the matter—good, humane man!—consists in having poisoned five rabbits twenty-five years ago, and five others since this question was raised, it cannot have much weight. But I will call before you a number of gentlemen of high eminence in their profession as analytical chemists, who will state their utter renunciation of that theory. I will call Dr. Nunneley, a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and a professor of chemistry, who attended the case at Leeds, which has been described to you, and Dr. Williams, professor of materia medica at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, for eighteen years surgeon to the City of Dublin Hospital. Dr. Letheby, one of the ablest and most distinguished men of science in this great city, professor of chemistry and toxicology in the Medical College of the London Hospital, and medical officer of the City of London, will tell you that he rejects the theory as a heresy unworthy the belief of scientific men. Dr. Nicholas Parker, of the College of Physicians of London, and professor of medicine, Dr. Robinson, of the College of Physicians, and Mr. Rogers, professor of chemistry, concur with Dr. Letheby.

Lastly, I will call Mr. William Herapath, of Bristol, probably the most eminent chemical analyst in this country, who also utterly rejects the theory. All of those gentlemen contend that if not only half a grain of strychnine, but even 1-50th part or less has once entered into the human frame, it can and must be discovered by the tests known to chymists. They will tell you this, not as the result of a few experiments, for ever regretted, upon five rabbits, but from a large experience as to the operation of the poison upon the inferior animals, created, as you know, for the benefit of mankind, and many of them from their experience as to its effects upon the human system. I will satisfy you from their evidence, that if you admit the correctness of the tests which were used, the only safe conclusion at which you can arrive is that strychnine not having been found in the body, it could never have been there. They all agree, too, that no degree of putrefaction or fermentation in the human system could so decompose strychnine that it should no longer possess those qualities which cause it, in its undecomposed state to respond to chemical tests. I will now apply myself to a question which in my judgment is of equal, if not greater, importance—the question whether, in the second week of November, 1855, the prisoner had a motive for the commission of this murder—a strong reason for desiring that Cook should die. I never will believe that unless it were made clear that it was his interest to destroy Cook, you would come to the conclusion that he had committed such a crime. It seems to me abundantly clear upon the evidence that not only was it not the interest of Palmer that Cook should die, but that the death of Cook was the very worst calamity that could befall him, and that he could not possibly be ignorant that it would be followed by his own ruin. That it was followed by his immediate ruin we know. We know that at the time when it is said he commenced to plot Cook’s death he was in a condition of the greatest embarrassment—an embarrassment which in its extreme intensity had come upon him but recently—an embarrassment, too, in some degree mitigated by the circumstance that the acceptances he is said to have forged were those of his mother—a lady of large fortune living in the town. My learned friend’s hypothesis is, that not until he was in a state of the greatest embarrassment did he wish to destroy Cook. My learned friend stated to you “That, being in desperate circumstances, with ruin, disgrace, and punishment staring him in the face, which could only be averted by means of money, he took advantage of his intimacy with Cook, when Cook had become the winner of a considerable sum, to destroy him, in order to obtain possession of his money.” Let us test this theory. Let us relieve our minds for a moment from the anxiety we must always feel when the life of a fellow-creature is at stake, and, looking at it as a mere matter of business, let us ask ourselves whether in the second week of November Palmer had any motive to commit this crime.

When a long correspondence is read to a jury, who are without the same means of testing its importance as the judge or the counsel, they frequently do not attach that weight to it which it deserves. But I watched the correspondence which was read to you yesterday with an anxiety which no words can express, because I firmly believed that in it the innocence of the prisoner lay concealed; that it proved not only that the prisoner had no motive to kill Cook, but that Cook’s death was ruin to him. Allow me to call your attention to the relation in which these men stood to each other. They had been intimate as racing friends for two or three years; they had had many transactions together; they were jointly interested in at least one racehorse, Pyrrhine; they generally stayed at the same hotels; they were seen together upon almost all the race courses in the kingdom; they were known to be connected in adventures upon the same horses at the same races; and although, Cook being dead, the mouth of the prisoner being sealed, and transactions of this kind not being recorded in regular books, it is impossible to give you positive evidence as to their relations to one another, it is abundantly clear that they were very closely connected. In August, 1855, money was wanted either by Cook or Palmer, and Palmer applied to Pratt for it. He seems to have wanted £200, to make up a larger sum, having already £190 in Pratt’s hands; and he offered as security for the advance his friend Mr. Cook, whom he described as a gentleman of respectability and substance. We do not know the exact state of Cook’s affairs at that time. Such a fortune as he had might have been thrown down in a week with the life he was leading; but a young man who is reckless as to the mode in which he employs his money and has only £13,000 may for a year or two pass before the world for a man of considerable means. It is not every one who will go to Doctors’ Commons to ascertain the precise amount of the property he has inherited. Mr. Cook, of Lutterworth, kept his racehorses, lived expensively, was known to have inherited a fortune, and was altogether a person whose friendship was of considerable importance to a man like Palmer. Recollect that I am not now defending Palmer against the crime of forgery, nor am I defending him against the imputation of reckless improvidence in obtaining money at an enormous discount. But as early as May, 1855, Palmer and Cook were thus circumstanced. What was their position in November?

The evidence of Pratt, and the correspondence which he proved, can leave no doubt on our minds upon that subject. Among a mass of bills, amounting altogether to £11,500, there were two, of £2,000 each, due the last week in October, two others, amounting to £1,500, having become due some time before, but being held over from month to month upon payment by Palmer, who was liable for them, of what was called interest at the rate of 60 per cent. These three sums—£2,000, £2,000, and £1,500—were the embarrassments which were pressing upon him in the second week in November, and, be it observed, they were pressed upon him by a man who, although he would, doubtless, have been glad to get his principal, would also, upon anything like security, have been very well pleased to continue to receive interest. How can capital, if well secured, be better employed than in returning 40 or 60 per cent.? In this state of things Palmer, in answer to an urgent demand for money, came up to town on the 27th of October. Pratt then insisted that if Palmer could not pay one of the £2,000 bills which had just become due he should pay instalments, in addition to the enormous interest charged upon it, and it was agreed that £250 should be paid down, £250 upon the 31st of October, and a further sum of £300 as soon afterwards as possible, making a total payment on account of that bill of £800, to “quiet” Pratt or his client, and to induce him to let the bill stand over. On the ninth of November the £300 was paid, and then a letter was written, to which I beg your particular attention. On the thirteenth of November, the day that Polestar won the race, Pratt wrote to Palmer that the case (“Palmer v. the Prince of Wales Insurance Company”) had been laid before Sir F. Kelly, that in the opinion of several secretaries of insurance offices the company had not a leg to stand upon, and that the mere fact of the enormous premium would go a great way to get a verdict. The letter concluded—“I count most positively on seeing you on Saturday. Do, for both our sakes, try and make up the amount to £1,000, for without it I shall be unable to renew the £1,500 due on the ninth.” Pratt had threatened to issue a writ against Palmer’s mother. Palmer had almost gone upon his knees to beg him not to do so, and this letter really meant, “Unless you give me £200 more and make up £1,000, a writ shall be served upon your mother.” That letter is written on the thirteenth of November. Palmer gets it at Rugeley, whither he had gone from the racecourse on the day that Polestar won. What does he do? He instantly returns to Shrewsbury, gets there on Wednesday, sees Cook. They say he doses him. We will see how probable that is presently. Cook goes to bed in a state I will not describe, gets up next morning much more sensible than he went to bed, goes upon the racecourse, returns with Palmer to Rugeley on the Thursday, goes to bed, gets up next morning still uncomfortable, but able to go and dine with Palmer on that day (Friday). On that day, the sixteenth of November, Palmer writes to Pratt—

