Trial of William Palmer

Seventh Day, Wednesday, 21st May, 1856 — The Court Met at Ten O’Clock

Speech for the Defence.

Serjeant Shee

Mr. Serjeant Shee—May it please your lordships, gentlemen of the jury—I should pity the man who could rise to perform the task which it is now my duty to attempt unoppressed by an overwhelming sense of diffidence and of apprehension. Once only before has it fallen to my lot to defend a fellow-creature upon trial for his life; it is a position, even if the effort should last but for a day, of a nature to disturb the coolest temperament and try the strongest nerves; how much more so when, during six long days, in the eye of my unhappy client, I have been standing between him and the scaffold; conscious that the least error of judgment on my part might consign him to a murderer’s doom, and that through the whole time I have had to breast a storm of public prejudice such as has never before imperilled the calm administration of justice! Gentlemen, it is useless for me to conceal what you know perfectly well, what your utmost endeavours cannot wholly have effaced from your recollection, that for six long months, under the sanction and upon the authority of science, an opinion has universally prevailed that the voice of the blood of John Parsons Cook was crying up unto us from the ground, and that that cry was met by the whole population under an impression and conviction of the prisoner’s guilt in a delirium of horror and indignation by another cry of “blood for blood”! You cannot have failed to have entered upon the discharge of the duties, which you have, as I have observed, most conscientiously endeavoured to perform, without having been to a great extent influenced by that cry; you could not know that it would be your duty to sit in that box to pass between the Crown and the prisoner; you may with perfect propriety, understanding that the facts had been ascertained before a coroner’s jury, and reading such evidence as was there taken, have formed an opinion upon the question of the guilt or innocence of the prisoner; but you cannot but know that whatever that opinion may have been it is your duty to discard it, at least until you have heard the evidence on both sides.

Serjeant Shee

Gentlemen, the very circumstances under which we meet in this case are of a character to excite 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, so much alarmed that an unjust verdict might in the midst of that popular prejudice pass against him, that a resolution was taken, not only by the Queen’s Government and the Legislature, upon the motion of the noble and learned judge, who presides here, in the House of Lords, that an Act of Parliament should be passed to prevent the possibility of the ordinary forms of law being, in the case of William Palmer, made the instrument of popular vengeance. The Crown, under the advice of its responsible Ministers, resolved also 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 properly, at once sternly in his duty to the public and fairly to the prisoner at the bar; and my learned friend, when that duty was entrusted to him, did what I must say will, in my opinion, for ever redound to his honour—he insisted that in a case in which so much prejudice had been excited all the evidence which it was intended on the part of the Crown to press against the prisoner should, as soon as he received it, be communicated to the prisoner’s counsel; everything, I must say and tell my unhappy client, everything which the constituted authorities of this land, everything which the Legislature and the law officers of the Crown could do to secure a fair and impartial trial in this case, has been done, and the whole responsibility, if unhappily injustice should on either side be done, now weighs with terrible pressure upon my lord and upon you.

Serjeant Shee

Gentlemen, one great misfortune has befallen the accused—a most able man who had been selected by him as his counsel many weeks ago has been, unfortunately, by illness prevented from discharging that duty to him. I have endeavoured, to the utmost of my ability, to supply his place; I cannot deny that I am awed—that I am moved—by the task I have undertaken; but the circumstances to which I have already adverted, the national effort, so to speak, through the Government of the country, to ensure a fair trial is a great cause of encouragement, and I am not dismayed. I have this further cause for not being altogether overcome by the duty which I have of defending the prisoner and of discussing the mass of evidence which has been laid before you, that though, of course, like everybody else, I knew generally and loosely, very loosely indeed, the history of these transactions at Rugeley, I had formed, when the papers came into my hands, no opinion upon them, no opinion upon the guilt or the innocence of the prisoner at the bar, and my mind was perfectly free to form what I trust will be declared by you a right judgment in this case. I commence his defence, I say it in all sincerity, with an entire conviction of his innocence. I believe that there never was a truer word pronounced than the words which he pronounced when he said “Not guilty” to this charge. If I fail in establishing that to your satisfaction I shall be under a great misgiving that my failure was more attributable to my own ability to do justice to this case than to any weakness in the case itself; and I will give you this proof of the sincerity with which I declare upon this evidence my conviction of his innocence, that I will meet the case of the prosecution foot to foot at every stage. I will grapple with every difficulty which has been suggested by my able friend the Attorney-General. You shall see that I avoid no point because I fail to approach it, and if you find that I do thus deal fairly with you from the beginning, and it is my duty to do so, I hope I may be sure, indeed I know I may be sure, of a willing and considerate attention to an address which must, I fear, be long, but in which there shall be no observations, no tone, and no topic of discussion which do not properly belong to the case.

Gentlemen, the case which the Crown undertakes to establish against the prisoner at the bar, and to support by entirely circumstantial evidence, is, or may be, shortly stated thus. They say 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 deadly poison by the slower poison of antimony, and afterwards despatched him by the deadly poison of strychnia. No jury will convict a man of the crime thus imputed to the prisoner, unless in the first place it be made clear that he had some motive for its commission, some strong reason for desiring the death of Cook; unless, in the second place, the symptoms of the deceased before death, and the appearance presented by his body after death, were consistent with the theory of death by strychnia poison, and inconsistent with the theory of death from other and natural causes; unless, thirdly, the circumstantial evidence against him is such as to be inexplicable upon the supposition of his innocence. Now, it is under these three heads that I intend to discuss the evidence that you have heard; and it must be plain to you that if I adhere to that order and method of treating the vast amount of proof which has been laid before you, I must exhaust the whole argument, and leave myself no chance without immediate detection of evading any difficulty in the defence.

Serjeant Shee

Before, however, I proceed to grapple in these close quarters with the case of the Crown, as made by the Attorney-General, allow me, that you may at once see the whole scope of the address with which I have to trouble you, to claim its proper place in the discussion for a fact which, though by no means concealed from you by the Attorney-General, yet appeared to me in that address by which he at once seized upon your judgment to have been thrown too much into the shade, the fact that strychnia was not found in the body of John Parsons Cook. If he died from the poison of strychnia, he died within two hours of the administration to him of a very strong dose of it—he died within a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes of the effects of that dose being visible in the convulsions of his body; the post-mortem examination took place within six days of his death—there is not the least reason to suppose that between the time of the ingestion of the poison, if poison was taken, and the paroxysm in which he died, there was any dilution of it in the stomach, or any ejection of it by vomiting. Never, therefore, were circumstances more favourable; unless the science of chemical analysis is altogether a failure for detection of the poison of strychnia, never was there a case in which it ought to have been so easy to produce it. Now, the fact is, and it is beyond all question, that it was not found. Whatever we may think of Dr. Alfred Taylor, of his judgment, and of his discretion, we have no reason to doubt that he is a skilful analytical chemist—we have not the least reason to suppose, we know the contrary, that he and Dr. Rees, who assisted him, did not do all that the science of chemical analysis could enable man to do to detect the poison of strychnia. They had distinct information from the executor and near relative of the deceased, either personally or through his solicitor, that he, for some cause or other, had reason to suspect the poison of strychnia; they undertook the examination of the stomach, which, I think, upon the whole evidence, without adverting to that part of it now in detail, you will be satisfied was not in an unfavourable condition for a sufficiently accurate analysis, with the expectation that if strychnia had been taken it would be found, and without any doubt as to the efficiency of their tests to detect it; and yet in their letter of the 4th of December they say, “We do not find strychnia, prussic acid, or any trace of opium; from the contents of the stomach having been drained away it is impossible to say whether any strychnia 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, as 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.” Having afterwards attended the inquest, and heard the evidence of Elizabeth Mills and Mr. Jones, of Lutterworth, and the evidence of a person of the name of Roberts, who spoke to the purchase of strychnia poison by Palmer on the morning of the Tuesday, Dr. Taylor came to the conclusion that the pills which were administered to Cook on the Monday and Tuesday night contained strychnia, and that Mr. Cook was poisoned by it; and he came to that conclusion, though he had expressed an opinion in writing that he might—and these are his very words—have been poisoned by antimony, of which some trace was found by him in the body, while no trace was found of strychnia.

Serjeant Shee

Gentlemen, I am not about to discuss that part of the case in detail, but I call your attention to it for the purpose of claiming for it its proper place in this discussion, and that you may know at the commencement of my address what the whole course of my argument will be, and not be under the impression that, because I do not under the three heads to which I have directed your attention advert particularly to that head. I intend to pass it over. I tell you exactly what the case for the defence will be, as to the point that strychnia was not found in Mr. Cook’s body. Let me state it as fairly as I can—the gentlemen who have come to the conclusion that strychnia may have been there, though they did not find it, have arrived at that conclusion by experiments of a very partial kind indeed; they contend that the poison of strychnia is of that nature, that when once it has done its fatal work, and become absorbed into the system, it ceases to be the thing which it was when it was taken into the system; it becomes decomposed, its elements separated from each other, and therefore no longer capable of responding to the tests which, according to them, would certainly detect the poison of undecomposed strychnia; that is their case. They account for the fact that it was not found, and for their still retaining the belief that it destroyed Mr. Cook, by that hypothesis. Now, it is only a hypothesis; there is no foundation for it in experiment; it is not supported by the evidence of any eminent toxicologist but themselves—it is due to them to say, and to Dr. Taylor in particular to say, because it will be quite out of my power to speak of Dr. Christison through any part of this discussion except with the respect and consideration which is due to a man of eminent acquirements and of the highest character; it is due to Dr. Taylor to say that he does propound that theory in his book, but he propounds it as a theory of his own; he does not vouch, as I remember, any eminent toxicologist in support of it; and when we recollect that his knowledge on the matter consists—good, humane man!—in having poisoned five rabbits twenty-five years ago, and five since this question of the guilt or innocence of Palmer arose, his opinion, I think, unsupported by the opinions of others, cannot have much weight with you; however, what I have to say now upon that point is, that I will call before you many gentlemen of the highest eminence in their profession, analytical chemists, to state to you their utter renunciation of that theory. I will call before you Mr. Nunneley, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and Professor of Surgery at the Leeds School of Medicine, who attended that case of strychnia poison that took place at Leeds, and to which we have agreed that no reference shall be made by name. I will call before you Dr. Williams, Professor of Materia Medica at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and surgeon for eighteen years to the City of Dublin Hospital, who will tell you that he also entirely rejects that theory, and believes that it has no foundation in experiment or authority. I will call before you Dr. Letheby, one of the ablest and most distinguished among the men of science in this great city, Professor of Chemistry and Toxicology in the Medical College of the London Hospital, and medical officer of health of the city of London, who also rejects that theory as a heresy unworthy of the belief of scientific men. I will call before you Dr. Nicholas Parker, of the College of Physicians, a physician of the London Hospital and Professor of Medicine to that institution, who concurs with Dr. Letheby in his opinion; Dr. Robinson, also of the Royal College of Physicians; Mr. Rogers, Professor of Chemistry to St. George’s School; and lastly, I will call before you probably the most eminent chemical analyst in this country, Mr. William Herapath, of Bristol, who totally rejects the theory as utterly unworthy of credence—all of these gentlemen contending, and ready to depose to it on their oaths, that not only if half a grain, or the fiftieth part of a grain, but I believe they will go on to say that if five, or ten, or twenty times less than that quantity had entered into the human frame at all, it could be and must be detected by tests which are unerring. They will tell you this, not as the result of a day’s cruelty for ever regretted on five rabbits, but upon a large and tried experience upon the inferior animals, made and created, as you know they were, for the benefit of mankind; upon a very extensive experience in many cases, as to many of them, of the effects of strychnia on the human system. And not to detain you on this part of the case, to which I only now advert, not intending to press it on you later at any length, that you may see what the nature of the defence in point of medical testimony will be, I will satisfy you by evidence which I think must control your judgment, that the only safe conclusion at which you can arrive is that strychnia not having been found in Cook’s body, under the circumstances of this case never could have been there. You will find that they all agree in this opinion, that no degree of putrefaction or fermentation in the human system could in their judgment so decompose the poison of strychnia as that it should no longer possess those qualities which in its undecomposed state cause it to respond to the tests which are used for its detection.

Serjeant Shee

Having said so much I will now apply myself to what, in my judgment, is an equally important, if not more important, question in this case, one which I approach with no diffidence whatever except the distrust which I have, under the circumstances in which I speak, of myself, and which, if it were possible for me to write what I think upon it and then to read it to you, I do not entertain the smallest doubt that you must be convinced of the innocence of this man—the question whether, in the second week of November, 1855, he had a motive for the commission of this murder, some strong reason for desiring that Cook should die. I never will believe that, unless it be made clear to you that it was the interest of William Palmer, or that he thought it was his interest, to destroy Cook—I never will believe, till I hear your verdict pronounced, that a jury can come to the conclusion of his guilt. And it seems to me, upon the evidence which has been laid before you, abundantly clear that it not only was not the interest of William Palmer that Cook should die, but that his death was the very worst calamity that could befall him, and that he could not possibly be ignorant that it must be immediately followed by his own ruin. That it was followed by his immediate ruin we know. We know that at the time when he is said to have commenced to plot the death of Cook he was in a condition of the greatest embarrassment. It was an embarrassment which, in its extreme intensity, had come but recently upon him, an embarrassment, too, in some degree mitigated by the circumstance that the person upon whom these bills, which have been stated to you to be forgeries, purported to be drawn was his own mother, a lady of a very large fortune, and with whom he was on the most affectionate terms. Still, he was in a condition unquestionably of great embarrassment. My learned friend has raised the hypothesis of his having a wish to destroy Cook upon the ground of this embarrassment. My learned friend stated to you that the case of the Crown against the prisoner was this, that, “being in desperate circumstances, with ruin, disgrace, and punishment staring him in the face, he took advantage of his intimacy with Cook, when Cook had been the winner of a considerable sum of money, to destroy him and get possession of his money.” That is the theory of the Crown. Now, let us test it as a matter of business, relieving, if possible, our minds from the anxiety we must all feel when the fate of a fellow-creature is at stake, as if it was a case in a private room for the decision of an arbitrator. It is my misfortune not to be able at times to speak otherwise than earnestly, but let us look at it as a matter of business and scrutinise it in every corner. Was it his interest that in the second week in November, 1855, Mr. Cook should be killed by a railway accident? If it was not, we have no motive to ascribe to it. If it was not, and more, if the contrary was clearly his interest, no sensible man would believe that he deliberately plotted and committed the murder. A long correspondence has been put in, the material parts of which letters will, in a subsequent stage of the case, be called to your attention. There is evidently a great deal in it that does not touch the point in the case, but the learned judge, before the end of the case, will direct your mind to a correct appreciation of the contents. I watched them with an anxiety which no words can express. Having had the advantage, for which I shall ever honour my learned friend, of reading the correspondence beforehand, I found the history, as told by the correspondence, filled up by the vivâ voce testimony which was afterwards given. I was aware, at least I firmly believed, that in that correspondence the innocence of the prisoner lay concealed; and I think that I shall be able to show you that it is demonstrative of this proposition that he not only had no motive to kill Cook, but that the death of Cook was the very worst kind of thing that could happen for him. I shall not apologise to you, you would think it very inopportune to do so, for going into the details of this matter. Allow me, confining myself, as it is my duty, to the evidence in the cause, to call your attention to the position in which these two men stood to each other. They had been intimate as racing friends for two or three years; they had had a great many transactions together; they were jointly interested in at least one racehorse which was training at the stables of Saunders at Hednesford; they generally stayed together at the same hotel; they were seen together on almost all the racecourses in the kingdom, and were known to be connected in betting transactions, and adventurers upon the same horses at the same races. It is in evidence that just before Cook’s death he said, in the presence of his friend Jones, addressing Palmer, “Palmer, we have lost a great deal of money upon races this year.” And though it is impossible, Cook being dead, and the mouth of the prisoner sealed, and transactions of this character not being recorded in regular books as the transactions in a merchant’s counting-house are, to give you in the fulness of evidence the actual state of their relations to each other, yet it is abundantly clear, and I will make it more clear to you presently, that they were very closely connected. When, in the month of May, 1855, money was wanted either by Mr. Cook or Palmer, Palmer applied to Pratt for it. He wanted, I think, £200 to make up a sum for the payment of a debt, he having, I think, a balance of £190 in the hands of Pratt. Mr. Pratt would not lend it him without security, and he proposed the security of his friend John Parsons Cook, a gentleman of respectability and a man of substance.

