Whilst the analysis of the contents of the jar was being conducted in London, the coroner opened an inquest at Rugeley. Palmer, now fully aware of his danger, determined to use his influence over the postmaster to get the earliest information of the results of the analysis, and to make a friend of Ward, the coroner. With the latter object, he sent a hamper of fish and game to the coroner from London on the 1st of December, writing the direction himself, but not otherwise letting Ward know from whom they came, which he professed to wish to be kept secret. To Cheshire, the postmaster, with whom he had long been on very friendly terms, receiving from him his mother’s and Cook’s letters, on the 2nd of December he hinted the importance of his knowing anything that might pass through the post between Dr. Taylor and the local solicitor. In consequence, on the Wednesday following, he is told by Cheshire the substance of the letter, already quoted, written by the analyst to Mr. Gardner on the previous day. On this Palmer, on the 8th, writes to a poulterer at Stafford to have some game ready for his messenger, and sends Bate over for it, to take it, with the following note, to the coroner:—

Bate goes to the poulterer, re-directs, and sends the game by a lad, and then finds his way to the inn, where the coroner is smoking, calls him out of the billiard-room, and privately gives him the letter.

On the 14th of December the adjourned inquest is to be held, and Dr. Taylor’s evidence taken. On the previous day, therefore, Bate is again summoned by Palmer, and sent to borrow a £5 note of Thirlby, and on his return, Palmer being still ill in bed, is told by him to look in a drawer for another, but can only find one for £50. At this juncture the sheriff’s officer arrives to arrest him on one of the overdue bills, Bate is sent out of the room, and on his return commissioned to take a note to the coroner, and to be sure that no one sees him deliver it. This he succeeds in doing between the “station” and the “Junction Hotel,” where he slips it slily into Ward’s hand. Not liking all this secrecy, Bate had hesitated at accepting the mission, and asked that some one else should be sent, when Palmer replied, “Why, George, as to this poor fellow Cook, he was the best pal I ever had in my life; and why should I have poisoned him?” and then added, “I am as innocent as you, George.” The inquest proceeded, and in addition to the evidence of the symptoms attendant on Cook’s death, Dr. Taylor gave his, and Roberts proved the purchase of strychnia only a day before Cook’s death. Palmer was summoned, but professed to be too ill to come, and on the next day a verdict of wilful murder against him was returned, and a warrant issued for his transfer to Stafford jail. After a few days’ detention in his own house, Palmer was conveyed to jail, in such a state of despondency that he appears to have determined to starve himself to death, and would probably have done so, but for the threat of compulsory measures by the Governor. Soon afterwards all his property was seized under a bill of sale and sold, his racehorses alone realising four thousand guineas.[65]

THE DEFENCE.

Of Mr. Serjeant Shee’s address to the jury in the defence of the prisoner, which occupied, without wearying, the attention of the Court during eight hours on the seventh day, only a brief analysis can be given. The main points on which he insisted were—First, the erroneous nature of the medico-scientific evidence in referring the symptoms exhibited in Cook’s case to tetanus from strychnia, on which he was prepared to contradict it by witnesses of equal character and credit in the profession. Secondly, the probability, amounting as near as possible to a certainty, that if the death had been occasioned by strychnia, the presence of that poison should have been detected by the analysts. Thirdly, the similarity of the symptoms in the case to those of cases of traumatic or idiopathic tetanus of late occurrence, to be described by the doctors who had attended them. As the mass of evidence by which he sought to support these propositions has been already reported, it is needless to recur to it. We may therefore pass on to the moral evidence, only pausing to extract the noble passage descriptive of the mechanism of the human frame, with which he introduced the former subject, and his picture of Cook’s state of mind from before his victory at Shrewsbury until his death.

In opening the portion of his case that Cook’s death was attributable to causes other than strychnia, Serjeant Shee adroitly concealed the names of the diseases to which his witnesses were prepared to attribute it. Until, therefore, his cloud of witnesses had been passed through, the prosecution did not know, except from the cross-examination of their own medico-scientific witnesses, to what technical points they had to shape their reply.

In support of his contention that Cook’s death could be fairly attributed to ordinary convulsions, the learned Serjeant gave the following graphic sketch of the state of his mind at the period of Shrewsbury races, and from then to his death:—

In dealing with the “moral evidence,” counsel first attacked the motive imputed by the prosecution, and sought to show from the correspondence, as well as from the conduct of the parties, that at the moment when Palmer was charged with killing Cook, he was his best and indeed the only friend whom he could look to to assist him in his severe financial troubles.