“I am obliged to come to Tattersall’s on Monday to the settling, so that I shall not call and see you before Monday, but a friend of mine will call and leave you £200 to-morrow, and I will give you the remainder on Monday.”

The person who ordinarily settled Cook’s accounts was a person named Fisher, a wine-merchant in Shoe-lane, who was called first in this case; and on that very day (the day on which Cook dined with Palmer), Cook writes to him:—

“It is of great importance, both to Mr. Palmer and myself, that a sum of £500 should be paid to a Mr. Pratt, of 5, Queen-street, May-fair, to-morrow, without fail. £300 has been sent up to-night, and, if you will be kind enough to pay the other £200 to-morrow, on the receipt of this, you will greatly oblige me, and I will give it to you on Monday at Tattersall’s.”

There is a postscript, which I will read, but upon which I will at present make no observation—“I am much better.” What is the fair inference from these letters? I submit that the inference is, that at that date Cook was making himself very useful to Palmer. Pratt was pressing for an additional sum of £200. Palmer communicated his difficulty to Cook, who at once wrote to his agent to pay the £200. More than this,—the £300 referred to in the letter as having been paid “to-night” [The Attorney-General.—“The other day”] means one of these things—it either means the £300 which had been sent up on the 9th of November (and if it did, then Cook knew all about it—probably had an interest in Palmer’s transactions with Pratt); or it was a false representation, put forward merely for the purpose of putting a good face upon the matter to Fisher; or it means that on that day £300 had somehow or other come to their hands, and had been by Cook made applicable to the convenience of Palmer. Whichever way you take it it proves to demonstration that Palmer and Cook were playing into each other’s hands with respect to that heavy encumbrance upon Palmer, and that Palmer could rely upon Cook as his fast friend in any such difficulties. Although, when we take the sum total of £11,500, his difficulties sound large, yet the difficulty of the day was nothing like that, because, in the reckless spendthrift way in which they were living, putting on bills from month to month, and paying an enormous interest per annum, the actual outlay upon the day of putting on was not considerable. I submit that this letter shows that on the day on which it is said that Palmer was poisoning Cook, the 16th of November, Cook was acting towards him in a most friendly manner, was acquainted with his circumstances, and willing to relieve his embarrassments, and actually did devote a portion of his earnings to Palmer’s purposes. I will, however, make this plainer. Part of the case of my learned friend is that Palmer, leaving Cook ill in bed at Rugeley, ran up to town on the Monday, and intending to despatch Cook that night, obtained possession of his Shrewsbury winnings by telling Herring, who was not Cook’s usual agent, that he was authorized by Cook to settle his Shrewsbury transactions at Tattersall’s. On the Monday, as on the Tuesday, Cook, though generally indisposed, was during the greater part of the day quite well. He got up and saw his trainer and two jockeys. The theory of the case for the prosecution is that he was quite well, because Palmer was not there to dose him. You will see how grossly and contemptibly absurd that is presently. Being well on Monday and Tuesday, do not you think that, had not Cook known that Palmer did not intend to go to his regular agent, Fisher, he would have been very much surprised that he on Tuesday morning received no letter from that gentleman, informing him of the settlement of his transactions? And could Palmer, as a man of business, have relied upon an absence of such surprise and alarm on the part of Cook?

We have the evidence of Fisher, that he, at Cook’s request, contained in the letter of the 17th November, advanced the £200, which he would, had he settled Cook’s affairs, have been entitled to deduct from the money he would have received at Tattersall’s on the Monday. He did not settle those affairs, and the money has never been paid. That explains the whole transaction. Cook and Palmer understood each other perfectly well. It was the interest of both of them that Palmer should be relieved from the pressure of Pratt. Accordingly, Cook said, “This settlement shall not go through Fisher’s hands. We have got him to pay the £200 to Pratt, but it shall not be repaid to him on Monday. I will let Palmer go to London and settle the whole thing through Herring.” That was done, and accordingly Fisher has never been paid. There is a letter to which I will particularly call your attention. It is one sent by Palmer to Pratt on the 19th November, 1855:—“You will place the £50 which I have just paid you and the £450 you will receive by Mr. Herring—together £500—and the £200 you received on Saturday” [That is the £200 which Fisher paid to Pratt at the express request of Cook,] “towards payment of my mother’s acceptance for £2,000 due on the 25th of October, making paid to this day the sum of £1,300.” Taking that letter with the one which Cook wrote to Fisher on Friday, the 16th, can you doubt that on that day Cook was a most convenient friend to Palmer, who could not by possibility do without him? It does not end there. Cook died at 1 o’clock on the morning of Wednesday the 21st of November. If we want to know what influence that death had upon Palmer, we must take it from the letters. On the 22d of November—and I am sure you will make some allowance for a day having elapsed from the death of Cook—Palmer writes to Pratt, “Ever since I saw you I have been fully engaged with Cook and not able to leave home.” Unless he murdered Cook, that is the truest sentence that ever was penned. He watched the bedside of his friend. He was with him night and day. He attended him as a brother. He called his friends around him. He did all that the most affectionate solicitude could do for a friend, unless he was plotting his death.

“Ever since I saw you I have been fully engaged with Cook, and not able to leave home. I am sorry to say, after all, he died this day. So you had better write to Saunders; but, mind you, I must have Polestar, if it can be so arranged; and, should any one call upon you to know what money or moneys Cook ever had from you, don’t answer the question till I have seen you.”