Serjeant Shee

Now, what the exact state of the affairs of John Parsons Cook at that time was I do not know. Such a fortune as he had might be thrown down in a week by the course of life that he was leading. A young man who is reckless as to the mode in which he employs his fortune, and who has only £13,000, may, if he likes, for a year or two pass before the world as a man of much more considerable means; it is not everybody who will go to Doctors’ Commons to ascertain what the exact amount of property he derived from his grandfather was. He was Mr. Cook, of Lutterworth, a gentleman who had a stud of racehorses, who lived expensively, and was known to have inherited a fortune; he was a person whose friendship was at that time probably, and probably continued to be, a matter of considerable convenience to Palmer. You recollect, gentlemen, I am not defending Palmer against the crime of forgery. I am not defending him against the reckless improvidence of obtaining money at the enormous discounts at which he obtained it. The question is, whether he is guilty of murder. Palmer and Cook were then so circumstanced as early as the month of May, 1855. They had had another transaction previously to the date of November, 1855, which I will not advert to now, because it was taken second in the case of my learned friend the Attorney-General; but let us see what their position was in the second week of November, 1855. Respecting that, we have the evidence of Pratt, and from the correspondence which he explained to us there can be no doubt upon our minds. Amongst a mass of bills, amounting altogether to £11,500, which had been repeatedly renewed, there were two bills for £2000 each, which became due in the last week in October; and there was another bill, or two other bills, amounting to £1500 which had become due some time before, but which were held over, as they say, from month to month, Palmer, who was liable upon them, paying for the advantage of having them held over at the end of every month, at what they call interest of about 60 per cent. These three bills, or sums of £2000, £2000, and £1500 were the embarrassments which were pressing upon him in the second week of November; and, be it observed, though pressing upon him, they were pressed upon him by a man, who, no doubt, would have been glad to have got the principal, but who would also upon anything approaching to security have been very well pleased with the interest. How can capital, if it be secure, be better employed than at 40 or 60 per cent. per annum? As long as there was a vestige of good security, Mr. Pratt or Mr. Pratt’s clients desired nothing better than that Palmer should continue to hold the money.

Serjeant Shee

Now, in that state of things, on the 27th of October, Palmer, in answer to an urgent demand upon him for money on the ground of the security becoming doubtful, came up to London, and Pratt insisted that, in respect of one of those bills of £2000 which had just become due, as Palmer could not pay it, he should pay instalments upon it in addition to the enormous interest which he charged; and it was agreed at that interview of the 22nd of October that £250 should be paid down, £250 paid on the 31st of October, and that as soon after as possible a further sum of £300 should be paid, making in the whole a payment on account of that bill of £800 to quiet Pratt, or, as Pratt said, to quiet his clients, and induce them to let the bill stand over. On the 9th of November that £300 was paid, and, when paid, a letter was written, which I beg your particular attention to, and you will see how closely and strongly it bears on the point to which I am now entreating your most anxious consideration; a letter of the 13th of November, that is the day when “Polestar” won the race, written by Pratt to Palmer, as follows:—“Dear Sir,—Curiously enough, I find that the great point of the office is, that your brother had delirium tremens more than once, say, three or four times before his life was accepted, and that actually their medical man, Dr. Hastings, reported against the life, as well as Dr. Wardell. I think I shall be able to get a copy of the proposal through a friend.” Palmer did not know what the proposal was, and therefore probably it had been made by his brother. “The opinions of several secretaries of insurance offices are that the company have not a leg to stand upon, and from the mere fact of the enormous premium, it is plain that the policy was effected on an extra rate of premium on account of the true statement of the condition of health of the assured. The enormous premium will go a great way to give us a verdict.” I do not like to read only one passage from a letter, lest by chance I should mislead, therefore I have read that portion of it; but now attend to this—“I count most positively on seeing you on Saturday; do for both our sakes try to make up the amount to £1000, for without it I shall be unable to renew the £1500 due on the 9th.” What does that mean? Pratt told us yesterday the three sums of £300, £250, and £250, and some other small amount, making up the sum of £800, were instalments payable on the bill overdue, and upon which Pratt had threatened to issue writs against Palmer’s mother, and Palmer had gone almost down on his knees to beg him not to do so; he said, “For God’s sake, do not think of writs.” Now, that £800 being paid, Pratt said, “I shall only credit you for £600; I must take £200 for the interest.” In his letter of the 13th of November he says, “Do for both our sakes try and make up the amount to a thousand”—that is, make the £800 up to a thousand pounds—“for without it I shall be unable to renew the £1500. I must have a larger instalment, or else I cannot keep this bill afloat for you.” He said so, whether it was true or not does not matter in this case; that was the representation which he made, and the duress which he put on Palmer; and, in truth, it meant this—Make it up to a thousand, give me £200 more, or the writ shall be served on your mother. He does not say so, but he said something to the same effect before, and it was a representation that he could not satisfy the people whom he said he represented without that additional sum. Observe, that letter is written on the 13th of November, and Palmer gets it at Rugeley when he arrives on that evening from the race at which “Polestar” won. Palmer, who was at the races the first day, went away in the evening, and went to Rugeley; when he gets to Rugeley, early in the morning of the 14th, the next day probably, he gets this letter of Pratt’s pressing on him the necessity of paying a further sum of £200. What does he do? See if it is possible to doubt that at that time Cook’s life was of the utmost value to him. He instantly returns to Shrewsbury; he sees Cook. They say he dosed him. We will see how probable that is presently. He gets there on the Wednesday; he sees Cook. Cook goes to bed in a state which I will not at present describe; he gets up much more sensible than he went to bed; goes upon the racecourse, and comes home with Palmer to Rugeley on the next day, Thursday; he goes to bed when he gets to Rugeley; he gets up still ill and uncomfortable, but able to go out, and he dines with Palmer that day, Friday.

Serjeant Shee

Now, I beg your attention to this letter. On that day, the 16th, Palmer writes thus 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.” That is written on the 16th, the day they dine together at Palmer’s house. Now, you recollect that the person who ordinarily settled Cook’s accounts in racing transactions was a person of the name of Fisher, the wine merchant, in Shoe Lane. He was called as the first witness on this trial. That very day Cook writes to Fisher as follows:—“It is of very great importance to both Palmer and myself that a sum of £500 should be paid to a Mr. Pratt, of 5 Queen Street, Mayfair, to-morrow without fail; £300 has been sent up to-night, and if you would 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.” Then there is a postscript which I will read, but make no comment upon it now—“I am much better.” What is the fair inference from these two letters? I submit to you that the inference is that at that date Cook was making himself very useful to Palmer. Pratt was pressing him for an additional sum of £200 when he had need of all his money, and Palmer having communicated his difficulty to Mr. Cook, Cook at once comes forward and writes to his agent to pay that £200. And the letter shows more—you may have forgotten that letter, but it was read in the first hour after the speech of my learned friend the Attorney-General; you may have forgotten it, but I read it to you word for word—the passage, “£300 has been sent up to-night,” shows that Cook knew all about it, and probably had an interest in Palmer’s transactions with Mr. Pratt; it was inserted merely for the purpose of putting a good face upon it to Mr. Pratt, as a man does who, not having a farthing of the sum that he wants to pay, will pretend that he has to pay more, in order to represent that he has got a portion of what he wants to pay, and he says, “Will you lend me a little more; I am not entirely dependent upon you for the sum that I have to pay”; or it means that on that day £300, which had come to their hands in some way or other, was by Cook made applicable to the convenience of Palmer—one of those things it means; whichever way you take it, it proves to demonstration that Palmer and Cook were playing into each other’s hands in respect of that heavy incumbrance upon Palmer; and that Palmer could rely upon Cook as a fast friend in any such little difficulty as that; and though his difficulties sound large when we talk of £11,500, the difficulty of the day was nothing like that, because in the spendthrift, reckless way in which they were living, putting on bills from month to month, and paying what sounds an enormous interest per annum, the actual outlay on the day was not always so considerable. I submit to you that letter shows that on the 16th of November, when they say he was poisoning Cook, Cook was behaving to him in the most friendly way, was acquainted with his circumstances, willing to assist in the relief of his embarrassments, and actually to devote a portion of his earnings to the purposes of Palmer. It is perfectly plain, but I will make it plainer if you will attend to me for a moment longer. You will remember that part of the case of my learned friend is this. He says that he intended to defraud Cook; that Palmer having left Cook ill in bed at Rugeley, ran up to town on the Monday, intending to despatch him on the Monday night or the Tuesday; that he ran up to town, went, not to Fisher, who was the agent of Cook, but to Herring, who was his own agent, and told Herring that he was authorised by Cook to settle his Shrewsbury transactions at Tattersall’s, thereby getting command over Cook’s winnings; that he applied them to his own purposes, and, having done so, determined to put Cook out of the way. That is their case. We had the evidence of Fisher on the first day. Fisher is evidently a shrewd, intelligent man; no friend of Palmer’s. He gave, I do not mean to say improperly, I did not wish to throw imputations, but he gave a twist to the dosing at Shrewsbury against Palmer. On the Monday, as on the Tuesday, Cook, though generally indisposed, was during great part of the day quite well, according to the evidence; on the Monday he saw his trainer, Saunders, he saw his two jockeys; he got up and was shaved; he was comfortable the whole day, and the theory is that he was comfortable because Palmer was not there to dose him—you will see how grossly absurd it is presently. He was well on the Monday, quite well on the Tuesday; now, if Palmer had gone up to London, representing that he would do Cook’s business for him through Cook’s own agent, Fisher, Palmer might be perfectly certain if that was done on the Monday Fisher would write to Cook on that night to say that the thing was done and made straight; Herring, you see, does do it the moment the thing is settled between Palmer and Herring; Herring represents Palmer as saying, “You must write me word about some part of the transactions”; he says, “No, I shall write Mr. Cook word at Rugeley.” Do not you think Fisher would have done the same? and if Cook had not known that Palmer intended not to go to Fisher but to Herring, do you not think Cook would have been surprised on the Tuesday morning at not hearing that he had seen Palmer, and that the transactions were settled? Could Palmer, as a man of business, have relied upon Cook’s not being alarmed at Fisher’s not doing it? We had the evidence of Fisher, who says, “On the 17th of November, at Cook’s request, I paid £200 to Mr. Pratt; his account in the ordinary course would have been settled at Tattersall’s on Monday, the 19th. I advanced the £200 to pay Pratt; I knew that Cook had won at Shrewsbury, and I should have been entitled to have deducted that £200 from his winnings if I had settled his account at Tattersall’s; I did not settle the account.” 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 difficulty of the pressure of Pratt, and accordingly Cook said, “As to the settlement, it shall not go through Fisher; we will have the £200 from Fisher; it shall not be paid to him on Monday; I will let Palmer go up and settle the whole thing through Herring.” And that is what was done; and accordingly Fisher has never been paid since.