In September Palmer had negotiated this bill with Pratt professedly for Cook’s benefit, and had received from Pratt a crossed cheque to Cook’s order for £385, and a wine warrant for £65, and at the same time, on his own account, £315 in cash, and the imputation by the Crown was that he forged Cook’s endorsement and took the money. The improbability of his doing this, as Cook was certain, had he done so, to have complained of it during the months that elapsed between the giving of the bill of sale on his horses and his death, was urged by Mr. Shee, who ventured to offer as an explanation the suggestion that as Cook wanted cash on that day, Palmer gave him his £315, and with his consent endorsed Cook’s name on the cheque and paid that to his own account. Again he dealt with the circumstance of Cook’s cheque for £350, the body of which was drawn by Cheshire, and, as Palmer said, taken by him on the 20th November to Cook for him to sign in his sick room. That cheque, it will be remembered, was not produced, but

Again, he tried to depreciate the evidence of Mills as to the symptoms of Cook’s attacks, on the ground—not, indeed, that she had been tampered with by the prosecution—because then, he said, he was certain that she would not have been called—but “that she had been instructed in the various symptoms by the repeated private examinations to which she had been subjected,” dwelling on the omission from her evidence before the coroner that she had been so violently sick after tasting the broth, and on the other discrepancies in, and omissions from, her description of the symptoms when there, and when in court.

“Upon all occasions,” said the learned counsel, “I am most reluctant to attack a witness who is examined on his or her oath, and particularly if he be in a humble position of life. I am very reluctant to impute perjury to such a person; and I think that a man who has been as long in the profession as I have been must be put a little to his wits’ end when he rushes upon the assumption that a person whose statements have, after a considerable lapse of time, materially varied, is, therefore, necessarily, deliberately perjured. The truth is, we know perfectly well, that if a considerable interval of time occurs between the first story and the second, and if the intelligent and respectable persons who are anxious to investigate the truth, but who have still a strong moral conviction—upon imperfect information—of the guilt of the accused person, will talk to witnesses and say, ‘Was there anything of this kind?’ or, ‘Anything of that kind?’ the witnesses at last catch hold of the phrase or term which has so often been used to them, and having in that way adopted it, they fancy they may tell it in court.”

He also attacked the conduct of Mr. Stevens, the stepfather, for, as he said, “goading and irritating Palmer into incautious expressions, by insinuating that he had stolen a trumpery betting-book that could not be of use to anyone;” and attributed Palmer’s anxiety to nominate a local solicitor to manage affairs to the nature of the pecuniary transactions, so much relying on honour, making them far more easy of adjustment by a friendly than by a hostile agent. As for Myatt, the postboy’s, story of the bribe for upsetting the fly, he attributed that to a personal feeling against the “meddlesome old gentleman,” as he called Stevens, and not to any idea of destroying the probable proofs of his delinquency. His marked attention to Cook during his illness he attributed to the interest he necessarily felt in his life, and the sending of broth and other things from his own house to the wish to save expense at a time when neither of them were too well off. “Would he,” said Serjeant Shee, “dream of sending poisoned broth to an inn, where it was sure to be tasted by the cook?”

In addition to the scientific witnesses which he would call to rebut those of the prosecution’s, he would prove that Cook, previously to the Shrewsbury meeting, was suffering severely from a syphilitic state of throat, and applying to Palmer for remedies for it—that Palmer could not have been in Rugeley at the time at which Newton swore that he sold the strychnia to him, and that the incident at the “Raven,” at Shrewsbury, of the brandy-and-water was a fiction. To what this evidence of previous illness amounted, and how the two witnesses who were to negative Newton and disprove the scene at the “Raven” fared when put in the box, will be seen in the report of their examination.[67] Great stress was of course laid on Palmer’s not only calling in Dr. Bamford, but sending for Mr. Jones, Cook’s firmest friend, to witness what proved his last day of life, and on the improbability of Palmer tampering with the medicines under such professional supervision.

“Is it conceivable that if Palmer meant to slay Cook with poison in the dead of night, he would previously have insured 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 his room, and makes him lie within a few inches of the sick man’s bed, that he may be startled with his terriffic shrieks, and gaze on those agonizing convulsions which indicate the fatal potency of the poison. Can you believe it? He might have dispatched him by means that defy detection, for Cook was taking morphia medicinally, and a grain or two more would have silently thrown him into an eternal sleep;[68] but instead of this 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 it is false, because, consistently with the laws that govern human nature, it cannot be true.”

“The incident of his being found searching the clothes and under the pillow,” said counsel, “ought not to be looked upon as suspicious, as Mills, who came into the room at the time, thought no suspicion of it, and there was nothing but the evidence of a kind and considerate character in his having ordered the shell and the coffin; nor was it possible to torture into a presumption of guilt the few words of irritation which may have fallen from him in the course of a conversation in which Mr. Stevens treated him with scorn, not to say with insolence.” And then, alluding to the entry as to the effects of strychnia in one of his medical books, the learned Serjeant turned it most adroitly to his own purpose, as the basis of a peroration so telling in its language and perfect in its construction that it must be preserved intact.

THE REPLY.