“I will send you the £75 to-morrow, and as soon as I have been to Manchester you shall hear about other moneys. I sat up two full nights with Cook, and am very much tired out.”

And did he not? Was it not true? It may not be true that he sat up the whole of the nights, but he was ready to be called if Cook should be ill. Elizabeth Mills says, that after the first serious paroxysm on the Monday night she left Palmer in the arm-chair, sleeping by the side of the man whom the prosecution say he had attempted to murder. No; murderers do not sleep by their victims. What was Pratt’s answer to Palmer’s letter? I will read it, that you may see what quick ruin Cook’s death brought upon Palmer. That answer, dated November 22, is as follows:—

“I have your note, and am greatly disappointed at the non-receipt of the money as promised, and at the vague assurances as to any money. I can understand, ’tis true, that your being detained by the illness of your friend has been the cause of not sending up the larger amount, but the smaller sum you ought to have sent. If anything unpleasant occurs you must thank yourself.”

“The death of Mr. Cook will now compel you to look about as to the payment of the bill for £500, on the 2d December.”

“I have written to Saunders, informing him of my claim, and requesting to know by return what claim he has for keep and training. I send down copy of bill of sale to Crubble to see it enforced.”

So that the first effect of Cook’s death was, in the opinion of Pratt, who knew all about it, to saddle Palmer with the sum of £500. Now I will undertake to satisfy you that the transactions out of which that bill for £500 arose were transactions for Cook’s benefit, and in which Palmer lent his name to accommodate Cook, upon whose death he became primarily and alone responsible for the bill. Let me state the view which my learned friend (the Attorney-General) takes of that transaction, because I intend to meet his case foot by foot, and I shall, I hope convince him that, if he had had the option, he would never have taken up this case—the Crown would never have appeared in it. The universal feeling in the country was, however, such as to render it impossible that the case should not be tried, after the verdict of wilful murder had been obtained upon the evidence of Dr. Taylor; and the Crown felt that it would be neglecting its solemn duty to protect every one of the Queen’s subjects, if it did not take care that a man against whom there was so much prejudice—a man leading the life which Palmer has led, disgraced, as it is said, by forgeries to a large amount, and a gambler by profession—should have a fair trial. There was no way of securing that, as my learned friend at once saw, no possibility of the prisoner’s being saved, except by giving to the counsel who defended him all the information which my learned friend himself possessed. The view which my learned friend takes of the £500 transaction, the theory on which he thinks it probable that Palmer plotted the death of Cook, is this:—

“Pratt still declining to advance the money, Palmer proposed an assignment by Cook of two race horses, one called Polestar, which won the Shrewsbury Races, and another called Sirius. That assignment was afterwards executed by Cook in favour of Pratt, and Cook, therefore, was clearly entitled to the money which was raised upon that security, which realised £375 in cash, and a wine warrant for £65. Palmer contrived, however, that the money and the wine warrant should be sent to him, and not to Cook. Mr. Pratt sent down his check to Palmer in the country on a stamp, as the act of parliament required, and he availed himself of the opportunity now afforded by law of striking out the word ‘bearer’ and writing ‘order,’ the effect of which was to necessitate the endorsement of Cook on the back of the cheque. It was not intended by Palmer that those proceeds should fall into Cook’s hands, and accordingly he forged the name of John Parsons Cook on the back of that cheque. Cook never received the money, and you will see that, within ten days from that period when he came to his end, the bill in respect of that transaction, which was at three months, would have fallen due, when it must have become apparent that Palmer received the money, and that, in order to obtain it, he had forged the endorsement of Cook.”

That is the view which the prosecution take of the case, and I think I shall be able to satisfy you that it cannot possibly be the correct one. We know from Pratt exactly what took place. Palmer wrote to him saying,—

“I have undertaken to get the enclosed bill cashed for Mr. Cook. You had the £200 bill of his. He is a very good and responsible man. Will you do it? I will put my name to the bill.”

So that it was represented to Pratt as a transaction for the accommodation of Cook. Pratt’s answer to that is:—

“If Mr. Cook chooses to give me security, I have no objection; but he must execute a bill of sale on his two horses, Polestar and Sirius; more, he must execute a power of attorney, and his signature to both must be witnessed by some solicitor in the country, so that I may be quite sure that it is a really valid security. If Cook will do that I will give him £375 in money, and a wine warrant for £65; which, charging £10 for expenses, and £50 for discount, will make £500.”

There can be no doubt that Cook attached great value to Sirius and Polestar, which mare was, probably, then booked for the engagements in which she won so much money at Shrewsbury; and it is to the last degree improbable that he would have executed this bill of sale, with a power of attorney to enable the mortgagee or assignee to enforce it at once effectually, and yet have received no money. Would he, if such had been the case, have remained quiet to the day of his death, and never have written to Pratt to say that although he had sent him the required documents he had never received the money? Cook was as much in want of money as Palmer was, and would he thus have thrown away his money? Is it credible that if Palmer had misappropriated the cheque he could for three months have kept Cook in ignorance of the transaction? Is it not probable that Cook’s name was written on the cheque with his full knowledge and consent? It is not suggested that there was any attempt to imitate his handwriting. Is it not more probable that Cook, who, I will prove to you from the letter, wanted ready money, and who would probably be put to inconvenience by receiving only a cheque, which he would not get cashed for a day or two, took the ready money—£315, which Pratt sent at the same time to Palmer—and that Palmer took the cheque? On the 6th of September Palmer wrote to Pratt:—

“I received the cheque for the £100, and will thank you to let me have the £315 by return of post, if possible; if not, send it me (certain) by Monday night’s post to the Post-office, Doncaster. I now return you Cook’s papers signed &c., and he wants the money on Saturday, if he can have it; but I have not promised it for Saturday. I told him he should have it on Tuesday morning at Doncaster; so please enclose it with mine, in cash, in a registered letter, and he must pay for it being registered. Do not let it be later than Monday night’s post to Doncaster.”

So that Palmer asked that it should be sent like his own, Cook, according to the letter, wanting it in cash. Pratt replied to Palmer, acknowledging the receipt of the documents, and promising that he would send him his money to Doncaster on the Monday, and would endeavour to let Cook have his at the same time. On the 9th of September Palmer wrote to Pratt:—

“You must send me, for Mr. Cook, by Monday night’s post (to the Post-office, Doncaster,) £385 instead of £375, and the wine warrant, so that I can hand it to him with the £375, and that will be allowing you £50 for the discount, &c. I shall then get £10, and I expect I shall have to take the wine, and give him the money; but I shall not do so if you do not send £385, and be good enough to enclose my £315 with it, in cash, in a registered letter, and direct it to me to the Post-office, Doncaster.”