Serjeant Shee

Now, there is a letter to which I will call your attention, of the 19th November, 1855, from Palmer to Pratt—“Dear Sir,—You will place the £50 I have just paid you, and the £450 you will receive from Mr. Herring, together £500, and the £200 you received on Saturday,” that is, the £200 that Fisher paid to Pratt at the express request of Cook “towards payment of my mother’s acceptance for £2000, due 25th October, making paid to this day the sum of £1300.” Can you doubt when you take all that together—the dining together on the Friday—Cook writing that letter to Fisher, saying it was of the greatest importance to him as well as to Palmer that the £200 should be paid in order to pacify Pratt, can you doubt that on that day Cook was a most convenient friend to Palmer, and that he could not by any possibility do without him. But it does not end there. Cook died on the Wednesday morning early, the 21st; if we want to know what effect that death had on Palmer, and what interest he had in it, Palmer’s mouth being sealed, we must get it from Pratt. Nobody else that we know knows anything about it; Cook is gone. On the 22nd November, the day after the death—and I am sure you will make some allowance for a day having elapsed after the death of Cook before he wrote—Palmer writes thus to Pratt—“Ever since I saw you I have been fully engaged with Cook and not able to leave him.” Now, unless he murdered him, that is the truest sentence that ever was expressed. 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 that was ill, unless he was plotting his death—“And I am sorry to say after all he died this day, so that you had better write to Saunders; but mind, I must have ‘Polestar’ if it can be so arranged; and should any one call upon you to know what moneys Cook ever had from you do not answer the question.” Then he says, “I sat up two full nights with Cook.” That he sat up the whole of the night may not be true, but he was ready to be called if Cook should be ill; and Elizabeth Mills says after the first serious paroxysm, when she went to bed, she left Palmer in the arm-chair, sleeping by the man whom they say he intended to murder. No! murderers do not sleep by their victims in that way. What is the answer? I read it to you in order that you may see what ruin Cook’s death brought upon Palmer. The answer of Pratt is—and you will see how much it increased the difficulties of Palmer—“I have your note, and am greatly disappointed at the non-receipt of the money as promised, and at the vague assurance as to any money. I can understand that your being detained by the illness of your friend has been the cause of your not sending up the amount.” Attend to this paragraph—“The death of Mr. Cook will now compel you to look about as to the payment of the bill for £500, due the 2nd of December. I have written Saunders informing him of my claim, and requesting to know by return what claim he had for keep and training”; so that the very first effect of Cook’s death was, in Pratt’s opinion, who knew all about it, to saddle Palmer alone with the sum of £500. He says, “The death of Cook will now compel you to look about as to the payment of the bill for £500 on the 2nd of December.” We will investigate the transaction out of which that bill arose, and you will see, I venture to say, that I can satisfy you conclusively that the transaction out of which that bill arose was a transaction for Cook’s accommodation, for which Palmer had lent his name to accommodate Cook, and for which upon Cook’s death Palmer became primarily and alone responsible. It will be for you to judge, if I prove that to you, whether it suited Palmer at that moment to stand before the holder of that £500 bill—some client of Pratt’s—as the only man liable upon it, and whether there was the same chance, supposing it had been for his own accommodation, of putting it on, as they call it, after Cook’s death, as there might have been before. But let me be fair to the prosecution, and state to you now the view that the Attorney-General takes of that £500 transaction. As I told you, I mean to meet his case foot to foot, and to show, and I hope to show him, that there is nothing in it; that if he, as the law officer of the Crown, had had the option of taking up this case or not, he would not have taken it up; that the Crown never would have appeared upon it, but because the universal feeling of the country was such as to render it impossible that the case should not be tried after the verdict of wilful murder obtained on Dr. Taylor’s evidence; and because the Crown, having seen the absolute necessity of its being tried, felt that it would abandon the duty of protecting every one of the Queen’s subjects if it did not take care that a man with so much prejudice against him, that man leading the life that Palmer led, and disgraced by forgeries to a large amount, as it is said, and a gambler by profession, should not have a fair trial. There was no other way of securing a fair trial for this man, as the Attorney-General at once saw—there was no possibility of his being saved but by giving the counsel who defended him all the information that my friend had himself. We will see what his view is. My learned friend states it upon his instruction in this way. He is bound, as I told you in the beginning, in prosecuting this case to prosecute it strenuously; he is bound to put the facts together according to his instructions in such a way that, if they will and ought to establish guilt, it is brought home. Prosecutions must be conducted in that way, or the guilty would escape in nine cases out of ten. And therefore my friend, upon the view of the evidence—a comparatively superficial one—thinks that this is the theory upon which it appears probable that Palmer plotted the death of Mr. Cook. I will read to you from my friend’s speech, with reference to the £500 bill transaction; and, as I understand it, it is the greatest mistake that was ever committed, and would not stand for a moment but for the popular prejudice against Palmer. I think I can satisfy you that is so—“Pratt still declining to advance the money”—that is the £1000 which Palmer wanted him to advance—“Pratt proposed an assignment by Cook of two racehorses, one called ‘Polestar,’ which won the Shrewsbury race, and another called ‘Syrius.’ That assignment was afterwards executed by Mr. Cook in favour of Pratt, and Cook was entitled to the money raised on that security, which realised £375 in cash and a wine warrant.” They twist it in this way, that Palmer, having forged the endorsement of Cook, and being afraid of detection, put Mr. Cook out of the way. That is the view they take of that case. I think I can satisfy you it is impossible that that can be the correct view. It cannot, by any possibility, as it seems to me. It is for you to judge. We know exactly what took place; we had it from Pratt yesterday. What took place was this. Palmer applied for the loan of £1000; Pratt said, “I can’t let you have it.” Palmer said, “Will you discount a bill for £500?” Pratt said, “Not without security.” Palmer said, “What security will you take; it is for the accommodation of Mr. Cook? I have undertaken to get the enclosed bill cashed for Mr. Cook; you had a £200 bill of his.” He reminds him that he had been paid a £200 bill, and he says, “He is a very good and responsible man; will you do it, and I will put my name to the bill?” So that it was represented to Pratt as a transaction for the accommodation of Cook; and Pratt’s answer is, “If Mr. Cook chooses to give me his security I have no objection, but he must execute a bill of sale of his two racehorses, ‘Polestar’ and ‘Syrius,’ and he must execute a power of attorney, and signature to it must be attested by some solicitor in the country, so that I may be quite sure that it is really a valid security; and upon those terms, if you will get all that done, and Mr. Cook will submit to all that, I will give him £375 in money, £65 wine warrant, charging him £10 for expenses, and £50 for discount”—making up the sum of £500; that is what Pratt is willing to do. There is no doubt at all, you know, that Cook attached the highest value to “Polestar”; he was not going to execute a bill of sale with a power of attorney to enable the mortgagee or assignee to enforce it at once; he was not going to do that, and not get any money for doing it; he knew the value of “Polestar” and “Syrius”; “Polestar” was probably backed for the engagements on which he won the money at Shrewsbury. My friend says he never received that £375; it is in the last degree improbable that he never received that money; I put it to you as men of sense that he must have received it; do you think that he remained after executing the bill of sale on the 6th of September the whole time from that day to his death without writing to Pratt—“Why, you have the bill of sale of my two horses, and I have not got any money upon them”? Is it credible, can you believe Cook, who was as much in want of money as Palmer; do you think he would throw away his property in that way, and let Pratt obtain from him a bill of sale and get no money upon it? It is incredible; the only pretence for setting it up is this, it is a perfectly fatal one that will not stand before sensible men for a minute. Along with the cheque for £375 he sent £315 to Palmer for his own purposes; but my friend says Palmer, having got this cheque for £375 payable to order, fraudulently appropriated it to himself; forged the name of Cook upon the back of it, and kept Cook in ignorance of the transaction. Is it credible, that during three whole months Cook, who knew that he had executed a bill of sale of his two racehorses, and I will show you was in want of money, should have allowed it to remain so? Is it not much more probable that the signature of Cook was put on there with his full knowledge? It is not suggested that there was any attempt at imitating his handwriting. Is it not more probable that Cook, who wanted the ready money, and who would probably be put to inconvenience if he did not get the ready money, but only the means of getting it two days later—that Palmer should let him have the £315 cash which was sent up, and Palmer take the cheque? I will show you there is reason for believing that to be the case; I will put it to you, in the first place, whether it is probable he would be silent for three months. Palmer writes, “I will thank you to let me have the £315 by return of post if possible; if not, send it to me by Monday night’s post to the post office, Doncaster. I now return you Mr. Cook’s paper, and he wants the money on Saturday if he can have it; I have not promised it for Saturday, so please to enclose it with mine in cash in a registered letter, and he must pay for its being registered.” So that you see Palmer wanted it to be sent like his own, and Cook wanted it to be sent in cash. “Do not let it be later than Monday night’s post.” Pratt writes acknowledging the receipt of the document, saying he will send him his money to Doncaster, and endeavour to let Cook have his money at the same time. On the 10th of September Palmer writes to Pratt that he must send him for Mr. Cook £385 instead of £375 and the wine warrant, so that he can hand it to him with the £385. Accordingly, here is an intimation that Cook, who wanted the money on the very day, was inconvenienced by only getting a cheque on London which he could not immediately change, and therefore Palmer gave him the money and took the cheque. It is remarkable, when we look at the banking account of Palmer at Rugeley, the £375 is paid in by somebody to Palmer’s account, but the £315 is not paid into Palmer’s account at all; that is the only sum paid in on that day, so that I put it to you upon these facts, Pratt saying in a letter which accompanies the money, “I am obliged to send a cheque for Mr. Cook, for I have not received the money, which I shall do no doubt to-morrow”; so that not being able to send cash to the full amount he is obliged to do that which did not suit Cook; he sent him a cheque which he could not cash on the day he got it; he is obliged to send it to London unless he could find some friend down there, and that delays him for a whole day. I submit to you as the true version of the transaction that the bill was accepted for Cook’s accommodation; Cook gave as security for it the two horses, “Polestar” and “Syrius”; Cook never complained to Pratt during the rest of his life that he had not received the money upon it. It appears in the correspondence that Cook wanted the ready money, and that he wanted it on Saturday, and it would be probably inconvenient if he had got it a bit later than Monday; though Palmer would not promise to get it sooner than Tuesday. What says Palmer in his letter, which is not written for the purpose of this case, but written at the date of this transaction, that he, Palmer, would let Cook have the cash that was sent, and he himself take the cheque with Cook’s authority, and put Cook’s name on the back of it; and how else can you account for the silence of Cook, for the fact that the £375 is paid into the account of Palmer at Rugeley, and no trace of the other large sum of £315? That is well worthy your consideration. You cannot account by any reasonable mode for the fact that the security given for that £500 was Cook’s horses, and Cook remaining quiet about it for three months after he had executed a regular bill of sale, except the supposition that it was for Cook’s accommodation, and Cook got the best part of the money; and, if so, Palmer’s name being on the bill, what is the effect of Cook’s death? Gentlemen, what Pratt, who knew all about it, says is, “The death of Cook makes you liable for that sum of £500 due on the 2nd December.” I submit to you, on the second ground of motive, which my learned friend suggested, the case has altogether failed, and that it is perfectly clear that at the date of Cook’s death Pratt was of opinion that the death of Cook threw a further liability on Palmer of £500; he tells him so in that letter. How could it be his interest to kill him? We already find the difficulties which Cook’s death brings upon Palmer; the bill of £500, the danger of the loss of “Polestar,” which he wanted very much to have, and which Pratt would, of course, unless Palmer paid the £500, send to the hammer, and realise so shortly; we find that inquiries were at once apprehended on the part of Cook’s friends as to the money Pratt had paid to Palmer out of those two bill transactions, and the value which Mr. Cook had received for any endorsement which he had given.

Serjeant Shee

Just see another transaction of that date; it is not quite so clear, as it strikes me, but yet it makes it to my mind exceedingly improbable that Palmer should have desired the death of Cook. Exceedingly improbable! Mr. Wetherby told us to-day that though frequently stakes won at a race were sent up by the clerk of the course to the winner’s bankers within a week, it was not always so, and it would not be a matter of complaint if it was not. On the 20th of November, the day before Cook dies, and on which he was perfectly comfortable and happy, enjoying the society of his friend Mr. Jones, with whom he was on terms of the greatest intimacy, and to whom he could confide any troubles that he had, and who appears to be a gentleman in every way respectable and intelligent—on that day Cook was well, and Mr. Jones was with him, and there is no doubt that on that day, according to the evidence of Mr. Wetherby, he did sign and give this cheque for £350. If Palmer killed him that night, and by any chance the £350 should not have been sent up by Mr. Frail, so as to be there on the next morning, he (Mr. Wetherby) would not pay that cheque, and would never pay it after notice of Cook’s death, though the money should come up. He never did pay it. The end of that transaction was this, that Mr. Frail did not send it up, but made a claim upon Cook in respect of it. Cook’s executors disputed that, and Cook’s executors finally recovered the money, but they did not send it up to Mr. Wetherby. I do not put it as strong as the other case, because Palmer might think that the money would be there; but he also might think that it would not be there. It is not at all likely that, having got the cheque for £350 from Cook, he would run the risk of losing that money by destroying him in the night, Cook’s friends being there, and sure to institute an immediate inquiry into his affairs. Is that probable? I submit to you it is not. It is not likely that Palmer could have got a cheque for £350, or Cook should have given it to him, which should not be payable until the next day, when there might be no funds to meet it; and with that uncertainty, is it likely that Palmer should destroy Cook. That, therefore, is in the last degree improbable. It does not end there—what they have said on the other side is, you know, that he got this cheque fraudulently—he got possession of this money, and then, lest Cook should detect it, he destroyed him. It is not at all probable that that would answer his purpose. The moment the breath was out of Cook’s body his friends would surround the corpse. He might be perfectly certain that Mr. Jones would go to Mr. Stevens, that Stevens and Bradford, his brother-in-law, would be down, and that a post-mortem examination would take place, and instead of settling with Pratt as to this £500 bill and the £350 cheque, he would have to settle with hard men of business, men who cared nothing for him, looked upon him as a blackleg, and would care neither for his feeling, his interest, nor anything, but would let him go to ruin which way he liked, not stirring a finger to save him. Do you think that was probable? I submit to you not. It does not end there. We know from Herring that at that very time Herring held one bill for £500 on which Cook’s name was.

The Attorney-General—I do not think there is any proof of that.

Mr. Serjeant Shee—Whether it be so or not as to the £500, he had three £200 bills, one of which, I think, was drawn by Cook and accepted by Palmer, and the other two drawn by Palmer and accepted by Cook, or the other way.

The Attorney-General—You are quite right as to the £500.