The greater part of the tenth day was occupied with the reply of the Attorney-General, dealing in the first part with the medico-scientific evidence brought forward for the defence, and contrasting it with that on the part of the prosecution, and in the latter part pressing home with all his force of criticism and power of language the suspicious acts of the prisoner before and after the death of Cook. Between idiopathic and traumatic tetanus he drew the distinction, “supported,” as he said, “by the evidence of men who had seen, not here and there a stray case, but numerous instances of that disease, that the former was a disease of days, and even weeks, and not of hours or minutes.” He pointed out that such were really the symptoms in the cases adduced for the defence, and ridiculed the notion that the old ulcers of the spring of the year, with which Dr. Savage had dealt successfully, could be assigned as the causes of this form of disease in Cook’s case, and then criticised seriatim the other forms of convulsive disease to which the witnesses for the defence attributed it. After referring to the statements of Dr. Savage and Mr. Stevens as to the state of Cook’s health prior to his departure for Shrewsbury races, he thus dealt with the evidences of his state of health offered by the prisoner’s witnesses:—

Then, after pointing out how the two cases of this disease put forward by the defence were cases of days and hours, and, not like Cook’s, of minutes, he proceeded to deal with the suggestion of idiopathic tetanus.

Again, on Mr. Nunneley’s suggestion that it might be a case of general convulsions accompanied by tetanic symptoms, said the Attorney-General.—

“Well, but pause a moment, Mr. Nunneley; have you ever seen one single case in which death arising from general convulsions, accompanied by tetanic symptoms, has not ended in the unconsciousness of the patient before death? ‘No, I never knew such a case—not one. But in some book or other I am told that there is such a case reported;’ and he cites one, not for that purpose, I think, but with reference, to general convulsions being sometimes accompanied by tetanic symptoms and ending in death, from a very eminent author of the present day, Dr. Copland. Dr. Copland is living and Dr. Copland might have been called—was not called, notwithstanding the challenge which I threw out. Why? Because it is infinitely better in such a case to call together from the east and west practitioners of more or less obscurity, instead of bringing to bear upon the subject the light of science which is treasured in the breasts of the eminent practitioners with which this city abounds.”

Again, on Mr. Partridge’s evidence of the probable effect of the granules on the spinal marrow,

“I called his attention,” he said, “to what had evidently not been done before, namely, the symptoms of Mr. Cook’s case, and asked him in simple, straightforward terms whether, looking at these, he would pledge his opinion, in the face of the medical world and the Court, that this was a case of arachnitis, and he candidly admitted that he would not assert it.”

Against Dr. Macdonald’s epileptic convulsions with tetanic complications, he cited the following from that gentleman’s cross-examination:—

“Did you ever know a case of epilepsy, with or without tetanic complications, in which consciousness was not destroyed before the patient died? He said ‘No, I cannot say I ever did, but I have read in some book that such a case occurred.’ Is there anything to make you think this was epilepsy? ‘Well, it may have been epilepsy, because I do not know what else to ascribe it to, but I must admit that epilepsy is characterised generally by unconsciousness.’ Well, then, what difference would tetanic complications make? That he is unable to explain.”

With the final suggestion of Angina pectoris, he could not deal so minutely as with the four preceding ones.

“The gentleman,” he said, “who was called at the last moment would not have escaped quite so easily if I had had the books to which he referred under my hand, and been able to expose, as I would have done, the ignorance or presumption of the assertion he dared to make. I say ignorance or presumption; or, what is worse, an intention to deceive. I assert it in the face of the whole medical profession, and I am satisfied I shall have a verdict in my favour.”

He then concluded this part of his speech by calling attention to the fact, that three of the witnesses for the prisoner, Mr. Partridge, Dr. Robinson, and even Dr. Letheby, strongly as he was biased for the defence, agreed with Sir B. Brodie and the other medical witnesses for the Crown, that, “in the whole of their experience, learning, and information, they knew of no known disease to which the symptoms of Mr. Cook could possibly be referred—a fact the importance of which it was impossible to exaggerate.”

Assuming, then, that all were agreed, that from the time that the final paroxysm set in, the symptoms were similar to those of strychnia tetanus, he dealt with the point which the defence had raised—which he admitted deserved their most attentive consideration—that there were points of difference, which had led some of the witnesses to the conclusion that they could not have resulted from that cause.