In these letters there is an intimation that Cook wanted the money on the Saturday. He was inconvenienced by only getting a cheque upon London, which he could not immediately change; and, therefore, Palmer gave him the money and took the cheque. It is remarkable that, when we look to the banking account of Palmer at Rugeley, we find that the £375 is paid in by somebody to his account, but that the £315 is not paid in to his account at all. The bill was accepted for Cook’s accommodation, Cook gave security for it, and he never, during the three months which elapsed before his death, complained to Pratt that he had not received the money for it. I submit that the fair version of the transaction is that which is given in a letter from Palmer—that Palmer let Cook have the cash, and himself took the cheque, having Cook’s authority to put his name at the back of it. How else can you account for the silence of Cook, and for the fact that the £375 is paid into the Rugeley Bank, but there is no trace of the £315? This being so, the result of Cook’s death was to make Palmer liable for the £500 bill, on the back of which he had put his name. Therefore, I submit to you, that on the second motive suggested by my learned friend (the Attorney-General), the case has entirely failed. In addition to this, however, we find from these letters the difficulties which the death of Cook brought upon Palmer. We find the disappointment of Pratt that he could send no more money, the bill for £500, the danger of losing Polestar, which Palmer very much wanted to have, and which Pratt would, unless paid the £500, bring to the hammer in order to realise his security; and we find that inquiries were at once apprehended from Cook’s friends as to the moneys which Pratt had paid to Cook, and the probable value which the latter had received for the endorsements and acceptances which he had given. There is another, although not so strong a reason, why it is improbable that Palmer should have desired the death of Cook. Mr. Weatherby has told us to day that, although it frequently happens that the moneys won at a race are sent up by the clerk of the course in a week after the race, yet that does not always happen. On Tuesday, November the 20th, on the night of which day he died, Cook, who was then perfectly sensible, perfectly comfortable and happy, and enjoying the society of his friend Mr. Jones, gave to Palmer a cheque for £350 upon Weatherby’s. If Palmer killed Cook, and it happened that Fraill had not sent up the money so as to be there by Wednesday morning, Weatherby’s would not pay the cheque, nor would they have cashed it if they had received information that Cook had died during the night. It actually happened that the cheque when presented was not paid, because Fraill did not send up the money. Was it probable that Palmer, having got from Cook a cheque for £380, would have run the risk of losing his money by destroying him the same night?

It is suggested that he obtained this cheque fraudulently, and then, lest Cook should detect the fraud, destroyed him. That was not likely to answer his purpose. He might be certain that directly the breath was out of Cook’s body, Jones would go to Mr. Stevens; that Stevens and Bradford, Cook’s brother-in-law, would go down to Rugeley; that the death being sudden there would most likely be a post-mortem examination; and that, instead of settling for the £500 bill and the £350 cheque with Cook, he would have to settle with hard men of business, men who cared nothing for him, who would probably look upon him as a “leg” upon the turf, and would regard neither his feelings nor his interests, but would let him go to ruin any way he might, not stirring a finger to save him. Is it probable that a shrewd intelligent man of business would make such a choice as that. More than this, we know that at that very time Herring held one bill for £500, and three for £200 each, to which there were the names of both Palmer and Cook, and for all of which, either in the whole or in part, Cook must, unless he rushed to his own ruin, provide. If Palmer put Cook to death, he immediately became solely liable, not only for these bills, but for that, as security, for which the bill of sale was executed on Sirius and Polestar, which would not be so easily renewed as those for the large sums on which the enormous usury was paid. That bill would very likely soon find its way to his mother, and that it should do so would not suit Palmer, for his mother is a respectable and serious person, who, although she loved her son, did not like and gave no encouragement to his gambling; nor did that excellent and most honourable man who stands by him—his brother, who was estranged from him for a length of time, until this calamity came upon him, simply because he disapproved the gambling by which he lived. Cook being dead, there was, therefore, no one to save Palmer from ruin, for in all this voluminous evidence there is not the smallest trace that there was any one else in the world who would lend Palmer his name or would assist him to obtain money. If it be, as it is stated, a fact that he forged the name of his mother, is not that conclusive evidence that he had no other resource but the goodnature—the easiness, perhaps the folly of Cook? Is it then credible that under such circumstances he would have desired to bring upon himself not merely the creditors and executors of Cook, but their solicitors—men who, in the discharge of their duty to their clients, can have no sympathy for any one, and with whom no arrangement is possible? I have, therefore, I hope, shown you that Palmer had an interest in the life of Cook. But, more than that, was it safe for him that Cook should die? Palmer was a man who had a shrewd knowledge of the world and a knowledge of his profession, and, among other things, of chemistry. My learned friends have put in a book which was found in his house, and among other notes one in which there is this, “Strychnia kills by causing tetanic fixing of the respiratory muscles.” In the same book there are many other notes.

Lord Campbell: The Attorney-General stated that he did not place much reliance upon that note.

Mr. Serjeant Shee: My learned friend did not press this note, but he thought it was evidence which ought to be before you (the jury). I use it to satisfy you that Palmer had studied his profession sufficiently to know, and knew perfectly well, that if strychnine were administered it would in all probability kill the victim in 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 more—time enough to alarm everybody and provoke inquiry into the circumstances of the death, which must certainly, in all probability, end in the detection of guilt. If that is so, was he at that time so circumstanced as to render it safe for him to run the risk of such suspicions? His brother, Walter Palmer, had died in the month of August; and, unless his mother forgave him, or recognized the acceptance, his only hope of extraction from his difficulties lay in getting from the Prince of Wales office the money due to him as assignee of the policy on his brother’s life. That his chance of getting that money was good is shown by the fact that he refused the offer of the office to return the premium, and that it was upon it that Pratt had obtained the discounts, and had resolved, under the direction of Palmer, to put it in suit. It was really the only unpledged property which he had, and how he was situated with regard to it appears from the letters and from the evidence. The Insurance company, annoyed at being called upon to pay so large a sum, were determined to do all they could to resist it. They accordingly sent Inspector Field and his man to Stafford to make inquiries. They could not do this without talking, and this had been going on for some time. [To show that this had been the case the learned Serjeant read the deposition of the witness Deane, who was examined yesterday.] So that just before the death of Cook, Palmer knew himself to be the subject of what he appeared from his actions to consider a most unfounded and unwarrantable suspicion. He put the policy into the hands of an attorney to enforce payment of the sum due upon it. The office met the claim by insinuations and inquiries which were of a nature to destroy his character and to bring upon his head the suspicion of a murder. The pressure by Pratt upon Palmer to meet the £2,000 bills did not commence until the office disputed the payment of that policy. All went as smooth as possible as long as Pratt held what he believed to be a good security, but when they began to dispute that, Pratt writes to Palmer and tells him that the state of things is changed. After saying that nothing can be done towards compelling the office to pay until the 24th, he says in his letter of the 2d of October:—

“This, you will observe, quite alters arrangements, and I therefore must request that you make preparations for meeting the two bills due at the end of this month.... In any event, bear in mind that you must be prepared to cover your mother’s acceptances for the £4,000, due at the end of the month.”