Serjeant Shee

Mr. Serjeant Shee—And another bill of £500, which my friend stated and gave proof was not his mother’s signature. So that there was a bill for £500 not in her handwriting to which Cook was a party, for all of which Cook either in whole or in part, unless he rushed upon his own ruin, must provide; in respect of which, for the accommodation of Palmer or not, Palmer could go to Cook and say, “Now, Cook, it is true enough all these bills are for my accommodation, but what is the use of your making a fuss about that? If I cannot pay, you must, or your stud will be sold up; had you not better give your name to some more bills and make it easy?” If he put Cook to death that was gone. Again, in addition to the £500 bill, for which the bill of sale on “Syrius” and “Polestar” was given, the bill for £500 held by Herring was a forgery, according to their case, which there would be no excuse for not meeting; a £500 bill in the hands of a man who wants the money is not so easily put on; that £500 bill would very soon find its way to his mother. It would not have suited Palmer that his mother should know—his mother was a woman of large fortune, a respectable person I am told—she disliked his gambling propensities though she liked her son; neither did the excellent and most honourable man his brother, before me, who stands by him now, but who was estranged from him simply because he disapproved of his gambling, neither would he have given to him any countenance. If Palmer was pressed to pay that £500, and Cook was dead, there was nothing to save him from the exposure. Nothing! If you doubt what I say is the truth, look through the whole of the case—find me in any portion of this most voluminous evidence the slightest trace that there was a man in the world who would lend his name to Palmer to enable him to get money. Is not the fact that he forged, if he did forge, the name of his mother conclusive that he had no other resource? Is there the least trace of evidence that he had any other resource than the good nature, the easiness, perhaps the folly, of Cook, who could have renewed these bills for him—the three £200 bills and the £500—and put them on as they say? And was it not quite certain that if Cook, the acceptor of them, dropped, the claim would come upon Cook’s executors, and then the executors would ascertain all about it and sell him up? When you come to think of it, is it credible that the man under those circumstances should desire to bring not merely the creditors and executors of Cook—who might be supposed, though Mr. Stevens is not one of that class, to have some pity for Cook’s friend—but men of business, down upon him, who have no right to have any pity? A man dies, his affairs are put into the hands of solicitors; they have a plain duty to perform, they cannot be compassionate, they must be just; they must see the rights of their clients the executors established in due course of law, and compromise and arrangement with them is wholly out of the question. Can you find in any part of this case a single living person who was willing to have done for Palmer what Cook had been doing for him for two or three years? Does it appear that there was one? Does it appear that Cook was a close-fisted fellow, and did not care to do Palmer a turn? When Palmer needed the £200, which the harpy wanted from him, Cook at once wrote and said it is a matter of great importance to him as well as Palmer that this £200 should be paid; and he even risked the displeasure of Fisher in doing it. Then, again, Cook was in his senses perfectly on the Tuesday. He cannot have been very rich at that time. He gave him the cheque for £350. How is it possible to conceive that under those circumstances Palmer should have an interest in the death of Cook, and yet what is the theory of the Crown? That Palmer was convinced that he could settle his affairs as to Cook better with Mr. Stevens than he could with Cook himself—settle these word-of-honour transactions; these things, half of which would not bear inquiry in any way as reasonable business transactions, with a shrewd and probably a penurious man—deliberately thought that it would answer his purpose better to come in contact with his executor, Mr. Stevens, whom Mr. Jones might rush up to town and bring down with him. I submit to you with confidence, though what I say may be inconsistent with the views generally entertained by the public—the public, however, have never had an opportunity of looking at all these letters—but it seems to me as clear as anything can be, that it was the manifest interest of Palmer that Cook should live. But, in addition to its being his interest that he should live, was it safe for him that he should die? Palmer was a man who added to a shrewd knowledge of the world a knowledge of his profession, and, among other things, a knowledge of chemistry. Palmer knew perfectly well, and he had studied his profession sufficiently when he was a young man to know perfectly well, that, if strychnia was administered, it would in all probability throw the victim into horrible convulsions in a very short time, and in a way so striking as to be the talk of a small neighbourhood like Rugeley for a month or two, which would be time enough to alarm everybody, and to provoke inquiries into the circumstances of the death, which must certainly end, or in all probability end, if he was guilty, in his conviction. If that was so, was he so circumstanced at that time as to make it safe for him to run the risk of such suspicions? His brother, Walter Palmer, had died in the month of August, and his only hope, unless his mother forgave him or recognised those acceptances, his only hope of extrication from his difficulties was the getting the amount due by the Prince of Wales Insurance Company to him as the assignee of the policy on Walter Palmer’s life; that was his only chance. He had a chance that way, and it is plain that it was so good a chance, as I will show you presently, that he refused an offer of return of premium from the company; it does not appear what the amount was—and Pratt, who was his attorney, believed the chance to be so good that he had actually got the discounts of these large sums of money upon it, and had resolved, under the directions of Palmer, to put it in suit. It was really the only unpledged property he had, and how was he situated respecting it? It is plain from the letters which were put in yesterday, and it is further plain from a piece of evidence to which you will, I am sure, find it worth your while to pay great attention. We had Mr. Deane called yesterday, who is the attorney to the Prince of Wales insurance office; and for some time—though it had ceased just at that time—but for some time previously to this month of November, the insurance company, which, I believe, is not a very old insurance company, were annoyed at being called upon to pay so large a sum, and they determined to do all they could to resist it. They accordingly sent down Inspector Field to Stafford and his man Simpson to make inquiries, which he could not do without talking and insinuating suspicions and raising a cloud of doubt and conjecture about Palmer, and this had been going on for some considerable time. Now, observe the evidence of Deane, and you will see if it is not so. He says, “The name of my firm is Chubb, Deane & Chubb. I had been to Rugeley some time previously to the inquest. I know Field, the detective officer; we were solicitors to the Prince of Wales insurance office; it was in our employment that Field went to Rugeley; he was at Rugeley only a part of one day; he was at Stafford for three or four days altogether; he did not see the prisoner Palmer; this visit had been preceded by that of another officer named Simpson. Simpson went from Stafford to Rugeley with myself and Field; he told me he had seen Palmer; I think he went into Staffordshire in the first week in October.” Then my learned friend asked him what they went down for; he said that they went down to make inquiries as to the habits of life of Mr. Walter Palmer, of whose death the Prince of Wales insurance office had shortly before received notice; so that you see just before the death of Cook Palmer knew himself to be an object of suspicion, but he acted as if he thought it was the most unfounded and unwarrantable suspicion, putting the policy of insurance into the hands of an attorney to enforce payment of it, and the office meeting the claim by insinuations and inquiries which were of a nature to destroy his character and to bring around his head the suspicion of another murder.

Serjeant Shee

Gentlemen, that that was so I will show you by the letters which were put in yesterday. You see that the pressure by Pratt upon Palmer to meet the two £1000 bills never took place until the office disputed the payment of that policy. All went as smooth as possible so long as Pratt held what he believed to be a good security, the policy upon Walter Palmer’s life, who was dead; but when they began to dispute it, then you will find that Pratt writes to Palmer and tells him the situation of things is quite changed; he could manage the bills very well while that policy was undisputed; but now it is disputed that quite alters the state of things; he says, as he had somewhat anticipated, he finds they can do nothing till the 24th, that is nothing towards compelling the office to pay, because insurance offices generally take three months to pay; and then, stating some other circumstances, he says, “This you will observe quite alters the arrangement, and I therefore must request you to make preparations for meeting the two bills due at the end of this month”; that was where the difficulty was, that was where the pinch was. Then, he says, he shall not flag in his exertions, and so on, and he refers to the circumstances connected with the dispute; Mr. Pratt says—“You, Palmer, know whether they have any ground to dispute that policy upon your brother’s life; you are enforcing it, and if you have no right to do it it is at your peril.” That is what it means, and then he goes on to say, “We must try and make them pay”—that was the position in which Pratt, who was acting for him, stood as to this Prince of Wales insurance office. He says, “In any event, bear in mind that you must be prepared to cover your mother’s acceptances for the £4000 due at the end of the month”; there was the pinch, the office would not pay, the £4000 was becoming due, the holder of the bills saw he was without security, and if anything occurred to increase the suspicions of the insurance office, which was very reluctant to pay, the £13,000 was lost for ever, lost beyond hope. Gentlemen, that £13,000 is sure to be paid unless that man is convicted of murder; and that has a great deal to do with the clamour and alarm which have been excited. So sure as that man is saved, and saved I believe he will be, that £13,000 is paid; there is no defence, no pretence for a defence—the letters of the office make that plain; they took an enormous premium—knowing that the man was only thirty, they took a premium for a man of fifty.

Mr. Attorney-General—That is not in evidence; do you mean to prove that?

Mr. Serjeant Shee—I do not know whether I can show that to be the actual premium, but the letters which were put in show that the premium was enormous; and I say that as sure as he is saved that £13,000 is good for him, and will pay all his creditors.

Now, observe the position in which he was at the moment—all the correspondence turns upon that. This correspondence saves the prisoner, if there is common sense in man.

Serjeant Shee

Now, observe, there is another letter from Pratt containing this passage, “I have your note, acknowledging receipt by your mother of the £2000 acceptance, due the 2nd of October; why not let her acknowledge it herself? You must really not fail to come up at once, if it be for the purpose of arranging for the payment of the two bills at the end of the month; remember I can make no terms for their renewal, and they must be paid. I will, of course, hold the policy for as much as it is worth,” and so on. At this time Simpson and Field were making inquiries how a young man of thirty had died, who had had delirium tremens three times, as their own physician, Dr. Hastings, and Mr. Wardell had informed them. Then in a postscript he says he “casts no doubt upon the capability of the company to pay, but that in the nature of things, with so large an amount in question, it is not surprising that, if they think they have grounds for resisting, they should temporise by delay.” Does not that show that at that date at least, the 6th of October, suspicions were hanging in menacing meteors about Palmer’s head, which would come down with irresistible momentum and crush him upon suspicion of a sudden death by murder? Do you believe that a man who wrote what the effects of strychnia were in his manual would risk such a scene as a deathbed by strychnia, in the presence of the dearest and best friend of Cook—a man whom he could not influence, a medical man, who liked him and loved him well enough when he knew he was ill to sleep with him in the same room that he might be ready to attend to him in case he wanted assistance during the night? Is that common sense; are you going to endorse such a theory as that upon the suggestion of Dr. Alfred Taylor about the effects that strychnia produced upon his five rabbits? Impossible, perfectly impossible! as I submit to you. But to proceed—I will prove to you, most clearly, the position in which he was. On the other side of the letter of the 10th of October Mr. Pratt writes, “Copy of solicitors’ reply”; that is, the solicitors to the Prince of Wales insurance office. He says, “I may add that I hear the office have been making inquiries in every direction.” To be sure, Field was employed; he is not now in the police, but he is employed as a detective officer; he was at Stafford, and was at Rugeley, and was making inquiries in all directions; inquiries could be made at Stafford as well as Rugeley, and all that had taken place at Rugeley just as easily ascertained there as at Rugeley itself; whatever had taken place there would be known. He says they have been making inquiries in all directions. It is plain, then, that he knew that suspicions were then rife, or that they were endeavouring to create suspicions, against him about the policy on the life of Walter Palmer. Here is the very letter which the company wrote in answer to the claim, dated 8th of October, 1855; it is from Messrs. Chubb, Deane & Chubb, the solicitors to the office, addressed to Thomas Pratt, Esq., acknowledging the application; and shortly afterwards Messrs. Chubb send a reply to the application—there is no date to it, but it is enclosed in a letter of the 18th of October from Pratt to Palmer. After apologising for not answering the letter of the 16th instant, owing to the absence of Mr. Deane, they refer to the “local investigation having been made, and decline to pay the claim upon the ground that the facts disclosed in the course of the inquiry are such as fully to warrant them in doing so.” These are letters which my learned friend thought it right to put in yesterday; they are evidence for the Crown, and what is the inference from them? Judge, if you please, from some of the letters to Pratt, and the one which I read first from Pratt to Palmer. Palmer determined that the policy should be paid; he took the advice of Sir Fitzroy Kelly. I see here it is said, “The case will be laid before Kelly to-morrow.” This letter came just before the end of the long vacation; the time to take proceedings had only just commenced, in any event, because the three months had only just expired. But so sure as anything happened by foul play to Cook, he had no more chance of getting the £13,000 than £130,000 from the Prince of Wales insurance office—none whatever. That was the only means he had at that time of extricating himself from those incumbrances.

Serjeant Shee

Gentlemen, I have detained you a long time upon this, but not, I trust, too long, if the view I have submitted be one worthy of your consideration. I infer from all this that Palmer had no interest whatever to put Cook to death; that it was contrary to his interest in a pecuniary point of view, and brought claims upon him, some of them small, others of a larger amount, of which he might have shared the liability with Cook, if not have thrown it entirely upon Cook; that it forced an immediate settlement of the affairs of Cook, not with Cook himself, who was an easy man—it is plain he was—and probably their solicitors, and that therefore in a pecuniary sense he had every motive of interest to desire that Cook should live; and further, he had no chance of getting a ready payment from these documents—but with hard and exacting executors of the £13,000, no chance of the sudden death of Cook passing without suspicion and inquiry, and therefore he could not think it safe for him that he should die.

I cannot, I think, be so much mistaken as that a considerable portion of these observations is not well worthy your attention. I humbly contend that the suggested motive altogether fails; and I conclude that head of the observations which I have to address to you by saying that I submit respectfully to you, to the Court, and to my learned friends that that portion of this case has failed. It could not be the interest of Palmer that Cook should die.

I now proceed to the next head, and it is impossible in dealing with this evidence to observe altogether the order of date. I must group the facts as well as I can in order to deal with the whole of the evidence. The question is whether the symptoms of Cook before his death and the appearance presented by his body after death were consistent with the theory of his having died by strychnia poison, and inconsistent with the theory of his having died from other and natural causes. It is under this head, gentlemen, that I shall discuss, I hope not at undue length, the medical evidence in this cause, and present to you such observations as occur to me upon the witnesses who have been called to support the view which the Crown takes of the effect of that medical evidence.

Serjeant Shee

For this purpose let us briefly, in a sentence or two, run over the facts. Cook died on Wednesday morning, the 21st of November, at one o’clock, in violent convulsions; he died in the presence of Mr. Jones. It was no sooner light than Jones posted up to town to see Cook’s stepfather and executor, Mr. Stevens, who came down, and was introduced to Palmer. Palmer took him up to the corpse, and uncovered the corpse to the thighs—brave man he must have been, if he was a murderer, to do that—uncovered the corpse to the thighs before him. Stevens observed the body, and wondered he could have died, he looked so calm, so composed, so well, so little emaciated; he observed, indeed, some slight rigidity about the muscles. I refer to his deposition. I am not sure whether Stevens’ deposition was read—but it is evidence supplied to us. He took his hand, and wondered that he should have died; his suspicions were immediately aroused. He dined that day at Rugeley, and asked Palmer to dinner with him, and questioned him about the betting-book; got angry that it was not produced, dissembled with Palmer, cross-examined him, went up to town, met him afterwards at the station at Euston Square, afterwards at Rugby, afterwards at Wolverton, again at Rugeley, and at last threw off the mask, and, addressing him in a tone to which I shall call your attention presently, gave Palmer clearly to understand that he suspected him, and intended to probe the whole matter to the very core. He resolved upon a post-mortem examination, and a post-mortem examination took place. The appearances which were presented at the death of Cook were such as might have been expected by those who had been acquainted with his course of life and his general health, his pursuits—it is a pity to say anything hard of him—his vices—I will not say more than this—his vices, and the company, the drinking, idle, racing company which he kept. His father had died at the age of thirty, his mother about the same age, a year or two after she had married Mr. Stevens; his brother was delicate, his sister was delicate; he was believed by his physicians to have something of a pulmonary complaint, and, when his body was opened, his lungs were found to be emphysematous, that is, their air vessels were distended with air. On further inquiry, for I take both the examinations together, it was found that for a length of time he had been troubled with a very ugly sore throat—a sore throat bad enough to render it necessary that it should be constantly touched with caustic, as well as his tongue; he would not have been able to swallow without it. The tonsils of his throat were at the very time he left for Shrewsbury races, though much better than they had been, sore and inflamed—one of them was very nearly gone, the other was very much reduced in size; and he knew so much better about himself and the cause of it all probably than his medical adviser, that he very much preferred mercury to any other specific for his complaint. He had, besides that, traces about his person which have been so often referred to, the result of disease, that they need not be more particularly mentioned than they have been already, as to the extent of which and the character of which some little doubt exists; but they did not come by an ordinary and chaste mode of life, you may depend upon it; and altogether, as far as it went, he seems to have been about as loose a young man as one is in the habit of meeting, without being utterly lost to all sense of honour and propriety, which I do not mean to suggest that he was.