“Let us see,” he said, “what they are. In the first place, they showed that the period which elapsed between the supposed administration of the poison, and the first symptoms, was longer than they have ever observed in animals upon which they have experimented. The first observation which arises is this: that there is a known difference between animal and human life, in the power with which certain specific things act upon their organization. It may well be that poison administered to a rabbit will produce its effect in a given time. It by no means follows that it will produce the same effect in the same time on an animal of a different description. Still less does it follow that it will exercise its baneful influence in the same time on a human subject. The whole of the evidence on both sides leads to establish this fact, that not only in individuals of different species, but in individuals of the same species, the same poison and the same influence will produce effects different in degree, different in duration, different in power. But again, it is perfectly notorious that the rapidity with which the poison begins to work depends mainly upon the mode of its administration. If it is administered in a fluid state it acts with great rapidity. If it is given in a solid state its effects come on more slowly. If it is given in an indurated substance it will act with still greater tardiness. Then what was the period at which this poison began to act after its administration, assuming it to have been poison? It seems, from Mr. Jones’s statement, that Palmer came to administer the pills somewhere about 11 o’clock, but they were not administered on his first arrival, for the patient, as if with an intuitive sense of the death that awaited him, strongly resisted the attempts to make him take them; and no doubt these remonstrances, and the endeavours to overcome them, occupied some period of time. The pills were at last given. Assuming—which I only do for the sake of argument—that the pills contained strychnia, how soon did they begin to operate? Mr. Jones says he went down to his supper, and came back again about 12 o’clock. Upon his return to the room, after a word or two of conversation with Cook, he proceeded to undress and go to bed, and had not been in bed ten minutes before a warning came that another of the paroxysms was about to take place. The maidservant puts it still earlier, and it appears that as early as ten minutes before twelve the first alarm was given, which would make the interval little more than three-quarters of an hour. When these witnesses tell us that it would take an hour and a half, or two hours, we see here another of those exaggerated determinations to see the facts only in the way that will be most favourable to the prisoner. I find in some of the experiments that have been made that the duration of time, before the poison begins to work, has been little, if anything, less than an hour. In the case of a girl at Glasgow it was stated that it was three-quarters of an hour before the pills began to work. There may have been some reason for the pills not taking effect within a certain period after their administration. It would be easy to mix them up with substances difficult of solution, or which might retard their action. I cannot bring myself to believe that if in all other respects you are perfectly satisfied that the symptoms, the consequences, the effects, were analogous, and similar in all respects to those produced by strychnia, you will conclude that in this case strychnia was not administered, and found your conclusion on the simple fact that a quarter of an hour more than usual may have elapsed before the pills operated. But they say the premonitory symptoms were wanting. They assert that in the case of animals the animal at first manifests some uneasiness, shrinks, and draws itself into itself, as it were, and avoids moving; that certain involuntary twitchings about the head come on, and that there were no such premonitory symptoms in Cook’s case. I utterly deny the proposition. I say there were premonitory symptoms of the most marked character. He is lying in his bed; he suddenly starts up in an agony of alarm. What made him do that? Was there nothing premonitory there—nothing that warned him the paroxysm was coming on? He jumps up, says, ‘Go and fetch Palmer—fetch me help! I am going to be ill as I was last night!’ What was that but a knowledge that the symptoms of the previous night were returning, and a warning of what he might expect unless some relief were obtained? He sits up and prays to have his neck rubbed. What was the feeling about his neck but a premonitory symptom, which was to precede the paroxysms that were to supervene? He begs to have his neck rubbed, and that gives him some comfort. But here they say this could not have been tetanus from strychnia, because animals cannot bear to be touched, for a touch brings on a paroxysm—not only a touch, but a breath of air, a sound, a word, a movement of any one near will bring on a return of the paroxysm. Now, in three cases of death from strychnia we have shown that the patient has endured rubbing of the limbs, and received satisfaction from that rubbing. In Mrs. Smyth’s case, when her legs were distorted, she prayed and entreated that she might have them straightened. The lady at Leeds, in the case which Dr. Nunneley himself attended, implored her husband between the spasms to rub her legs and arms in order to overcome the rigidity. That case was within his own knowledge, and yet in spite of it, although he detected strychnia in the body of the unhappy woman, he dares to say that Cook’s having tolerated the rubbing between the paroxysms is a proof that he had not taken strychnia. Then there is the case of Clutterbuck. He had taken an overdose of strychnia, and suffered from the reappearance of tetanus, and his only comfort was to have his legs rubbed. Therefore, I say that the continued endeavour to persuade a jury that the fact of Cook’s having had his neck rubbed proves that this is not tetanus by strychnia, shows nothing but the dishonesty and insincerity of the witnesses who have so dared to pervert the facts. But they go further, and contend that Cook was able to swallow. So he was before the paroxysms came on. But nobody has ever pretended that he could swallow afterwards. He swallowed the pills, and what is very curious, and illustrates part of the theory, is this, that it was the act of swallowing the pills, a sort of movement in raising his head, which brought on the paroxysm of which he died.”