There was the pinch. The office would not pay, and bills for £4,000 were coming due. If anything occurred to increase the suspicions of the office—which was very very unwilling to pay—all chance of the £13,000 was lost. That £13,000 is sure to be paid unless that man (pointing to the prisoner) is convicted of murder. As sure as he is saved, and saved I believe he will be, that £13,000 will be paid. There is no defence—no pretence of a defence. The premium taken was an enormous one, and that £13,000 is good for him and will pay all his creditors. This correspondence of which my learned friend must have taken a view different from any which I can take, but which I am sure he would have put in, whatever had been his view of it—this correspondence saves the prisoner if there is common sense in man. Here is another letter from Pratt to Palmer, dated October the sixth:—

“I have your note, acknowledging receipt by your mother of the £2,000 acceptance, due on the 2nd 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 so much as it is worth, but in the present position of the affair, no one except your mother, who is liable upon the bills, can look upon it as a security. [That was because Simpson and Field were down there making inquiries.] Do not neglect attending to this, for under a recent act bills of exchange are now recovered in a few days. You know and can appreciate my conduct in avoiding all trouble and annoyance to your mother; but to that there is a limit. I cannot by any representation be a party to inducing any body to believe that security exists where there is doubt upon the point. P. S. I cast no doubt upon the capability of the office to pay, but in the nature of things, with so large an amount in question, it is not to be surprised at, if, they think they have grounds of objection, they should temporize by delay.”

Does not this show that on the sixth of October suspicions were hanging over Palmer’s head, which would come down with irresistible momentum and crush him if there were a suspicion of another violent and sudden death? Do you think that a man who had written in his manual what were the effects of strychnine would risk such a scene as that poison would develope in the presence of the dearest and best friend of Cook—a man whom he could not influence—and a medical man, who loved Cook so well as to sleep in the same room with him, that he might be ready to attend him in case he needed assistance? Is that common sense? Are you going to enforce such a theory as that which Dr. A. Taylor propounded as to the effects which strychnine produces upon rabbits? Impossible—perfectly impossible! I will prove the position in which Palmer stood still more clearly. On the 10th of October Pratt, in a letter addressed to him, says:—

“I may add that I hear they (the insurance company) have been making inquiries in every direction.” To be sure, they had. Field the detective officer had been at Stafford, where he could make inquiries as well as at Rugeley.

“But on what they ground their dissatisfaction is as yet a mystery. In any event no step can be taken to compel payment until after the 4th of December.”

It is plain that suspicions were then rife, or that attempts were made to excite suspicions against him with regard to the death of Walter Palmer. On the 18th of October Pratt enclosed to Palmer a letter from the solicitor of the company, stating that the directors had determined upon declining to pay the amount claimed; but that, although the facts disclosed in the course of their inquiries would have warranted their retention of the premiums which had been paid, they were prepared to refund them to any one who might be shown to be legally entitled to them. Palmer determined that the money should be paid; and a case was laid before Sir Fitzroy Kelly. If anything happened to Cook by foul play he had no more chance of receiving this £13,000 than of obtaining £130,000. From all this I infer, not only that Palmer had no interest in Cook’s death, but that he had a direct pecuniary interest in his living. I think it is impossible that I should be so much mistaken as that a considerable portion of what I have advanced should not be worthy of your attention, and I therefore submit to you, to the Court, and to my learned friend, that the case as to this supposed motive for the crime has failed. We now proceed to the facts of the case, and in considering them it will be necessary to group them without entire reference to dates. I will first inquire whether the symptoms with which Cook was attacked and the appearances presented by his body after death were consistent with the theory of his having died by strychnia poison, and inconsistent with that of his having died from some other natural cause. It is under this head that I shall discuss, I hope not unduly, the medical evidence in this case, and present to you such observations as occur to me on the witnesses who have been called to support the view which the Crown takes of the effect of that medical testimony. Cook died at one o’clock in the morning of Wednesday, November 21, in the presence of Jones. It was no sooner light than Jones posted to town and saw his stepfather, Mr. Stevens. Mr. Stevens went down to Rugeley and was introduced to Palmer. Palmer went with him to the Talbot Arms, and uncovered the corpse—a bold thing to do if he had murdered him. The body was so little emaciated or affected by disease that Stevens wondered he could be dead; but he observed some little rigidity about the muscles. Stevens’s suspicions were roused; he asked Palmer to dinner, 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 at Euston-square, again at Wolverton, at Rugby, and at Rugeley. At last he gave him to understand that he suspected him and intended to probe the whole matter to the bottom. He resolved to have a post-mortem examination, and that examination took place.

The appearances presented by the body after death were such as might have been anticipated by those who were acquainted with his course of life, his general health, his pursuits, and, not to say anything hard of him, his vices, and the drinking, racing company which he kept. His father had died at thirty years of age, his mother about the same age, a few years after her second marriage; his sister was dead; and he himself was affected with a pulmonary disorder. Cook had been suffering for a long time from a sore throat, and bore about him all the signs and indications of having led a licentious life. Indeed, he appears to have been about as dissipated a young man as can be well imagined. I do not mean to say that he was utterly depraved, or that he was lost to all sense of honour and propriety; but it does not admit of doubt that his manner of living was wild, riotous, and extravagant. His complaints indicated his excesses, and he was avowedly addicted to pursuits the reverse of commendable. When his body was opened there was evidence of a soreness of the tongue. I do not go to the length of saying that there was anything to lead to the inference that there was an actual sore at the time of death, but there were follicles and symptoms, if not of a recent, certainly of a not very remote ulcer. The inside of the mouth had been ulcerated, and the skin taken off on both sides. There is abundant evidence to show that Cook was himself of opinion that these symptoms were syphilitic. He could scarcely be persuaded to obey the instructions of Dr. Savage, the respectable and very competent physician whom he consulted, and, though it is admitted that he was not “fool enough to go to quack doctors,” it is very certain that he was weak enough to follow the counsels of every medical man who would venture to give him advice when coincided with his own opinion that mercury was the best thing for his complaint. The spots which are the fatal characteristics of his dreadful malady had already made their appearance on his body, and he was haunted by the apprehension that some day, as he was running about the race-course, his face would be suddenly covered over with copper blotches, which would leave no doubt on the minds of those who saw them as to the true nature of his disease. Many a man similarly affected has retrieved his position, redeemed his character and become a virtuous member of society.