Serjeant Shee

His body was opened; the soreness of his tongue was manifest; I rather collect that it was not actually sore at the time of his death—yet that there were what they call follicles, and symptoms, if not recent, at least not very ancient, of actual ulcers; the inside of his mouth, too, had been ulcerated, or the skin taken off by some sort of soreness attributed to decayed teeth. We all of us probably have decayed teeth; but that does not happen to us which happened to him—it was sore on both sides. The sores about his mouth he thought himself were syphilitic, and could not be persuaded by the very respectable gentleman, Dr. Savage, to attend readily to his advice. He thought he was not weak enough, I think he said fool enough, to take quack medicines; but weak enough to take the advice of any medical quack who had assurance enough to give advice to him, believing that the best thing for his complaint was mercury; and he was apprehensive, I believe, that what are the worst symptoms of that disease for which mercury is given, namely, spots upon the body, would make their appearance, and that possibly (I believe such things do happen) some day or other he would find on the morning of a race his face covered with large copper-coloured blotches, which would plainly show what life he had been leading. That was the sort of man he was. Many such a man has reformed and become a good and respectable member of society. I should be sorry to say anything unduly harsh upon a man who is gone; but the state of his health is a material subject for our inquiry here. It is plain that he had in his own opinion been affected by virulent syphilis, and that that had not corrected his habits, for he had become recently diseased. The medical men who attended him before concurred in this opinion; and when his body was opened, in addition to all those plainer symptoms of illness to the eye, on the second post-mortem examination, there was between the delicate membrane which covers the spinal marrow, and which is called the arachnoid, I believe—I think I am right—there was pressing upon the arachnoid, and embedded to some extent in the next covering, not so delicate, though still delicate, called the dura mater, granules, as given in evidence, of such an extent as I will satisfy you by men competent to inform you would, if his body had been opened in the dead-house of any hospital in this metropolis, have been said and determined to be the cause of his death.

Such was the condition of Cook, only partially discovered on the post-mortem examination which took place at the desire of the executor, Mr. Stevens. That examination was not conducted with that entirety, so to speak—with that thorough determination to investigate the whole matter—that afterwards was thought to be necessary.

Serjeant Shee

Dr. Taylor attends the coroner’s inquest, which is held in consequence, I presume, of his letter. I do not know whether that is so or not, but in consequence of suspicions entertained, and probably in consequence of the letter which he sent in answer to Mr. Stevens’ inquiries, and he hears the evidence of Jones, and of Mills, and of Roberts, and of others; but I call your attention to the evidence of those three witnesses, because I think, in fairness to Dr. Taylor, it must be presumed that they principally influenced his opinion. Now, then, I say that upon the loose evidence of chambermaids, and waitresses, and housekeepers, against the opinion of the medical man who attended Cook in his last illness, or, at any rate, with no encouragement, as I will satisfy you presently (for there is an observation to be made upon that)—with no encouragement from the medical man, Mr. Jones, the surgeon at Lutterworth, who was of an age and character, having seen the whole illness, to form an opinion upon the matter—Dr. Taylor, having heard the evidence of Elizabeth Mills, and the evidence of Mr. Jones, and of Roberts, came at once boldly to the conclusion that his notion that antimony was the cause of death was a mistake; and he had the incredible imprudence—an imprudence which has led to all this dreadful excitement—an imprudence which has rendered it necessary that this inquiry should take place in this form and in this place, if at all—to state upon his oath before that jury that he believed that the pills which were administered to Cook on the Monday and Tuesday night contained strychnia, and that Cook was poisoned by it.

Serjeant Shee

Allow me for a moment to ask your attention to what the real character of that opinion was. That opinion as delivered was irrevocable. By it Taylor’s reputation was staked against Palmer’s life. Instantly followed by the verdict of wilful murder it flew upon the wings of the Press into every house in the United Kingdom. It became known that, according to the opinion of a man whose whole life had been devoted to science, a gentleman of personal character perfectly unimpeachable, a man who stood well with his friends in the medical profession—that on his opinion, not conjectural, not delivered, as an opinion of the kind might properly be delivered, in a private room, to persons on whose discretion reliance was placed, but delivered upon oath in a public room, in the public inn of a little village where everything that took place was known—and he must have known, I cannot but think, that suspicions had been, as I say, and as I think you will be satisfied unduly, excited about the death of Walter Palmer—that, according to his opinion, Cook’s death had been caused by strychnia. “In fact,” said Dr. Taylor, “though I find no trace of strychnia, and though there is nothing to induce me to believe that there is strychnia in the body, except the suggestion that on the Tuesday Palmer bought it off Roberts” (which would not account in any way, supposing the mere purchase of strychnia could account for anything, for the paroxysm on Monday night), “yet, having heard that evidence, knowing that I have failed to discover the presence of strychnia, I will undertake upon my oath to say, and on my credit publish to the whole world, that the pills which were given to him on Monday and Tuesday night contained strychnia, and that he died from that poison.” Observe what it amounts to. It ascertains, not upon scientific, or well-informed, or consistent testimony, but upon testimony ill-informed, of the humblest class, the least fitted to detail accurately the symptoms of such a disease as it is imputed to be, on evidence not consistent with itself, as respects the evidence of Elizabeth Mills in all particulars, or with the evidence of a much better informed person, Mr. Jones, or with the opinion of Mr. Jones—it ascertains, and pronounces positively, that the disease of which Cook died was not simply convulsions of a tetanic form, however violent—not convulsions with many features of tetanus, but that it was actual tetanus, and that description of it which could only be caused by one poison, and that poison strychnia. That is the evidence—he lays that down as a proposition on which he is perfectly satisfied to rest, and on that the verdict goes.

Serjeant Shee

Gentlemen, let me ask you in what position we are placed for the safety of our lives and families if, upon such evidence as this, upon suspicions so excited and so sanctioned by hasty opinions of medical men, we are liable every time a sudden death takes place in a family to be put upon our trials on suspicion of foul play to those with whom we live? In the cases which are usually discussed in this Court, witnesses are called to give evidence respecting processes and means of arriving at truth with a knowledge of the facts in question, with the operation of which processes the prosecuting counsel, the judge, and the jurors are as well acquainted as the witnesses themselves. The witnesses come to speak to facts, a great portion of which are within the ordinary knowledge and appreciation of mankind; but if science is admitted to dogmatise in our Courts—science not exact in its nature—science not successful, but baffled even by its own tests—science bearing upon its forehead the motto that “a little learning is a dangerous thing”—if that is to be introduced to state processes of arriving at truth, conclusive to its satisfaction, but which we cannot follow, and opinions respecting the cause of death which those processes have not discovered, judges and jurors will have an amount of responsibility thrown upon them too great for human nature to bear. This gentleman, Dr. Taylor, if he had found the poison by his own tests, after long experience of their efficacy, would have been a very good witness to have proved unquestionably that strychnia was there; but not having found it, not having seen the patient, and knowing nothing about him but what Elizabeth Mills told him, and what he heard from Mr. Jones, who did not agree with him, or who gave no evidence agreeing with him—with no better means of information than that he thinks himself justified, upon his oath in a public Court, to say that the pills administered by the medical man (of course, he did not mean to impute any misconduct to Mr. Bamford) contained strychnia, that murder was committed, and Cook poisoned by it. If he is allowed to say that, what family and what medical practitioner is safe? Gentlemen, I beg to ask you on what ground does he say that? Not on any peculiar knowledge, for he has not any knowledge as to the effects of strychnia more than any of us—myself, if you please; for when we come thoroughly to look into it he does not appear, of his own knowledge, to have seen a single case of strychnia in the human subject; and yet he has been daring enough, knowing that the consequences would be disastrous to this man—knowing perfectly well that all the world, or, at all events, the great majority of the world, would take for granted that a medical man in his position would not give a hasty opinion—he has the incredible courage to declare, on his oath, that the pills that were given, as far as he knew, by Dr. Bamford, contained strychnia, and that Cook was poisoned by them!

Serjeant Shee

I have said “a little learning is a dangerous thing,” and it appears to me that there never was a case in which the adage was so applicable as it is in this. Of all the works of God, the one best calculated to fill us with wonder and admiration, and convince us of our dependence on our Maker, and the utter nothingness of ourselves, is the mortal coil in which we live, and breathe, and think, and have our being. Every minute of our lives functions are performed at our will, the unerring accuracy of which nothing but Omniscience and Omnipotence could have secured. We feel and see exactly what takes place, and yet the moment we attempt to explain what takes place, the instant we endeavour to give a reason for what we know, and see, and do, the mystery of creation—“God created man to His own image; to the image of God created He him”—arrests our course, and we are flung back upon conjecture and doubt. We know in a sense—we suppose—that the soft medullary substance which is within the cavity of the head is the seat of thought, of sensation, and of will. We know that that soft medullary substance is continued down the middle of the back, protected by a bony duct or canal, within which bony duct or canal it lies embedded; and we know that from the sides of this bony duct and from this medullary substance proceed an infinite variety of nerves, the conduits of sensation from all parts of the body to the soul, and of muscles connected and dependent on them, the instruments of voluntary motion. This we know, and we know that by that process all the ordinary actions of our lives, at our own will, are effected with the most wonderful precision. Sometimes, however, these nerves and muscles depart from their normal character, and, instead of being the mere instruments of the will of the soul, become irregular, convulsive, tumultuary, vindicating to themselves a sort of independent vitality, totally regardless of the authority to which they are ordinarily subject. When thrown into this state of irritation and excitement their effects are known by the general name of convulsions. It is remarkable, unlike most other fine names, they are not a modern adaptation. The ancients had them to express the very same thing; the spasmodic and tetanic affections were known then, and as much about them hundreds and thousands of years ago as is known now. Tetanic convulsions have in later times been divided into two specific branches of tetanus—idiopathic and traumatic. We have heard a great deal of these two descriptions of tetanus. One question my lord asked, which was answered by Dr. Todd—it would have been more satisfactory if my lord had asked what the meaning of the English of “idiopathic,” viz., self-generating, was; the answer given to the question, What does idiopathic mean? was “constitutional.” True, but that means nothing, or, if anything, it means “unaccountable.”

Lord Campbell—Without external injury.

Mr. Serjeant Shee—Just so, my lord; without external injury, but attributable to no known cause, unless in some few instances, perhaps, where there is some injury in the interior of the body; but the meaning of the word “idiopathic” is unquestionably what I have stated; not that it follows they never can be traced to a cause, but that they constantly occur in which the cause may be attributed to one thing or to another, and in that case we say that it is idiopathic tetanus, because we cannot with certainty say it is traumatic, that is, arising from any external injury.

Serjeant Shee

Now, gentlemen, we have had a great deal of evidence produced by my friends directed to show—assuming that the disease of which Mr. Cook died was tetanus—that it must have been strychnia tetanus. It is a mere assumption they begin with—the merest assumption in the world. I will give you my reasons for saying so, and I think I am justified in so saying. That the deceased died in convulsions is beyond all question, or immediately after convulsions; that they were convulsions that had occurred exactly or about the same hours on the previous night, and something like those which had occurred on the night preceding, something which he described as madness for two minutes, is beyond all doubt. What pretence is there for saying they were tetanus at all? Mr. Jones was examined, and I will read to you presently what the evidence he gave was. Mr. Jones, in the copy of the depositions delivered to me, stated that Mr. Cook died of convulsions, and in the copy of the depositions, which he signed and read over and corrected, there was not a word of tetanus. My learned friend interposed, and said, on looking to the original depositions, it did appear that he had mentioned it, and he said so because in the course of his examination he found a half-written word, “tetinus”—he availed himself of it, not unfairly, to suggest, that though he did not positively say it was tetanus, yet that what he observed was something which put him in mind of tetanus. It bore some of the characteristics of a tetanic convulsion; but, gentlemen, it may do so, and yet not be tetanus; and I submit to you that it is bad reasoning, and I will prove it presently. I put a question to the witness on the subject. It is bad reasoning to say without positive proof of the fact that it was tetanus, and it cannot be traumatic tetanus, because it did not appear it had presented the distinct features of traumatic tetanus, and therefore it must be tetanus by strychnia. That is the argument. They assume it cannot be traumatic tetanus, they have not discovered the poison, but still they say it must be tetanus by poison!

Serjeant Shee

Let us see whether there is any pretence for saying anything of the kind. My learned friends may tell me, if you venture to impeach the authority of a man like Dr. Taylor, who, though he had no knowledge on the subject, undoubtedly is a gentleman of great leading in his profession, and a gentleman who has written a book, which I will not treat as a book not worthy of being attended to because I think it right on this evidence to attack a particular part of it—if you choose to say his opinion is not to be depended upon, it is incumbent on you to suggest some other theory of the cause of Cook’s death which will explain the evidence given, and prove not merely negatively it is not what we say it was, but prove affirmatively it is something else. I say I am not called on to do any such thing. The Crown is the party, or rather those out of whose hands this case has been taken by the Crown, who have thought proper to impute the death of this gentleman to the poison of strychnia; they have followed the trail which has been dragged before them by these toxicologists; and, relying on their judgment and discretion, they have made quite sure they will be enabled to establish the fact that it was not either by traumatic or idiopathic tetanus, but by tetanus of strychnia, that he had died. I say I am not bound to suggest any theory upon the subject. It cannot be expected that in the defence I should do so; and, in point of logic, it is not reasonable, when we contradict the fact which it is for them to prove, that our denial of that fact and our reasons should be weakened because we cannot conclusively fix the cause of death, or explain the cause of death in any other way. If we can satisfy you that into any one of the numerous varieties of convulsions this gentleman might have fallen, and might have been either asphyxiated, or by some sudden spasm deprived of life in a way different from asphyxia—it is quite enough for us to prove the probability of that, unless they show conclusively that the circumstances and symptoms which attended his death are irreconcilable with any other theory than that of strychnia poison. Let us see what the symptoms were. I will take the liberty of reading them in the first instance from the depositions, because it is only fair to a person whose judgment I dispute that you should have placed clearly before you the evidence on which they rely.

The Court here adjourned for a short time.

Gentlemen, I have observed in the course of this inquiry, whenever there has been a question of what a witness has said on a previous occasion before a coroner, my lord has thought it right to have the whole of the document read. Now, I propose to read—unless I am corrected by my lord, when, of course, I shall immediately submit—I propose to read, for the purpose of my present inquiry, only that part of the deposition which describes the symptoms.