Having thus called attention to the fact, that against the three cases of undoubted poisoning by strychnia (those of Mrs. Smyth, Mrs. Dove, and Mr. Clutterbuck), the sufferers in which begged to be rubbed, all that could be set up was, that animals when thus poisoned could not bear to be touched, the Attorney-General dealt with the fact of the rigidity of Cook’s body after death, on which Mr. Nunneley relied as a proof that it could not be a case of strychnia poisoning. He cited the evidence of Mr. Herapath, the very next analyst called by the defence, that in two of his experiments on animals “the bodies had been indurated and contorted,” as well that of Dr. Taylor that one of the animals in his experiments was so rigid after death that it could be held out in an horizontal position in the air as though it were on its four legs on a plane surface. “What,” he said, “are you to think of the honesty of this sort of evidence? “Again, on the question of the fulness or emptiness of the heart, he thus accounted for the variation of the symptoms:—

“It is obvious to any one who reflects for a single moment that the question whether the heart shall be found compressed, or the lungs congested must depend upon the immediate cause of death, and we know that in cases of tetanus death may result from more than one cause. All the muscles of the body are subject to the exciting action of this powerful poison, but no one can tell in what order those muscles will be affected, or where the poisonous influence will put forth the fulness of its power. If it acts on the respiratory muscles, and arrests the play of the lungs, and with it the breathing of the atmospheric air, the result will be that the heart will be left full. But if some spasm seizes on the heart, contracting it and expelling from it the blood that it contains, and so produces death, the result will be that the heart will be found empty. So that you never have perfect certainty as to how these symptoms will manifest themselves after death; but that is again put forward as if the fact of the heart being empty is a conclusive fact of the death not having taken place from strychnia. Yet those men who come here as witnesses under the sanction of scientific authority, must have heard both these cases spoken to by medical gentlemen who had examined those two unfortunate patients after death, and who told us that in both cases they found the heart empty. That gets rid of that matter. As death takes place from one or other of these causes, so will be the appearance of the heart, the brain, and the body after death. There is nothing in this for a single moment to negative the conclusion which you would otherwise arrive at from the other symptoms.”

For the difficulty which he admitted arose from the non-discovery of strychnia by the analyst, he assigned another reason besides that of the condition of the stomach and other parts from the negligence imputed to those who had conducted the post mortem examination—namely, the probable smallness of the fatal dose. In all the cases of experiments on animals in which the poison had been detected, the doses had been one or even two grains, yet half a grain would prove fatal; and where so little as that had been given in experiments, Dr. Taylor and Dr. Rees had failed to detect it. On the partisanship of Mr. Herapath, sitting by the side of the prisoner’s counsel, prompting questions, and on his assertion that he believed that Cook had been killed by strychnia and that Taylor could and ought to have detected it, his remarks were those rather of a French Public Prosecutor than an Attorney-General.

“I do not say that alters the fact; but I do say that it induces one to look at the credit of those witnesses with a very great amount of suspicion. I reverence a man who, from a sense of justice and a love of truth—from those high considerations which form the noblest character of man—comes forward in favour of a man against whom the world may turn in a torrent of prejudice and aversion, and who stands and states what he believes to be the truth. But I abhor the traffic in testimony to which, I regret to say, men of science sometimes permit themselves to condescend.”

Whether Newton was believed or not—and he showed how his statement was confirmed by Roberts’s account of Palmer’s conduct at the time of the second purchase of poison, he urged that of the latter fact there could be no doubt, and asked what was done with that strychnia. That Palmer obtained this strychnia was not controverted, and what he did with it was not attempted to be satisfactorily accounted for.

“Purchased for whom? for what? If for a patient why is he not produced? If for any other purpose, let us at least have it explained. Has there been a shadow of an explanation? Alas, I grieve to say, none at all. Something was said, in the outset of the case, about dogs that had been troublesome in the paddocks, but that was in September. If there was any recurrence of this, why are not the grooms here to prove this? Some one must have assisted Palmer to destroy these dogs. Where are those persons? Why are they not called? Not only are they not called, they are not even named. My learned friend does not venture to breathe even a suggestion.”[69]

As for the witness called to disprove the incident of the brandy and water at Shrewsbury, his solitary evidence, that of one of the prisoner’s associates, he urged, would not stand for a moment against those of the witnesses who had spoken for the prosecution. As for the attempt to prove that Palmer could not have been in Rugeley at the time when Newton swore that he purchased the strychnia, Mr. Jeremiah Smith’s antecedents, the disgraceful part he had played in the insurance transactions, let alone his exhibition in the witness-box, he added, deprived his evidence of credit.

Again, antimony was undoubtedly discovered in the body, and yet no one is known to have given it to Cook, unless Palmer did so in the broth, the toast and water, and the coffee that he pressed him to take, and provided for him. On the question of motive so anxiously laboured by the defence, it was enough simply to repeat, the amounts of the debts pressing on Palmer, and to bear in mind how drowning men will catch at a straw. Cook’s bets, which Palmer had collected, staved off immediate pressure; and had not Mr. Stevens, whose conduct as Cook’s relative the Attorney-General earnestly defended, insisted on the post-mortem, and thus brought about the inquest and this inquiry, it was possible that the insurance office might have paid the policy on Walter’s life, and the forged bills been thus redeemed in time to save exposure. Cook also was valueless to help Palmer to keep these bills alive; even Pratt, the 60 per cent. money-lender, would not discount his acceptance for £500 without the security of a bill of sale on his horses.