Far be it from me, then, to say one word that would press with undue severity on the memory of the dead; but no false delicacy shall deter me from the discharge of my duty, and I make these remarks not in an unkind or censorious spirit, but for the sake of truth, and because the state of Cook’s health is a most important element in this inquiry. It is certain that it was his own opinion that he was suffering from virulent syphilis, and in this opinion the medical men who originally attended him did not hesitate to concur. That he did not correct his habits is evident from the fact, that within a recent period of his death he had again become diseased. When his body was opened on the second examination, there were found between the delicate membrane which the spinal marrow covers, and is called the arachnoid, and embedded to some extent in the next covering, not so delicate, termed the dogma mater, granules about one inch in extent; and I will satisfy you, upon the evidence of witnesses whose authority will not be questioned, that if the body had been opened in the dead-house of any hospital in this metropolis, those granules would have been regarded as symptoms affording conclusive explanation of the cause of death. Such, then, was the condition of Cook’s health—a condition but partially and imperfectly revealed by the first post-mortem examination. That examination was not conducted with the same minuteness and precision that circumstances rendered necessary on a subsequent occasion, and the syphilitic disease was neither ascertained nor suspected. The stomach was taken out, and you have heard the suggestion, which, were it not that the Court has ruled it to be of no significance, I should have been prepared to disprove that Palmer attempted to interfere with the operation by shoving against the medical man engaged in it. The inference sought to be deduced was, that some of the stomach escaped from the jar: but we have the evidence of Dr. Devonshire himself that such was not the fact. None of it did escape, and it was sent up in its entirety to London, there to be analysed by Dr. Taylor and Dr. Rees. Those gentlemen examined it with the knowledge that, owing to the report of Palmer having purchased a fatal drug from Mr. Roberts on the day of the death, there was a suspicion of foul play. Mr. Stevens talked of the fact to Dr. Taylor; and, with the consciousness of it on his mind, that gentleman wrote a letter, attributing the death to antimony. [Dr. Taylor intimated dissent.]

Well, if the letter is not to be so understood, it is at all events susceptible of this interpretation—that the death may have been caused by antimony. Dr. Taylor attends the coroner’s inquest, which, in all probability, is held in consequence of his own letter. He hears the evidence of Jones, Roberts, and Mills, and it is but natural to presume that these are the witnesses whose testimony has the greatest influence on his opinion. He forms his judgment on the evidence of chambermaids, waitresses, and housekeepers, and contrary to the opinion of the medical man who attended Cook in his last illness (for be it remembered he had no encouragement from Mr. Jones, the surgeon, of Lutterworth, a man of age and character to form a sound decision on the case); he comes boldly and at once to the conclusion that his original notion about antimony having been the cause of death was a mistake, and then he has the incredible imprudence—an imprudence which has necessitated this trial, or at all events rendered it necessary that it should take place in this form and place—to declare upon his oath to the coroner’s jury that he believes that the pills given to Cook on Monday and Tuesday contained strychnine, and that Cook was consequently poisoned. That evidence of his is carried on the wings of the press into every house in the United Kingdom. It becomes known throughout the length and breadth of the land that Dr. Taylor, a man who has devoted his life to science, a man of the highest personal character, and who stands well with his medical friends, has declared—not as a conjectural opinion, mark you, nor as a reserved opinion delivered in a private room to a few men whose discretion might be relied on—but, that in the public room of a public inn, in a little village, where everything that occurs is known, he has declared upon his solemn oath that it is his belief that Cook died because pills containing strychnine were administered to him on the nights of Monday and Tuesday. He had himself failed to discover the faintest traces of strychnine, yet, at the coroner’s inquest he had the hardihood to declare his conviction that the pills contained strychnine, and that Cook died of them. His evidence is neither consistent with itself nor with the opinion of Mr. Jones. He takes upon him to pronounce positively, in the face of the world, that Cook’s disease was nothing else than tetanus, and tetanus, too, of the kind that can be produced by poison only, and that poison strychnine.

Such was Dr. Taylor’s testimony; and on such testimony the coroner’s jury returned their verdict. But, merciful heaven! in what position are we placed for the safety of our own lives and those of our families, if, on evidence such as this, men are to be put on their trial for foul murder as often as a sudden death occurs in any household! If science is to be allowed to come and dogmatise in our courts—and not science that is successful in its operations or exact in its nature, but science that is baffled by its own tests, and bears upon its forehead the motto, “A little learning is a dangerous thing”—if, I say, science such as this is to be suffered to dogmatise in our courts, and to utter judgments which its own processes fail to vindicate, life is no longer secure, and there is thrown upon judges and jurymen a weight of responsibility too grievous for human nature to endure. If Dr. Taylor had detected the poison by his own tests, he, with his long experience in toxicological studies, would have been an excellent witness for the Crown; but he has not found the poison, and not having seen the patient, and knowing nothing of his death-bed symptoms beyond what he gathered from the evidence of an ignorant servant girl, and of Mr. Jones, whose testimony does not show that he agrees with him in opinion, Dr. Taylor thinks himself justified in declaring upon his oath in a public court that the pills contained strychnine, and that Cook was poisoned. If verdicts are to be moulded on testimony such as this, what medical practitioner is safe? On what ground does Dr. Taylor vindicate his opinion? He does not appear to have ever seen one solitary case of strychnine in the human subject, yet, with the full knowledge that the consequences of his assertion might be disastrous to the prisoner at the bar, he has the audacity to assert that the pills, which for anything he knows to the contrary were the same that Dr. Bamford prepared, contained strychnine, and that Cook was poisoned by it. I have quoted the sentiment, “a little learning is a dangerous thing,” and assuredly to no science is that maxim so applicable as to the medical. Of all God’s works there is no other which so eloquently attests our entire dependence on Him, and our own nothingness, as that mortal coil in which we live, and breathe, and have our being. We are struck with amazement as we contemplate it. We feel, we see, we hear; yet the instant we attempt to give a reason for these sensations our path is crossed by the mystery of creation, and all we know is that God created man—that he is our Omnipotent Maker and we the work of His hands. Yet we fancy that we can penetrate all mysteries, and there are no bounds to our arrogance. There has been much talk in this inquiry of the two kinds of tetanus—idiopathic and traumatic. Dr. Todd, urged by the Court to explain the former, described it as “constitutional.” Perhaps “self-generating” would have done as well, but let that pass. But how is our knowledge advanced by translating “idiopathic” as constitutional? It is easy to give an English translation of that Greek compound, but the thing is to explain what the translation means. What is the meaning of the phrase “constitutional tetanus?”