Lord Campbell—You may read any part of them, completing the sense of the part which you read.

Mr. Serjeant Shee—I am much obliged to your lordship; and my object in so doing is this, I will read all the deposition of Mr. Jones, though in truth, in my view of the case, the deposition of Mr. Jones is not so favourable to my case as his evidence in open Court. If there be a difference, the evidence in open Court is more favourable than the deposition; but substantially they are the same. What I propose to do now is to call your attention to the statements of Elizabeth Mills and Mr. Jones before the coroner of the symptoms they observed in Cook on the Monday and Tuesday nights; and having done so, without accepting any challenge which may be made by my friend to account for the symptoms, I will submit to your judgment, on authority which cannot deceive you, whether those symptoms are not more probably accounted for by the convulsions which are not tetanic at all, and certainly not tetanic in its distinct character of strychnia tetanus, but to be classed under those general convulsions by which it constantly pleases Providence to strike man down without leaving a trace of their course in his system.

Serjeant Shee

Gentlemen, what I have to submit to you is this, that the symptoms described in the depositions of Elizabeth Mills and Mr. Jones were such as to make it quite unjustifiable to resort to the hypothesis of tetanus of any kind, much less of strychnia tetanus. You will recollect—I will not repeat it—the peculiarity of the constitution of this young man, and the evidence of occasional functional derangement, not particularly at that time, which involve grave consequences, to which I have already called your attention. I submit to you, on the authorities on matters of this kind, it is much more probable that Cook died in general convulsions, not tetanic at all, than that he died from idiopathic, traumatic, or strychnia tetanus.

Serjeant Shee

I have mentioned all that I intend to say about his bodily infirmities—let us now see what has been the state of his mind. He went to the Shrewsbury races in imminent peril of leaving them a ruined man. Mr. Stevens told Palmer, and we have heard nothing to the contrary, that if anybody had claims upon him, there would not be four thousand shillings to meet them. We know, from the necessity under which he was to raise sums of money at exorbitant interest, that he must have been in circumstances of the utmost embarrassment—that it was impossible, morally speaking, unless some wonderful success on the turf restored his fortunes, that he could stand his ground at all; and it is in this state of mind, and with health, at all events, not strong, and a constitution exceedingly delicate, that he had been for a length of time cherishing the hope that “Polestar,” which was hardly his, for it was mortgaged, and which must become another person’s if it did not win at Shrewsbury—in all reasonable probability he had been cherishing the hope that “Polestar” would win, and that he by that winning would possess himself at once of the stakes, which my learned friend stated, and I think it was proved, amounted to nearly £400, besides some considerable winnings to the amount of £600 or £700 by bets on the mare—upwards of £1000 altogether. That has been mentioned several times. Fancy the condition in which that young man rose from his bed on the Tuesday morning. He must have known and felt when he went down to breakfast, “This night I am either a beggar, or a man with hopes of recovering myself, and with the means, at least for the time, of keeping up my appearance of respectability.” He goes to the races—another race takes place before his mare, “Polestar,” is brought to the goal. He waits for it in a state of feverish anxiety and expectation—the hour that intervenes appears to him everlasting. At last the horses start, and his mare wins easily—he is the winner of £1000. We may suppose that to be the sum. What effect has it upon him? Mr. Jones tells us the effect. He is unable to speak for three minutes. He is saved, not merely in purse but in honour and character—saved before his relatives and friends. He will not be a disgrace to them yet, at all events; he may retrieve his fortunes, and become an honourable and respectable man. Conceive him to be a man with right feelings—and it is not because a man falls into the ways of promiscuous licentiousness that he is devoid of all honourable feeling—conceive him to be an honourable man, a man who loved the memory of his father and his mother, who valued the respectability of his family, and who had a desire to appear before his sister, Mrs. Bradford, as an honourable man, instead of being known to her as a levanter and a blackleg, driven from all honourable society. The effect of his success is that for three minutes he cannot speak, though he is with his intimate friend Mr. Jones. He goes back to the inn, though he has to some extent recovered himself, in a state of elation, of which it is my duty to say that one man said he was not more elated than other people when they have won, but still, depend upon it, overjoyed, and with a revulsion from the despair in which he was, which must have convulsed, though not in a sense of immediate illness, every fibre of his frame. His first and his natural inclination was to entertain his friends, and he gives a champagne dinner. The evidence is that he did not drink to excess; that is the evidence—but he had champagne, and we all of us know that when there is champagne there are other things besides, and it very often happens it is not because champagne is drunk the company do not drink as much of other wines. What in ordinary parlance is called a champagne dinner is a good, luxurious entertainment, in which there is no stint and not much self-restraint. I do not mean to say he was drunk. The evidence is he rose from table not drunk, and therefore it is not for me to say, and the evidence will not justify me in saying, he was. That evening he did not spend in the company of Jones. I do not think it is very clear in whose company he spent it after the dinner was over; but we find him the next night, Wednesday, at the Unicorn, with Saunders, the trainer, Mr. Palmer, and a lady. The next morning is cold and wet. He went on the ground, and was observed by Herring standing in the wet, who remonstrated with him for so doing. He was taken ill that night, and you will hear what his symptoms were. I shall call your attention to those under the third head of what I have to address to you. He sent for a doctor, who recommended an emetic. The poor man seemed to know more about it than the doctor. He said he could do it with hot water and a toothbrush. Perhaps he had often relieved his stomach in that way. He was unwell that day, and was ailing till his death at Rugeley. That is the general history, as far as the mental excitement can be referred to—great reason to apprehend ruin when he went to Shrewsbury; immediate, sudden, yet only partial recovery from his embarrassments at Shrewsbury; and home to Rugeley to meet them again in their full intensity, all the winnings and twice the sum, unable to save him from the ruin he had brought on himself. All the property he appears to have had at the time was “Polestar” and “Syrius,” and they were mortgaged for debts due to Pratt. He may have had some few hundreds in money. It is with a weakened body and an irritated and excited mind that he is affected with a sickness at Shrewsbury, which clings to a system incapable of being recruited by the ordinary necessary food, without which the strongest man gives way, excites his nerves, and makes him in imminent danger of falling a victim to any convulsive attacks to which his constitution would be likely to be disposed. Depend upon it, the thoughts of that young man, when he retired to bed, were not the thoughts with which you lay your heads upon the pillow. He had much to think of which he regretted, much to deliberate upon which was of a nature to excite in his mind the most serious apprehensions. There was neither credit, nor honour, nor anything in his career which would make him respect himself, or respectable in the eyes of others. His rest was only imperfect at the best, and after the gratifications of the animal appetite to which people in some instances resort to alleviate the unhappy recollections of the moment, he had no resource. He desired no society so much as the society of Palmer. His residence was at the Talbot Arms, which was, in fact, a residence with Palmer. He does not appear to have had a sitting-room to himself; he does not appear to have frequented the coffee-room. He had a bedroom at the Talbot Arms, and his real home, where he often was, and would have been nearly altogether but for his illness, was Palmer’s house over the way. That was his condition at Rugeley. He is taken violently ill on Sunday night. We had nothing but his own description of it; but what is that description? He had been poorly for some time. For two nights he had been taking opium pills prescribed by Mr. Bamford. Mr. Bamford is an aged man, but there is no doubt a respectable man, and a man who would be likely, I think we might fairly infer, to consider what the complaint was and prescribe accordingly. In the middle of the night, at twelve o’clock, he was awakened from a dream in a state of affright. He says he was nearly mad; he rang the bell, but nobody would come.

Lord Campbell—He thought they would not hear him; he thought they had gone to bed.

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 arose from 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.”

The Attorney-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 take notice. 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 command the 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 continue for 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 there may 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 four cases 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 the muscular 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 paroxysm lasted 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 bed and 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 impression was 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 another cook, 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 you might 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 any possibility 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 improbable that 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.

Serjeant Shee

Now, on this part of the case I have this observation to make; the illness of the Sunday night appears to have been a very remarkable occurrence. It came out in the course of the examination, as a fact spoken to by Cook, and it will be for you to judge, after you have heard the evidence of the medical gentlemen, whether the periodicity of the attacks does not militate against the theory of death by strychnia poison. The illnesses of Cook take place three nights running, exactly at the same time, or if not exactly at the same time, very nearly. I find that is a symptom of very frequent occurrence, that about the same hour of the night, or of the week, or of the month, and very often after the patient has got to bed, the thing occurs. It is about the same hour in this case of Mr. Cook’s. On the question whether the symptoms were such as are consistent with the theory of strychnia poison, and inconsistent with the theory of death from other and natural causes, I have only now further to state what I intend to prove. I will not go through in detail what will be better stated by the gentlemen who will be called; but I shall call a number of most respectable physicians, surgeons, and general practitioners, having extensive experience in our large cities, who all support the view I have to submit to you, and which they have suggested to me as the probable one—that these fits of Mr. Cook were not tetanus, but violent convulsions, the result of the weak habit of his body, which had been increased by his mode of life.

I propose now to discuss the question whether the circumstantial evidence against Palmer be such as to be inexplicable on the supposition of his innocence, and if I show you on the broad and salient features of the evidence that it is not (you will not expect me to go into the more minute details), and I have succeeded in satisfying you on any considerable portion of the points to which I have directed your attention, and if the evidence comes up to what I have been instructed to say it will, you will be too happy, recollecting that you are the country in the language of the law—that the country out of doors, in a case of crime, of life and death, is uninformed, without the opportunity of hearing the witnesses examined or cross-examined on their oaths to decide between the Crown and the Queen’s subject on the evidence alone. Every word of this evidence will be carried to all the ends and corners of the earth, and it will remain to be seen whether this great country of England, in a paroxysm or convulsion of prejudice, created by the rashness of one scientific man who had no knowledge of his own about the matter, has made up its mind to sacrifice the life of a fellow-creature under circumstances which would expose any person who has ever been present at deathbed convulsions liable to the same charge.

I say the circumstantial evidence in this case is not such as to justify you in coming to a conclusion of the guilt of the prisoner. I will endeavour in this part of the discussion to address myself to those portions of the case which seem at the first blush of them, and on judicial consideration of them, to require notice. I will not avoid anything that is difficult or that may seem to you difficult, so that when I sit down you will see that I have discussed this great argument fully and fairly in every branch of it, and ask yourselves, what ground is there for any verdict but a verdict of “not guilty”? I will avoid nothing, and proceed at once to one of the most salient points. I will pass over, after an intimation that was made from the bench, the point about pushing the man at the inquest, or the accident of a slit in the covering of the jar, which, sharp instruments being used by the operators, may easily have occurred, or the putting it in a further corner of the room, from which there was no possibility of its being removed. I do not believe that any such circumstances as these would induce you to come to a conclusion against the prisoner.

Lord Campbell—No member of the Court, I think, has intimated any opinion as to the other portions of the case; merely as to the pushing.

Serjeant Shee

Mr. Serjeant Shee—I do not wish to suggest anything which is not strictly correct, and perhaps I ought not to use what was intimated from the bench in any way, but rather submit that, where everybody perfectly well knew Palmer, in any little apparent shove, so to speak, during the course of the post-mortem, is not to be taken as an evidence of his guilt. It was in leaning over, if at all, to observe an examination of considerable interest to all persons present, and I cannot conceive that anything of this kind can be taken into consideration. No serious complaint was made at the time. Mr. Devonshire said nothing was lost by it. He said also the jar was removed to a corner of the room. It was not removed out of sight. It was in the broad daylight. It was impossible it could be taken away without observation. It would be absurd that Palmer should be suspected of having done so with an improper object. This we know, that he was very reluctant to have the jar removed out of the possession of those on whom he could rely. That is very true; there were some persons who did not want to pay him £13,000; there were some persons who had been doing all they could to undermine his character for a very considerable time, imputing to him the most wicked conduct respecting a near relation, which none of his own relations ever joined in, knowing that there were many persons at Rugeley much prejudiced against him, and it was in his judgment of the last importance that anything which could be brought against him (and it was clear that this post-mortem, from the conduct of Stevens, was intended to found a charge against him), should be kept in unsuspected custody, and that nobody should have an opportunity of tampering with it and its contents. When told that Dr. Harland is coming to make the post-mortem, he says, “I am glad of that, for there is no knowing who might have done it; and it is a satisfaction that you, whom I do know, are coming to superintend it.” I say that was the conduct of a respectable man, who knows that his conduct would bear investigation if it were properly inquired into. But we know also that in a town like Rugeley there were a great many serious people, who could not approve of his habits of life, to whom his running about to races would not much recommend him, and whom he has reason to know would not very much regret any injury which might happen to him.