Better acquainted with turf doings than his opponent, the Attorney-General smiled at the idea, that because a man was another’s confederate on the turf therefore he made himself responsible for his debts, or that Cook, with all his friendship for Palmer, would beggar himself for his sake.

“Joint engagement they had but one, the £500 bill secured on Sirius and Polestar, and it was to meet this, and free his horses, that Cook gave £300 out of his receipts at Shrewsbury to Palmer to send up to Pratt, and wrote to Fisher to advance the other £200. No £300 was sent up, and the £200, with the bets collected by Herring, went not to free this bill, but to stop Pratt’s action on the forged bill of £2000 of Palmer’s. It was no doubt true that after a man’s death, his bets were irrecoverable and his betting-book useless. It was, however, useful to enable Palmer to give a list of bets to Herring to collect, the proceeds of which were turned to his own use, and the previous collection of which Palmer withheld from Stevens. In the same way would have gone the cheque for £350 for the stakes—whether a forgery or not—but for the accident of their not having paid over in time. Had Cook lived, the closely approaching claim on his £500 acceptance, which he believed to have been settled, would have revealed the whole transaction.” [Again, the Attorney-General pressed for the production of the £350 cheque filled up by Cheshire.] “Why should Cheshire be asked to fill it up? Just about this time Palmer was to meet Dr. Bamford and Jones in consultation—why not ask Mr. Jones, the trusted friend of Cook, tell him the same story as he did Cheshire, and not send for the latter? From the day that this cheque was drawn till he was arrested on the bill, Palmer had undisturbed possession of his own papers—from the day of his arrest till his trial the papers had been in safe custody. Why, then, is it not produced? Can you help drawing the inference that the transaction will not bear the light? Look, again, at the claim of £3000 or £4000 of bills on Cook’s estate, the document Cheshire refused to witness, which is also not produced—the letter to Pratt that he must have Polestar, and the instructions not to give any information on Cook’s affairs. Can you doubt that they were all part of one fraudulent and flagitious design, for the full completion of which the death of Cook was a necessary thing?”

Palmer’s conduct at the post-mortem, the tampering with the cover of the jar—by whom?—his anxiety to upset Mr. Stevens when in charge of it, because, it had been urged, of “his prying meddlesome curiosity;” his presents and letters to the coroner; his prompting Cheshire to tamper with the letter from Dr. Taylor; his anxiety to know, and to let the coroner know, that strychnia had not been found; his suggestion to call Smith (what a witness Jeremiah would have made!); his assertions of previous epileptic fits, and his hope “that the verdict to-morrow would be that he died of natural causes, and thus end it,” were all dwelt upon: “little things, if taken individually, but taken as a whole,” said the Attorney-General, “as I submit to you, leading irresistibly to the conclusion of the guilt of this man.”

In concluding this masterly speech, though in some parts too like fighting for a verdict, the Attorney-General criticised the assertion by Serjeant Shee of his belief of the prisoner’s innocence:—

“You have, indeed, had introduced into this case one other element, which I own, I think, had better have been omitted. You have had from my learned friend the unusual, I think I may say the unprecedented, assurance of his conviction of the innocence of his client. I can only say upon that point that I think it would have been better if my learned friend had abstained from giving such an assurance. What would he think of me if, imitating his example, I should at this moment declare to you, on my honour, as he did, what is the intimate conviction which has followed from my own conscientious consideration of this case? My learned friend also, in his address, of which all admired the power and ability, adopting a course which is sometimes resorted to by advocates, but which, in my mind, involves more or less a species of insult to the good sense or good feeling of the jury—endeavoured to intimidate you, by an appeal to your consciences, from discharging firmly and honestly the great and solemn duty which you are called upon to perform. My learned friend told you that, if your verdict in this case should be ‘guilty,’ the innocence of the prisoner would one day be made manifest, and that you would never cease to regret the verdict which you had given. If my learned friend were sincere in that—and I know that he was, for there is no man in whom the spirit of truth and honour is more keenly alive—if he said what he believed, I can only answer that it shows how, when a man enters upon the consideration of a case with a strong bias on his mind, he is liable to err. I think then that my learned friend had better have abstained from making any assurance which involved his conviction of the prisoner’s innocence. I think, further—in justice and consideration to you—that he should have abstained from representing to you that the voice of the country would not sanction the verdict which you might give. I say nothing of the inconsistency which is involved in such a statement, coming from one who but a short hour before had complained in eloquent terms of the universal torrent of passion and of prejudice by which he said that his client would be borne down; but in answer to my learned friend I say this to you:—Pay no regard to the voice of the country, whether it be for condemnation or for acquittal; pay no regard to anything but to the internal voice of your own consciences, and to that sense of duty which you owe to God and man upon this occasion, seeking no reward except the comforting assurance that when you look back to the proceedings of this day you will feel that you have discharged to the utmost of your ability and to the best of your power the duty which it was yours to perform. If on a review of this whole case, comparing the evidence on one side and on the other, and weighing it in the even scales of justice, you can come to the conclusion of innocence, or can even entertain that fair and reasonable amount of doubt of which the accused is entitled to the benefit, in God’s name acquit him; but if, on the other hand, all the facts and all the evidence lead your minds, with satisfaction to yourselves, to the conclusion of his guilt, then—but then only—I ask for a verdict of ‘guilty’ at your hands. For the protection of the good, for the repression of the wicked, I ask for that verdict by which alone—as it seems to me—the safety of society can be secured, and the demands, the imperious demands of public justice, can be satisfied.”