Lord Campbell: Tetanus not occasioned by external injury.

Mr. Serjeant Shee: Just so, my lord, or in other words, tetanus not referable to any known cause. But, in truth, idiopathic means in a general sense “unaccountable.” Not that constitutional tetanus is always and invariably so, but that cases of tetanus do continually occur of which you can only suspect the cause, and attribute it by hypothesis to a “cold,” or some other vague accident. In such cases you say that the disease is idiopathic, and not traumatic. The Crown will have it that Cook’s was the tetanus of poison, but it is almost an assumption to say that it was tetanus at all. That he died of convulsions, or immediately after them, is certain, and that they were convulsions similar to those from which he suffered on the preceding night, is beyond all doubt. But what pretence is there for positively asserting that they were tetanus at all? The evidence of Mr. Jones, fairly interpreted, cannot be construed otherwise than as intimating an impression that they were convulsions which partook of the tetanic character. That might be, and yet the malady might not be tetanus. It is bad reasoning—most defective logic—to argue without positive proof of the fact that the disease was tetanus, and no other tetanus in the world than that produced by poison. Following in the trail dragged for them by the toxicologists, the Crown have thought proper to impute the death of this man to the poison of strychnine. It is for them to prove the fact. We contest it; but it by no means follows that we should be bound to explain the death on other grounds. If we can satisfy you that this man was assailed by any one of the numerous kinds of convulsions to which humanity is liable, and that he was asphyxiated or deprived of life when writhing in some sudden spasm or paroxysm, we shall have done all that can in fairness be demanded of us, unless, indeed, the Crown shall be prepared to prove that Cook’s symptoms were irreconcilable with any other doctrine than that of death by strychnine. This they have not done and cannot do. I propose to call your attention to the statements of the witnesses Mills and Jones, with respect to the symptoms which they observed in Cook on the evenings of Monday and Tuesday; and having done so, I will submit to your candid judgment whether those symptoms may not be more naturally accounted for by attributing them to convulsions which are not tetanic at all, and most assuredly not tetanic in the distinctive character of strychnine, but which may rather be classed under those ordinary convulsions by means of which it constantly pleases Providence to strike men down without leaving upon their bodies the faintest indications from which the cause of death may be inferred. You have it upon the authority of medical men of the highest distinction, that it sometimes occurs that men in the prime of life and in the full vigour of health, are smitten to death by convulsions that leave no trace upon the body of the sufferer. The statements Mills and Jones are such as to render it entirely unnecessary to resort to the hypothesis of any kind of tetanus, much less to that of strychnine, in accounting for the death of Cook. Regard being had to the delicate state of his health, and to the continually recurring derangement of his constitution, it is far safer to conclude that he died of ordinary convulsions than of any description of tetanus, whether traumatic, idiopathic, or that produced by poison. Nor must we omit to inquire into the state of his mind. He went to Shrewsbury races in the imminent peril of returning from thence a ruined man. His father-in-law, Mr. Stevens, assured Palmer that there would not be four thousand shillings for those who had claims on his estate. From the necessity he was under of raising money at an enormous discount, we may easily infer that he was in desperate difficulties; and that, unless some sudden success on the turf should retrieve his fortunes, his case was hopeless. His health shattered, his mind distracted, he had long been cherishing the hope that “Polestar” would win, and so put him in possession of a sum, amounting in stakes and winnings, to something like a thousand guineas. The mare, it is true, was hardly his own, she had been mortgaged, and if she should lose, she would become the property of another person.

Picture to yourself what must have been the condition, mental and bodily, of that young man when he rose from his bed on the morning of the races. It is scarcely possible that as he went down to breakfast this thought must not have crossed his mind, “My fate is trembling in the balance: this is the crisis of my destiny; unless my horse shall win and give me one chance more of recovering myself, to-night I am a beggar.” With these feelings he repairs to the race-course. Another race is run before Polestar is brought out. His impatience is extreme. He looks on in a state of agonising excitement. Will the minutes never fly? At last arrives the decisive moment. The time has come for his race. The flag is dropped; the horses start; his mare wins easily, and he, her master, has won a thousand guineas! For three minutes he is not able to speak, so intense is his emotion. Slowly he recovers his utterance, and then how rapturous is his joy! He is saved, he is saved! Another chance to retrieve his position, one chance more to recover his character! As yet, at all events, he will not be a disgrace to his family and his friends. Conceive him to be, with all his faults an honourable young man, and you may easily imagine what his ecstacy must have been. He loves the memory of his dead mother—he still reverences the name of his father—he is jealous of his sister’s honour, and it may be that he cherishes silently in his heart the thought of some other being dearer still than all, to whom the story of his ruin would bring bitter anguish. But he is not ruined; he will meet his engagements like an honourable man. There is now no danger of his being an outcast, an adventurer, a black-leg. He will live to redeem his position, and to give joy to those who love him. With such thoughts in his heart, he returns to his inn in a state of indescribable elation, and with a revulsion from despair that must have convulsed—though not in the sense of illness—every fibre of his frame. His first idea is to entertain his friends, and he does so. The evidence does not prove that he drank to excess, but he gave a champagne dinner, and we all know that is a luxurious entertainment, at which there is no stint and not much self-respect. That evening he did not spend in the society of Palmer; indeed, it is not clear in whose company he spent it. But we find him on the evening of Wednesday at the “Unicorn,” with Saunders, his trainer, and a lady. On Thursday he walks upon the course, and Herring remonstrates with him for doing so, as the day is damp and misty, and the ground wet. That night he is seized with illness, and he continues ailing until his death at Rugeley.