Serjeant Shee

Is there any other part of his conduct connected with the post-mortem which requires explanation? When the jar was going to be sent to town he objects to its going to Frere’s. He had some reason for that. He had an assistant in his service who had been in the service of Frere. We know the jealousies that exist in country towns between professional men. We will not do Mr. Frere the injustice to suppose he would do so great a wrong to Palmer as might result from tampering with the contents of the jar; but still it was right to be cautious, and Palmer told Dr. Harland, “I want you to take it with you to Stafford, and not let it go to Frere’s house.” In these minor incidental matters his conduct appears to me perfectly consistent with innocence. Let me call your attention to this more important matter, on which my learned friend in his instructions was told to rely—and accordingly he did, in the discharge of his duty, rely upon it. I will call your attention to what has been stated by Myatt, the postboy. His evidence was pressed into the case; it could not well be excluded from it as an evidence of guilt. Now, what did it amount to? Before I have done, under the general head of Palmer’s conduct, I will call your attention to what passed between him and Stevens. You will find the conduct and deportment of the latter were such as would make some men almost kick him; it was so very provoking, supposing Palmer was innocent. He dissembled with him—pretended to take his advice—cross-questioned him—changed his tone upon him—now speaking to him mildly, now in a voice of menace—threatened him with a post-mortem examination—and evidently did the whole thing hostilely to him, as if he thought something wrong had taken place, and it was his duty not only to protect the property, but to see any person who had been guilty of foul play towards Cook brought to condign punishment. Stevens, after poring over the remains of the dead man at the post-mortem examination, was ready to leave Rugeley, and a fly was ordered for him and his companion, Mr. Boycott, in which they were to proceed with the jar to Stafford, and thence by rail to London. Now, if there were anybody base enough, either in support of a theory, in support of a reputation—God forbid that I should suggest that to the prejudice of Dr. Taylor!—if there were anybody capable of so great a wickedness as tampering with the jar, it might easily be done; and he was anxious to have it kept by Dr. Harland and not committed to the custody of Stevens. His conduct to Palmer had been vexatious and annoying in the last degree; the fly was being got ready after Palmer, we may suppose, had dined; and meeting the postboy Myatt, he asked him, according to Myatt, whether he was going to drive Mr. Stevens to Stafford. “I told him,” said Myatt, “I was. He asked me if I would upset them?” Now the word “them” was first used in this Court to designate the jars. There was only one jar at that time, so it could not be meant to apply to the jars; if used at all, which I think very doubtful for the reason I tell you—at least in a bad sense—it must have been applied to Mr. Stevens and his companion. And now just see if the facts in this case which are undoubted do not give a reasonable colour to that. Palmer (though I will show you his conduct to Stevens was exemplary in every respect, by putting the dialogue between them before you without making any comment on it) must have felt outraged beyond all expression if—knowing himself to be innocent, that he had acted as a friend and brother to Cook, and had called his relations about him when he was ill—he found himself suspected of stealing a trumpery betting-book, which he knew was of no use to any one, and charged of playing falsely and foully with the life of Cook. He had great cause to be vexed and irritated with Stevens, and that he was so is plain from what he said to Dr. Harland—“There was a queer old fellow,” he said, “who has been down making inquiries, who seemed to be suspicious of my having stolen the betting-book, which everybody knows can be of no earthly use to anybody.” It shows that his mind was impressed with the idea that he was wronged. He may be supposed, communing with himself, to say, “He has ill-treated me; he has encouraged suspicions which have been excited against me already, and which, if he persists in his course of bringing another charge against me in this matter, will probably render it impossible to get the money from the insurance company in time to rescue me from a position which may involve in ruin myself and some members of my family.” That was evidently the tendency of what Stevens was about. He meets this postboy and asks him if he is to be ready to drive the fly to Stafford; the boy says, “Yes, I am.” He said, “If I would upset them there was a £10 note for me.” He has been asked, “Had anything been said about the jars?” I submit to you the true construction of the story, if it occurred at all, is, that being under a feeling of irritation against Stevens, and using strong expressions with regard to Stevens, hearing he was going to Stafford, he said, “I should not mind giving £10 to upset him.” He had been vexed at his conduct, and irritated by the perpetual suspicions and inquisitiveness which he had displayed, even when he went up with him, like a friend, to show him the corpse, uncovering it down to the thighs. Some previous suspicion must have existed in Stevens’ mind; but Palmer had no suspicion of this thought that he was guilty of so foul a crime as that which was imputed to him. If that evidence be throughout true, it is only true in the milder and innocent sense, and I have this reason for saying so. This man was in the service of the landlord of the Talbot Arms, and was always about the yard; he was driving to and from the Talbot Arms every day of his life; he must have been there on the day of the post-mortem examination; he must have been a constant companion of the stable boys and labourers about the yard; and his observation must have been drawn to a thing so striking and remarkable as a post-mortem examination on account of a suspicion of murder. He was not called before the coroner; and nobody knew, at the time the inquest was held, that he had ever said anything which could be fairly taken in a sense which would make it evidence of a guilty mind in Palmer. But if he had said that Palmer said, “I should not mind giving a £10 note to have him upset; it is a humbugging concern,” and in that manner, and with the feeling I have stated, it would not have excited any observation or suspicion, and no one would have summoned Myatt to the inquest. I submit that is the true version of this story. It is not to be supposed that a medical man, knowing that he had given a large dose of strychnia, would suppose that, by the accidental spilling of a jar, the liver and spleen and some of the tissues continuing untouched, he could have escaped the detection of his guilt.

Serjeant Shee

Next I shall call your attention to the evidence of Charles Newton; he is a person who has sworn before you that he saw Palmer at Mr. Salt’s surgery at nine o’clock on the Monday night, and that Palmer asked for three grains of strychnia; that he weighed it, and gave it to him in a piece of paper; that is the first part of what he swore before you and my lords. Now, I should tell you how this case has been conducted. As soon as my learned friend the Attorney-General, as counsel for the Crown, was made acquainted with the illness of my learned friend Mr. Serjeant Wilkins, with his inability to conduct the defence and that I was to supply his place, he desired that every scrap of evidence against the prisoner should be forwarded to me, and to my learned friends near me; and, accordingly, as soon as he received this evidence of Newton he forwarded it to me, and I received it on the day this Court met. I believe it was sent to me late on the previous night, but I did not see it until the morning you were sworn; so that this witness Newton did not bring this matter that was in his knowledge of the fact of the purchase by Palmer at Mr. Salt’s surgery at nine o’clock on the Monday night of three grains of strychnia—he did not bring that to the knowledge of the Crown until the night before this trial commenced. Now, he had been examined at the inquest, and he did not tell before the coroner the rest of the story which he told when he was examined here. (The learned serjeant read the examination of Charles Newton.) He did not tell that to the coroner. All he told the coroner was that he was present when Palmer bought some strychnia off Roberts on the Tuesday night in the shop of Mr. Hawkins; he did not speak to the purchase of the strychnia on the Monday night; he knew that he was called to corroborate a statement which Roberts had made as to the presence of Palmer at the shop, and the purchasing of the strychnia on the Tuesday, yet he never said one word at that time either of the fact of Palmer having bought strychnia off him on the Monday night or of his having asked him what appearances, if a dog were killed by strychnia, would be exhibited on its post-mortem examination. A man who so conducts himself is utterly unworthy of credit. There is one honest, laudable motive in a Court of justice, and that is to assist in the administration of the criminal law of the land. If any man had the least hesitation when in Court, or to come into Court and take the oath to depose to what he knew were the facts, we should not be safe against crime for a moment. But you cannot justify the fact of swearing away another man’s life, except under a sense of duty, and for that object; and if a man, knowing that he is to be sworn touching so grave a subject as that of murder, the first time he takes the oath omits a considerable portion of what he knows, and three weeks afterwards tells another portion, and at a further interval comes forward and tells more—enough, in his opinion, to drive the guilt home to the man who is accused—the witness, I say, who conducts himself in that manner ought not to be believed. The prisoner who is convicted upon the evidence of such a man as that is sacrificed by a jury. But there are other circumstances in that statement which render it in the last degree improbable. That Palmer should, once in a week, purchase strychnia in the town of Rugeley is not to be wondered at. Strychnia is sold for many purposes, to kill dogs and vermin, and Palmer, as you may recollect, had often occasion to complain of the dogs from the slipping of the foals and the galloping of the mares. In the course of the evidence in this case it has been mentioned that strychnia was purchased by Palmer twice within the week, when the first time he had bought quite enough, and more, for the purpose imputed to him. But that a person should go and buy strychnia twice in a week in a small country town, having bought enough for all purposes the first time—that he should go and buy more the next day at the shop of a rival tradesman, with whom he was on bad terms—is to the last degree improbable. Common sense revolts at it; nobody can or ought to be believed who makes any such statements. Again, observe he had been to London on the Monday. In London there is no difficulty for a medical man to get anything of the sort which he may require. He has only to write it down in the technical way, so as to give evidence of a medical education, and it is given to him at once, without a word. He had been to London; and, again, if he could not get it there, he could get it at Stafford. Why should he get it at Rugeley? that is the last place that he would have gone to for it. It seems to me that it is equally impossible he ever could have bought it for such a purpose as the purpose attributed to him, and that he would have been, if really guilty, so unwary as to allow the paper in which the strychnia had been not to be found with the full quantity he had purchased in it; he would not have been such a fool as not to take care that the paper in which it was wrapped was full of strychnia before his house was searched, so as to make sure that it should be found that nothing should appear to have been used out of it, and that the exact quantity was in the paper. I submit, therefore, it cannot be believed—it is not credible!

I am now in a condition to satisfy you that Palmer was undoubtedly in town, and that he could not have been there at nine o’clock; that he was in London at a quarter-past three o’clock, and that he could not have been there by nine o’clock—the hours at which the trains start rendered it impossible. The thing is false—downright false. It is impossible to have got to Rugeley before a quarter-past ten, and we will account for what he did in a way that will entirely satisfy you. He attended the post-mortem examination, and is it credible that a skilful medical man, who has studied at the London hospitals, would have gone to that dolt Newton to ask him as to what would be the effects of strychnia on a dog’s stomach? Is it credible that he should go to that stupid sort of fellow, who gave his evidence in that dogged, mulish, sullen manner, which often is indicative of something else besides the want of understanding, and that he would have gone and asked a chap like that, “What are the effects of strychnia?” and then, when he had been told, he would snap his fingers and say, “All right.” It cannot be—it is impossible. No one would believe it; and I submit to you confidently that unless there is much stronger evidence than that, it is evidence on which you cannot rely for a moment. To show the animus of this Newton against Palmer, I will remind you of what he stated. Palmer said that “you will find that he has taken a great deal of mercury; you will find this ‘fellow’ died from a diseased throat.” When he is questioned about it mildly and quietly by my friend Mr. Grove as to what was the exact term used, he answers, “I do not know whether he said poor or rich”; just as if it could be a question of that kind. What we wanted to know was whether he had spoken of the poor dead man in a pitying way, or whether he had spoken of him as a disreputable person, unworthy of all consideration. As to that part of the case I will say no more, and I will proceed to other matters taking you back again to what occurred at Shrewsbury.

Serjeant Shee

The case for the Crown is, that as early as the 14th November, at Shrewsbury, the scheme—the plot—of poisoning commenced. That is the supposition of those from whom the case has been taken by the Crown. Now, it is suggested that on the night of Wednesday, the 14th, Palmer dosed this man Cook with something that he put into his brandy, and the witness Fisher told us that Cook told him so. If you remember the early part of my address to you, I read a few words at the end of a letter from Cook to Fisher, in which, after telling him it was of vast importance to him, as well as to Palmer, that £500 should be paid to Mr. Pratt, he adds in a postscript “I am better.” These words must have referred to his illness at Shrewsbury. The letter relates to another matter which is of great importance to him and to Palmer, and he does not seem to treat it as one having in his own mind a belief that Palmer had drugged him with poison for the purpose of destroying his health at Shrewsbury. Then, again, on the evidence, what does Palmer say himself about what occurred at Shrewsbury? He says, when it is mentioned, “Cook says I have put something in his glass; I do not play such tricks with people”—taking it as if it had been never understood otherwise than as a loose expression of a man, perhaps not actually drunk—the evidence does not go to that extent—though I think you will be of opinion he was very nearly approaching to that condition. I could not help being a little amused by a version which I read some time ago of this portion of the Shrewsbury plot. I will read it to you—“After indulging freely in the foreign wines of an English country town, 150 miles from London, the owner of ‘Polestar’ took to brandy and water to restore his British solidity. Tossing off his glass, he complained that there was something in it, for it burned his throat. Perhaps those who have drunk strong brandy and water with similar haste may have experienced the same sensation; perhaps also, like Mr. Cook, they may have vomited afterwards. He bolted his brandy and water down at Palmer’s challenge, and bolted it up again when it encountered the cold champagne. That night he was very drunk, and very sick, and very ill. His dinner he cast up into a basin; his money he deposited with his friend Mr. Ishmael Fisher, a sporting wine merchant, of Shoe Lane, Holborn. To this Mr. Ishmael Fisher the owner of ‘Polestar’ gave £700 to keep till next morning, expressing his belief, at the same time, that Palmer had dosed him for the sake of the money. If such had been Palmer’s intention, would he have left Cook at such a moment? He neither followed him from the room when his stomach rebelled, nor did he go near him all that night. This neglect showed, indeed, how hollow was his friendship, but it proves his innocence; guilt would have been much more officious. Next morning Cook looked very ill, as men are apt to do after excessive vinous vomiting; but his drunken suspicions of Palmer had evaporated with the fumes of the brandy, and they were again friends and brother sportsmen.”

Serjeant Shee

I believe that is the true version of the matter, and that Cook believed it to be so. He breakfasted with Palmer the next morning; he was good friends with him the whole of the day, and went with him to Rugeley, and there remained on Palmer’s invitation. In consequence of the letter which Pratt wrote on the 13th, and which Palmer got on the 14th, in which they both had an interest, Cook wrote to Pratt to say that somebody would call on him with £200, and he wrote to Fisher to tell Fisher to do so. Did anybody at that time believe that there was any intention to drug and poison this man? Does not the explanation that Mrs. Brookes gave, which I must say was exceedingly creditable to her, the readiness with which she stated to me that her husband did not approve of her attending races, that it was disagreeable to him; and the dignity, if I may say so, with which she answered the question put to her by my learned friend—“Are you intimate with Palmer?” by this other question, “What do you mean by intimate with him? I am friendly,” seemed to me to entitle her to all due respect. And when she, being called for the Crown, tells you, “That night I heard in several directions of a great number of people who were purged and vomited; there was a general affection of the kind amongst strangers visiting Shrewsbury on that occasion”—I submit to you it was to the last degree improbable that anything of that kind occurred. About the tumbler which she saw in Palmer’s hand I cannot suggest any reason, because it is not in my instructions, but it might probably be accounted for in this way, when he came back from Rugeley and found all the people indisposed he would naturally look at the water to see if there was anything to account for its unwholesomeness. Mrs. Brookes said, and that is the point to which I wish to call your attention, that he was in a passage under a chandelier; that the waiter pointed to him when he showed her upstairs; that he spoke to her while holding up the glass to the light, and said, “Wait a minute, and I will come to you.” Nothing can be more natural than that; and I submit to you it is impossible to say that there is anything to justify a suspicion of poison in it. With regard to the money he gave to Fisher, I can suggest no other reason than that, just before being sick, he gave his money to Fisher, feeling that it was coming upon him, and that his stomach was revolting at the liberties he had taken with it. He had the good sense to place his money, when he was still very sick, in the hands of Fisher, and he afterwards went to bed. It may have been that he had been guilty of excess in eating and drinking, and it was necessary to send for the doctor, who, when he came, wished to send him an emetic. The young man knew so well what to do that he said, “Oh! I can make myself sick without an emetic; I will put my tooth-brush down my throat; I can be sick without your emetic.” He took a pill when it was recommended to him and a black draught, and the moment he laid his head on his pillow he was perfectly free from any alarm, and he got up the next morning perfectly well. Gentlemen, that is really too ludicrous to be worthy of a moment’s consideration. Now, let us go to certain other matters, and more particularly to the conduct of the prisoner himself. I would just mention that there was a person there of the name of Myatt in the room at the time they say the brandy and water was drugged. Why was he not called? The others came in just before going to bed, but Myatt had been there the whole evening, and was not a mere accidental visitor in the room. You will hear his version so far as it is necessary. They have now got back to Rugeley, and then the history of the slow poisoning continues. Cook and Palmer go back together, and probably they talk all the way about Pratt and their difficulties, and the way of getting out of them, and of the small way that the winnings of Shrewsbury will go to effect the object. They both see ruin staring them in the face unless the Prince of Wales office can be forced to pay the money due upon the policy of insurance, and they can remain free from all suspicion of insolvency or misconduct in the meantime. When they get to Rugeley, by sending up the £200 to Pratt, they provide for the temporary difficulty. They are on friendly terms, Palmer making use of Cook’s things, and probably both attaining their own objects, as it would appear that Palmer said directly Cook died that he had some interest in bills which were outstanding; and that might well have been, considering they were engaged in racing transactions; that they were joint owners of one horse; that they had the same trainer, betted for each other at races, and that they were confederates and friends on the turf, in that sort of relation to each other which gave them a joint interest in the same ventures. Cook sat at the table of Palmer on the 16th, and wrote up that night to Pratt. Cook goes to bed late on that evening, well enough, not so drunk as to prevent his asking the chambermaid to give him a longer candle, in order that he might read in bed. He seems to have had a little champagne, not so much as to have made him drunk, yet perhaps too much for a stomach weakened by the excess, if it was excess, at Shrewsbury, or by the vomiting which was occasioned by the illness there, and the hot water which he had taken. He gets up the next morning poorly; he eats nothing that day; ails enough for Mr. Bamford to be called in by Palmer, and Palmer is unremitting in his attention to him on that day and the Sunday following.