THE JUDGE’S CHARGE.

As the learned Judge’s charge occupied the whole of the eleventh and until half-past four on the twelfth day, and was necessarily protracted by his reading in detail nearly all the voluminous evidence to the jury, it would be impossible to give it in full. I shall, therefore, limit this report to such of his observations, as have not already been given in the notes to the evidence of the various witnesses to whom they applied.

Contrasting the practice in foreign countries of raising the probability of guilt, from the fact of the previous commission by a prisoner of other crimes against other persons, and even of a totally different character to that with which he then stands charged, Lord Campbell warned the jury that they must deal with him now as if he were an entirely innocent man, and confine their attention solely to the evidence bearing on the crime itself. He warned them also that the expression of his counsel’s opinion, that the prisoner was innocent, meant no more than the plea of “Not Guilty,” and that the most inconvenient consequences would follow from regarding it in any other light. Neither was it necessary, as a point of law, that the poison by which it was charged that the murder was effected, should be found in the body, or seen to be administered. They must look to the medical evidence to see whether the death was from that poison, or from natural causes, and to the moral evidence, whether that showed that the prisoner not only had the opportunity, but that he actually availed himself of that opportunity, and administered the poison. He then proceeded to read over the evidence, commencing with that showing the indebtedness of Palmer to Pratt, in which Cook had no liability, and then taking up the joint liability of Palmer and Cook to the same person in connection with the loan secured on Cook’s horses. With reference to the former transactions he called attention to Palmer’s letter to Pratt, “not to let Cook’s friends know what money Cook had ever had from him,” remarking, “that it was written at a time when the stepfather was making inquiries of a nature certainly very disagreeable to Palmer.” On the latter correspondence he called attention to the cheque for £375, sent by Pratt for Cook, on which Palmer wrote the endorsement, and admitted “that it was very properly argued for the defence, that it was possible that Cook had authorised some one else to write it;” but coupled with it the circumstance that on the 13th of November Palmer was in a state of embarrassment, and that on the 20th he could pay Armshaw two £50 notes, and that on the 22nd he could pay a further £50.

After next reading the evidence of Wright, the attorney of Birmingham, to show how heavily Palmer was indebted to his brother, besides to Pratt, and alluding to the bill of sale of all his property, he laid great stress on the non-production of the cheque on Weatherby for £350, the production of which would have settled the question whether or not it was forged with the intention of appropriating it to his own use. Mr. Serjeant Shee here interposing with the remark that Weatherby thought the signature genuine, Lord Campbell replied:—

“Mr. Weatherby said the body of the cheque was not in Cook’s handwriting, and he had paid no attention to the signature. You, gentlemen, must consider the evidence with regard to this part of the case. The cheque is not produced, though it was sent back by Weatherby to Palmer. It is not produced” [here the judge read the evidence of the search for papers at Palmer’s]. “It might have been expected that the cheque so returned to Palmer, who professed to set store upon it, and to have given value for it, would have been found, but it is not forthcoming. It is for you to draw whatever inference may suggest itself to you from this circumstance.”

The judge then alluded to the fact of Palmer remaining in the neighbourhood after suspicion had been excited against him, as of importance, and worthy of being taken into consideration, though, as he added, “he might have done so, perhaps, thinking that from the care he had taken nothing would be discovered against him,” and that neither the bills nor the document by which Cook was said to have admitted his liability on them were produced, and closed this portion of the evidence.

On the incident of the brandy-and-water at Shrewsbury, the learned judge remarked, “What a mysterious circumstance it was, that Cook, after he had stated his suspicions, still retained his confidence in Palmer—was still constantly in his company—during the few remaining days of his life, still sent for him whenever in distress; and, in fact, seemed to a great extent to be under his influence.” In a subsequent part of his charge, when dealing with the evidence for the defence, he contrasted the evidence of Myatt in contradiction to that of Brooks and Fisher, and left the jury to draw their own conclusion which they would believe. Cook’s letter to Fisher to pay Pratt the £200 was also here read and commented on, and the jury left to infer why he did not go to London as he proposed, and why he put the collection of his bets in Herring’s hands instead of Fisher’s—“if he did so.”