Arrived at Rugeley, it is but natural to suppose that a reaction of feeling may have set in. Then the dark side of the picture may have presented itself to his imagination. The chilling thought may have come upon him that his winnings were already forestalled, and would scarcely suffice to save him from destruction. It is when suffering from a weakened body, and an irritated and excited mind, he is attacked with a sickness which clings to his system, leaves him without any rest, incapacitates him from taking food, distracts his nerves, and places him in imminent danger of falling a victim to any sudden attack of convulsions to which he may have a predisposition. He relished no society so much as that of Palmer, whose residence was immediately opposite the Talbot Arms Inn, where he was lying on his sick bed. For two nights he had been taking opiate pills, prescribed by Dr. Bamford. On Sunday night, at twelve o’clock, he started as from a dream in a state of the utmost excitement and alarm. He admitted afterwards that for two minutes he was mad, but he could not ascribe it to anything unless to his having been awakened by a squabble in the street. But do no such things happen to people of sound constitutions and regular habits? Do no such people awaken in agony and delirium because there is a noise under their windows? No, these are the afflictions of the dissipated and the anxious, whose bodies are shattered, and whose minds are distracted. Next day, Monday, he was pretty well, but not so well as to mount his horse, or to take a walk in the fields. He could converse with his trainer and jockey, but he took no substantial food, and drank not a drop of brandy-and-water. You will bear in mind that Palmer was not with him that day. In the middle of the night he was seized with an attack similar in character to that of the night preceding, but manifestly much milder, for he retained his consciousness throughout it, and was not mad for a moment. The evidence of Elizabeth Mills is conclusive on the point. [The learned Serjeant read some passages from the deposition of the witness in question.] At three o’clock on the following day (Tuesday) Mr. Jones, the surgeon, of Lutterworth, arrived, and spent a considerable time—probably from three to seven o’clock—in his company. They had abundant opportunity for conversing confidentially, and they were likely to have done so, for they were very intimate, and Jones appears to have been on more familiar terms with Cook than was any other person, not even excepting Mr. Stevens. Nothing occurred, in the entire and unbounded confidence which must have existed between Mr. Cook and Mr. Jones, to raise any suspicions in the mind of Mr. Jones; and at the consultation which took place between seven and eight o’clock on Tuesday evening, between Jones, Palmer, and Bamford, as to what the medicine for that evening should be, the fit of the Monday night was not mentioned. That is a remarkable fact. The Crown may say that it is remarkable, inasmuch as Palmer knew it, and said not a word about it; but I think that it shows that the fit was so little serious in the opinion of Cook that he did not think it worth mentioning to his intimate friend Jones. If Cook had not given to Elizabeth Mills a rather exaggerated description of what had occurred, would he not have said to Mr. Jones, when he came from Lutterworth to see him, “You can’t judge of my condition from my appearance now, for I was in a state of perfect madness over night, and in fact, I thought that I was going to die?” Evidently he would have said something of that sort, and if he had, Mr. Jones would have mentioned it at the consultation.

My inference, then, is that the first statement which was made by Elizabeth Mills was the correct statement of what occurred. Palmer, in the presence of Jones, administered two pills to Mr. Cook, which it is supposed poisoned him—which contained a substance which sometimes does its deadly work in a quarter of an hour—which has done it in less, and which rarely exceeds half an hour; and we are asked to believe that, in spite of Cook’s objecting in the presence of his friend to take the pills, Palmer positively forced them down his throat at the imminent peril of the man falling down in a few minutes in convulsions evidently tetanic. As in the course of the examination of Mr. Jones the word “tetanus” was used, it is right that I should say a word upon that subject. The word “tetanus” is not in his deposition; but I tell you what is in it, and it is one of the most remarkable features in this case, because it shows how people, when they get a theory into their heads, will fag that theory,—how they will stretch it to the very utmost, and make it fit into the exact place in which they wish to put it. We have it now in the evidence of Dr. Taylor that at the inquest he sat next to Mr. Deane, the attorney’s clerk, and suggested the questions which it was necessary in his judgment to put in order to elicit the truth as to the symptoms of Mr. Cook’s disease. Now, fancy Dr. Taylor, who had had a letter telling him that there was a suspicion of strychnine, and who had all but made up his mind at that time to state positively upon oath his opinion that the pills given on Monday and Tuesday nights contained strychnine; fancy——

The Attorney-General.—I am sorry that my learned friend should be misled upon a matter of fact; but I am told that Dr. Taylor was not present when Mr. Jones was examined.

Mr. Shee continued: Then the observation which I was about to make does not apply; and all I can say is, that Mr. Jones had probably in his mind’s eye, when he gave that evidence, a recollection of what he had seen on the Tuesday night. He could not have seen very accurately, however, for he said that there was only one candle in the room, and that he had not light enough to see the patient’s face, and that he could not tell whether there was much change in the countenance of the deceased—a very important fact, when the doctors all say that Cook’s disease cannot have been traumatic tetanus, because there is always a peculiar expression of the countenance in those cases, which was not observable in Cook. However, Mr. Jones, who is a competent professional man, gave his evidence, and it is quite clear that the notion of tetanus must have entered into his mind, because I find in the depositions that the coroner’s clerk first put down “tetinus;” and the probability, I think, is that that disease did occur to Mr. Jones at the time, and that he used the word, because the clerk never could have invented it. Then “tetinus” is struck out; then the word “convulsions” is written, and also struck out; and, as the sentence stands, it is, “There were strong symptoms of violent convulsions.” What is the fair inference from that? Why, that the man who saw Cook in the paroxysm did not think himself justified in saying that it was a tetanic convulsion at all, though it was very like tetanus. Now, I will just call your attention to the features of general convulsions, as described in cross-examination by the medical witnesses, in order to show that the convulsions of which Cook died were not tetanic, properly speaking, but were of that strong and irregular kind which cannot be classed under the head of tetanus, either traumatic or idiopathic, but under the head of general convulsions. I propose upon this part of the case to read an extract from the work of Dr. Copland, which will enable you to judge whether Cook’s complaint bears a greater resemblance to general convulsions than to traumatic tetanus or strychnine tetanus. Before doing so, however, I would observe that the only persons who can be supposed to know anything of tetanus not traumatic are physicians, and that not one of that most honourable class of men (who see the attacks of patients in their beds, and not in the hospital), has been called by the Crown, with the exception of Dr. Todd, who is a most respectable man, and who gave his evidence in such a way as to command the respect of everyone; but even his practice appears to be not so much that of a physician as of a surgeon. I am instructed that I shall be able to show, by the most eminent men in the profession, that the description which I am about to read from Dr. Copland’s book, the Dictionary of Practical Medicine, is the true description of general convulsions. In that book I find the following, under the head of “Convulsions:”—