Serjeant Shee

Now, it is said that that very attentiveness is evidence of the prisoner’s guilt. What, as my friend here (Mr. Grove) says, what is a man to do? Here is a young fellow’s health in very considerable danger. Cook, having a joint interest in racing transactions with Palmer, thinks it convenient to stop at Rugeley, where he has no friend but Palmer. They are not flush of money, and Palmer has a house and an establishment on a moderate scale immediately opposite the inn in which Cook is staying. He is enabled to send such things over as can be got in a private house, not at hotel prices, but at a very trifling expense. He was on a visit to Palmer, and he knew nobody there but Palmer. He was ailing; and as it is very dull for a man who has no intellectual pursuits to be alone all day when out of health, Palmer goes over and talks to him, and attends to him, and gets him what comforts he can. That is what a man would do to a friend; it is precisely what a man would do. If he had not done it, but merely attended to him at night when he was taken ill on the Monday night, without visiting him during the day, it might have been said that he was neglecting him, and only attended to him when he wanted to give him another dose of poison. That is the way the Crown would have put it then! He is laboriously attentive to him under circumstances which can well be accounted for by the reason that he had actually, if not a sincere friendship for him, at least a friendly kind of liking for him, and an interest with him on betting and racing transactions, and could supply him with several things from his house at little or no expense. If Cook had been well he would probably have had his meals at Palmer’s house. He was ill, and Palmer sends Dr. Bamford to him. He saw him at eight o’clock on Sunday morning, and again at six or seven o’clock. Cook told him his bowels had been moved twice or thrice. That is what he told to Dr. Bamford; it may have been known to Palmer that it was oftener, and that the truth was he was slightly suffering under some symptoms of diarrhœa, as he afterwards stated in the letter to Jones. It was Cook himself who told Dr. Bamford about his bowels having been moved; and on the same day Palmer wrote a letter to Jones, intending to bring Jones there, he being about to go to London, and stated “Cook had been suffering from diarrhœa.” It was at Shrewsbury, where everybody else had diarrhœa. He took the pill and black draught, and their effects continued, probably to some extent when he was at Rugeley. It is absurd to pretend that the suggestion of diarrhœa could have any sinister object, as Jones must have ascertained the truth as soon as he arrived at Rugeley.

Serjeant Shee

I now beg to call your attention to the next important fact in this case. It seems to me to be, though I touch upon it briefly here, one of the very last importance, and one which ought to decide it in the prisoner’s favour. The supposition of the Crown is, that Palmer intended to dose Cook with antimony, to keep his stomach in a perpetual state of vomiting, in order the more easily to despatch him by strychnia; that he began the plot on the Wednesday at Shrewsbury and continued it at Rugeley, and that during the Sunday Cook was under the influence of that treatment—Sunday was the day Palmer attempted, as was said, to force the broth upon him. Now, being bent, as it is supposed, upon destroying Cook, there is one man in the world who would be the very last witness he would select as a witness of his proceedings. He was a medical man, in the prime of life, intimately acquainted with Cook, living in the same house with him, much attached to him, at all events sufficiently attached to him to come to him as soon as he had heard that he had had an attack of diarrhœa—Mr. Jones, of Lutterworth. Palmer, intending to go to London, and not wishing to leave Cook alone, wrote on the Sunday to Mr. Jones, telling him that Cook was then ill with diarrhœa, a statement which is not altogether inconsistent with the evidence of Dr. Bamford and what Cook stated, and begs of him to come over. I beg of you to pause here for a moment in order to appreciate the full importance of this fact; the more you think of it the more profound will be your conviction that it affords evidence irrefragable of Palmer’s innocence. The imputation upon Palmer is that he intended to kill Cook to possess himself of his winnings. Who was with Cook when the race was won? Who was by his side on Shrewsbury racecourse for the three minutes that he was speechless? Who saw him take out his betting-book and count his winnings? Who but Jones—Jones who was his bosom friend, his companion, his confidant, and who knew to the last farthing the amount of his gains? Jones was, of all men living, the most likely to be the recipient of Cook’s confidence, and the man bound by every consideration of honour, friendship, and affection to protect him, to vindicate his cause, and to avenge his death. Yet this was the man for whom Palmer sent, that he might converse with Cook, receive his confidence, minister to him in his illness, and even sleep in the same room with him! How, if Palmer is the murderer they represent him, are you to account for his summoning Jones to the bedside of the sick man? If Cook really suspected—as we are assured he did—that Palmer was poisoning him, Jones was the man to whom he would most willingly have unbosomed himself, and in whose faithful ear he would have most eagerly disburthened the perilous stuff that weighed upon his own brain. Jones, as well as Palmer, was a medical man, and it is not improbable that, in the course of his studies, the former may have noted in his class-book the very passages respecting the operation of strychnia which had attracted the attention of the latter. Is it conceivable that, if Palmer meant to slay Cook with poison in the dead of the night, he would have previously ensured the presence in his victim’s chamber of a medical witness, who would know from his frightful symptoms that the man was not dying a natural death? He brings a medical man into the room, and makes him lie within a few inches of the sick man’s bed, that he may be startled by his terrific shrieks, and gaze upon those agonising convulsions which indicate the fatal potency of poison! Can you believe it? He might have despatched him by means that would have defied detection, for Cook was taking morphia medicinally, and a grain or two more would have silently thrown him into an eternal sleep; but instead of doing so, he sends to Lutterworth for Jones. You have been told that this was done to cover appearances. Done to cover appearances! No, no, no! You cannot believe it—it is not in human nature—it cannot be true—you cannot find him guilty—you dare not find him guilty on the supposition of its truth—the country will not stand by you if you believe it to be true—you will be impeached before the whole world if you say that it is true—I believe in my conscience that it is false, because, consistently with the laws that govern human nature, it cannot possibly be true.

Serjeant Shee

Gentlemen, there are other facts to be adverted to before I sit down to which it is necessary your attention should be drawn. There was a great stir at the hotel at Rugeley after Mr. Jones had returned from London with Mr. Stevens, the executor. Mr. Stevens arrives at the inn with Mr. Jones, has been in conversation all the way down with Mr. Jones, and has heard from Mr. Jones all that Mr. Jones knows, and does not appear to have had anything communicated to him by Mr. Jones which could justify any suspicion on his part. Mr. Jones, when they arrive at Rugeley, introduces him to Palmer, and Palmer at once takes him up to the room of the dead man, and uncovers the body down to the thighs, and Mr. Stevens looks at the corpse and sees there are no convulsions about the body except the clenching of the hands. He sees there is no emaciation, no signs as he thinks of illness, and, wondering within himself, says, “How can you have died?” or something to that effect; “How grievous a thing it is that your young life should have passed away!” I think he said he did not look as if he were dead. After seeing the corpse they went down to dinner, and he asked Palmer to dine with him, and Jones, and Mr. Bradford, the husband of Mr. Cook’s sister. He has not been called; he could have told us if there was anything suspicious in the conduct of Palmer, anything that could justify such conduct on the part of Mr. Stevens. They have their dinner, and when their dinner is over, see what takes place. It is important you should know it, because I think you will see from the way it occurred that the conduct of Palmer was the conduct of a man certainly apprehensive of any sort of vexatious inquiry which might involve him in pecuniary troubles, and was therefore anxious to conciliate Mr. Stevens, still comporting himself like one who could firmly and freely maintain his equality with Mr. Stevens unabashed, with a clear brow and the appearance of an innocent man. (The learned serjeant read a portion of the dialogue which took place between Mr. Stevens and Palmer.) He said, “with a spasmodic convulsion of the throat,” which was perfectly apparent; he could not see his face, but there was a spasmodic convulsion of his throat. Who could believe such a testimony of guilt as that? He expects that Palmer is to be bound to look after everything of every kind that was in the hotel belonging to Cook, and because he could not find a trumpery book, which anybody might have taken away, thinking and probably having heard it was of very little use, which could not be of the slightest service in any way to Palmer for any purpose whatever, or to anybody, simply on that account, he is to indulge in this vexatious proceeding. The last time the book was seen was on the Monday. The last person who saw it was Elizabeth Mills, on the Monday, and on that day there were several people there with Cook—Saunders the trainer, and the jockeys; after his death the two servant-maids and the housekeeper, the three undertaker’s men, the two women who laid Cook out, and some other persons; the barber who shaved him might have taken the book, and having taken it could not return it; for here again is the effect of dishonesty as well as falsehood. Once done, you cannot repair it; without admitting it you cannot set it right again. I throw imputation on nobody; I simply say, that as many people had access to the room, it is not fair, it is not right under the circumstances when a man is charged in such a case of momentous importance without any assignable reason for his purloining the betting book, to fix it on him without any proof that he ever had it in his hands, when nothing like a proper search was made for it until some time after Cook’s death. I asked whether the drawers were not full of linen and clothes, the answer was that they were. It was not seen immediately after the death, nor was there any search made for it, nor was it set aside and taken care of in the room, so that it could not have been removed by Palmer with a guilty intention of purloining it. Let us go on for a moment with this dialogue—(the learned serjeant then read a passage from the dialogue as detailed in the evidence)—and at last, after goading and irritating the man for all this time, though Palmer was willing to make explanations and provoke inquiries into anything or circumstance which if inquired into would at once have led to a discussion of matters in a fair and gentleman-like manner, Stevens snubs him by asking him whether he intends to be at the post-mortem; and at last, when he says, “It is a matter of indifference to me,” goads the poor man into saying, “So it is to me.” That is the only word of irritation that Palmer—who kept his ground during the whole time and stood up to this man—that is the only word of irritation that he used. Mr. Stevens speaks to him in a very warm manner, yet Palmer manifests the composure of a gentleman, of a man of feeling and consideration to the father—as he called himself—but the stepfather of the young man, and that is to be turned into evidence of guilt.

There is another story made against him, that he was found searching in the pockets of Mr. Cook shortly after his death—it is the most absurd suggestion on their own showing. The facts were these. Mr. Jones, I think, told the servants to tell Palmer to come into the room. I think that was it—to tell Palmer to go into the room; and then I think Mr. Jones told another servant to follow him into the room. Elizabeth Mills is the witness to that. She says, “I went in, and I saw him looking about seeing if there was anything in one of the coats, and he also looked under the bolster of the bed, just as a gentleman might be looking for a watch; and he went on doing so after I got into the room.” It was quite clear she suspected nothing, and I submit it is not fair that any suspicion should attach to him on the subject.

Serjeant Shee

One other circumstance there is on which reliance has been placed; and although it has been said great reliance is not intended to be placed upon it, I cannot tell what effect it will produce on your minds. I am sure that when those who have promoted this prosecution first undertook it they intended to rely, as proof of damning guilt, on the manuscript extracts about strychnia in these medical books. I think it will be within your experience that in youth and early manhood the best protection that a man can have for his honour and integrity is the company and society of a wife whom he loves. If you find a man in early youth attached to a virtuous young woman, whom he loves with a sincere and heartfelt attachment, depend upon it he is of a gentle nature, and little prone to deeds of violence. They have put in these books to show that Palmer had a knowledge of strychnia poison, and they are the books which he used when a student attending lectures in London, as must have been known to his deceased wife. I find, in what I am in a condition to prove to be her own handwriting, proof positive that this was his student’s book, and that he then and long after loved that young woman in the way in which it is God’s will, under the sanction of His holy ordinance, young men should love their wives. His marriage was a marriage of affection; he loved her for herself and for her person; he loved her as ardently as he now loves her first-born, his only surviving child, a boy of seven years old, who waits with trembling anxiety for a sentence which will restore him to his father’s arms, or drive that father to an ignominious death upon the scaffold. He loved her with a pure, generous affection. There is proof positive in this letter, copied in her handwriting into his notebook, that such a man was William Palmer when only a few years younger than he is now—

“My dearest Annie,—I snatch a moment to write to your dear, dear little self. I need scarcely say the principal inducement I have to work is the desire of getting my studies finished, so as to be able to press your dear little form in my arms. With best, best love, believe me, dearest Annie, your own William.”

Now, this is not the sort of letter that is generally read in Courts of justice. It was no part of my instructions to read it to you, but that book was put in to prove that this man was a wicked, heartless, savage desperado, and I show you from it what he was when that letter was written—what his deceased wife knew him to be when she copied it—a young man who loved a young woman for her own sake—loved her with a pure and virtuous affection, such an affection as would in almost all natures be a sure antidote against guilt.

Such, gentlemen, is the man whom it is my duty to defend. Upon the evidence which is before you I cannot believe him guilty. Do not suppose for a moment that he is abandoned in this dreadful strait by his family and friends. An aged mother, who may have disapproved of some parts of his conduct, expects in an agony of grief your verdict. A dear sister can scarcely sustain herself under the suspense which presses upon her. A gallant and devoted brother stands by him to defend him, sparing neither time nor labour to save him from an awful doom. I call upon you to expand your minds to a capacity for estimating the high duty that you have to perform. You have to stem the torrent of prejudice; you have to vindicate the honour and character of your country; you have with firmness and courage to do your duty, and find a verdict for the Crown, if you believe that guilt is proved; but if you have a doubt upon the point, depend upon it the time will come when the innocence of this man will be made apparent, and when you will deeply regret any want of due and calm consideration of the case which it will be my duty to lay before you.

The Court then adjourned.