Coming now to the illness at Rugeley, he said, “he was bound to declare that not one fact had been adduced to prove that Mills had been bribed, or that Mr. Stevens had read over the newspaper to her, to influence her evidence in a particular direction: it was a gratuitous assertion, unsupported by evidence, and distinctly denied.” Whether the difference of Palmer’s dress when he ran over, as described by Mills or Barnes, was of sufficient importance, was a question for the jury, and also whether Mills’s deposition before the coroner, and her evidence in Court (the deposition was read) was not substantially the same. On the letter from Palmer calling in Jones, cited by the defence as a proof of innocence, he said:—

“It is important, however, to consider at what period of Cook’s illness Jones was sent for, and in what condition he was when Jones arrived. Palmer’s assertion in the letter was, that Cook had been suffering from diarrhœa, and of this statement we have not the slightest confirmation in the evidence. When Jones, looking at Cook’s tongue, observed it was not the tongue of a bilious attack, Palmer’s reply was, ‘You should have seen it before.’ What reason could Palmer have for using these words, when there is not the slightest evidence of Cook having suffered from such an illness?” Then, having had Jones’s deposition before the coroner read, he added, “It is for you to say whether in your opinion this deposition at all varies from his evidence given here: I confess that I see no variation, and no reason to suppose that his evidence is not the evidence of sincerity and truth.”

After observing that the evidence of Dr. Savage showed that previous to his departure for Shrewsbury Cook was in better health than he had been for a long time, the learned judge read the evidence of Newton, and his deposition before the coroner. Remarking on his omitting to mention the first purchase of strychnia until the Tuesday morning, when coming to London, he said:—

“You will observe that though there has been an omission, there is no contradiction. You are then to consider what is the probability of his inventing this wicked lie—a most important lie, if lie it be. He had no ill will towards the prisoner at the bar, he had never quarrelled with him, and had nothing to get by injuring him. I cannot see any motive for his inventing a lie to take away the life of the prisoner. No inducement was held out to him by the Crown. He says himself that no inducement was held out to him, and that at last he disclosed this circumstance from a sense of duty. If you believe his evidence, it is very strong against the prisoner.” And then, reading the evidence of Roberts and remarking that he was not cross-examined or in any way contradicted, he added—“If you couple that with the statement of Newton—believing that statement—you have evidence of strychnia having been procured by the prisoner on the Monday night before the symptoms of strychnia were exhibited by Cook; and by the evidence of Roberts, undenied and unquestioned, that on Tuesday six grains of strychnia were supplied to him. Supposing you should come to the conclusion that the symptoms of Cook were consistent with strychnia, then a case is made out for the Crown. The learned counsel did not favour us with the theory he had formed in his own mind with respect to that strychnia. There is no evidence—there is no suggestion—how it was applied; what became of it.[70] That must not influence your verdict, unless you come to the conclusion that Cook’s symptoms were consistent with death by strychnia. But if you come to that conclusion, I should shrink from my duty—I should be unworthy to sit here—if I did not call your attention to the inference, that if he purchased that strychnia, he purchased it for the purpose of administering it to Cook.”

Then, after vindicating the conduct of Mr. Stevens in relation to the loss of the betting-book, Lord Campbell alluded to the pushing of the jar, at the post-mortem, as probably an accident, and its removal as “nothing more than the pushing, were it not coupled with evidence afterwards given, which might lead to the inference that there was a plan to destroy it and prevent the analysis of its contents.” He saw no reason to doubt the evidence of the postboy, and did not believe that Stevens had given Palmer such provocation as to induce him to offer Myatt a bribe to upset him. “That is not indeed a decisive proof of guilt, but it is for you to say whether the prisoner did not enter on that contrivance to prevent an opportunity of examining the jar, which might contain evidence against him.”

Cheshire’s evidence as to filling up the cheque, and being asked to witness Cook’s signature, as if he was present, to the document professing to admit his liability on Palmer’s bills; his subsequent dealing with Dr. Taylor’s letter to Mr. Gardner; Palmer’s letter to the coroner stating the result of the analysis; his presents to the coroner; and his instructions to Bate not to let anyone see him deliver his letter to Mr. Ward, together with the instructions to Herring about Cook’s bets, were then carefully reviewed before entering on the medico-scientific evidence offered on the part of the prosecution.

The evidence of this class of witnesses has been so fully reported, that it is needless to repeat the Judge’s passing comments on their descriptions of the symptoms of tetanus as consistent with those in Cook’s case, and with those exhibited in the cases of undoubted poisoning by strychnia, detailed by the medical men who had attended the several patients. With reference to the results of the analysis by Drs. Taylor and Rees, and of the effect of their evidence, the learned Judge made the following comment on their experiments on animals:—