Mr. Montagu Williams objected to the statements of the deceased being put in evidence.

The Judge said that evidence as to symptoms could be received when made by the deceased.

The fatal attack now came on as previously described. In the box with the capsules were some little pills, and in the boy’s own box in his bedroom a small box of quinine powders, and another with two pills wrapped in tinfoil.[211] In the previous year, when the prisoner was in America, Mr. Bedbrook had received from him a box of pills, with a letter, saying that “he had met some one in America suffering from the same complaint as the boy, who had derived great benefit from taking medicine similar to that now sent, and requesting Mr. Bedbrook to see the boy take the medicine.” “I afterwards,” said the witness, “gave the boy one of the pills, and next morning he complained of being very unwell. At that time the box was in his bedroom, and Percy John said, ‘I will take no more of them.’ I thereupon took the pills downstairs, and until the box produced was found, was under the impression that I had thrown it away.”[212]

PURCHASE OF ACONITIA BY THE PRISONER.

Mr. Charles Albert Smith, a chemist at Ventnor, proved that on the 28th of August, 1881, the prisoner purchased of him 3 grains of sulphate of atropine, and 2 grains of aconitia, and that he had labelled the latter “Aconitine, poison.” As he had previously made up prescriptions for the prisoner, and knew him as a medical man, he sold the poison to him without hesitation. Aconitia, he believed, was commonly used for neuralgia and cancer, to relieve the palpitations in heart disease, and as a diuretic in dropsy.

On the 24th of November, 1881, the prisoner asked for 2 grains of aconitia at Messrs. Allen & Hanbury’s, of Plough-court, Lombard-street; and as the assistant, on reference to the Medical Directory, found the prisoner’s name as a medical man practising at Bournemouth, he sold them to him without further precaution than labelling it “Poison.” On the evidence of this witness, Mr. Dodd, a difficulty arose, from his having at first entertained the impression that it was “atropia” which he had sold. The price of this drug to a medical man would have been only threepence a grain, whilst that of aconitia would be 1s. 3d.[213] In the petty-cash book of the day, among entries of sales marked “C”—the sign that they were sold to a medical man—was one of 2s. 6d., but none of 3d.; and Mr. Dodd, after consulting with the other assistant who was present at the sale, became convinced that it was “aconitia,” and not “atropia,” which he had sold to the prisoner. “There is also,” he said, “a difference in colour, atropia being white, and aconitia yellowish-white.”

A previous attempt to purchase aconitia was proved by Mr. Stilling,[214] an assistant of Messrs. Bell & Co., Oxford-street, on the 20th of November. Twice before that day the prisoner had had prescriptions made up there, which he wrote in the shop, and marked as for his own use. These contained morphia and atropia, but at the bottom of the second of these prescriptions he had written, “Digitaline, pure, 5 grains.”

It may be noted here that the larger quinine powders in the box which were found to be pure were proved to have been purchased of Mr. Littlefield, a chemist at Ventnor, on the 13th of October, 1880; that he knew nothing of the smaller ones, which were proved by Dr. Stevenson to contain aconitia, and that he never kept that drug in his shop. In this he was confirmed by his assistant, Mr. Bright, who identified his own handwriting on the box in which they had been sold. The smaller quinine powders were not traced.

THE SURRENDER OF THE PRISONER.

On the 7th of December, the prisoner called at Scotland Yard and saw Inspector Butcher, who gave the following account of the interview:—

“When the prisoner came there and saw me, he said, ‘Mr. Butcher?’ and I replied, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘My name is Lamson. I am Dr. Lamson, whose name has been mentioned in connection with the death at Wimbledon.’ I asked him to be seated, and he continued, ‘I have called to see what is to be done about it. I considered it best to do so. I read the account in the public papers in Paris, and came over this morning. I have only just now arrived in London. I am very unwell, and much upset about this matter, and not in a fit state at all to have undertaken this journey.’ I then communicated with Chief Superintendent Williamson, who said to the prisoner, ‘You will have to remain a time.’ I remained with him. His wife was present. He conversed on various subjects for some time, and then he said, ‘Where is the delay? I thought I would come here and leave my address. I am going into the country to Chichester, so that you will know where to find me, and I will attend the inquest. I have travelled from Paris viâ Havre and Southampton. I went over viâ Dover and Calais.’ After this I again saw Chief Superintendent Williamson, who called the prisoner into another room. I said, ‘Dr. Lamson, this case has been fully considered, and it has been decided to charge you with causing the death of Percy John. I therefore take you into custody, and charge you with causing the death of Percy Malcolm John, at Blenheim House, Wimbledon, on the 3rd of December instant.’ He said, ‘Very well; do you think bail will be accepted? I hope the matter will be kept as quiet as possible, for the sake of my relations.’ I told him he would now be taken to Wandsworth police-court, and the question of bail would rest with the magistrate. I conveyed him in a cab to the Wandsworth police-station. On the way he said, ‘You will have my father here in a day or two. I hope it will be stated that I came to Scotland Yard voluntarily. I came from Paris on purpose.’ I said, ‘Certainly.’”

On searching the box which he had left at Euston Station among various articles, chiefly of plate, a medical memorandum book was found, from which the Solicitor-General read an extract on the “effects of acrid vegetable poisons,” and then closed the case for the prosecution.

Mr. Montagu Williams, having previously had the letter read from the Home Office, refusing to allow an independent analysis of the contents of the body on the part of the prisoner, then commenced.

THE DEFENCE.

Of the speech for the defence, which lasted the greater part of two days, and dealt with the case with extreme minuteness, it will be sufficient to give a summary, especially as its leading points were remarked upon so fully in the charge of the learned Judge.

On the question whether the death of the boy was from poison, Mr. Montagu Williams, necessarily laid great stress on the admitted inability of the scientific witnesses to rely on any other test than that of taste. “Scientifically,” he said, “it was a leap in the dark, and they had to traverse a region of science up to the present moment unexplored. Who knows about aconite? and echo answers who? What was it? The root of monkshood. Aconite was one form, and aconitia was the active principle of that form: and up to the present moment, with the exception of one reported case, there was not a single authority on the subject.” Pursuing this subject, he said:—

“The first medical witness called was Dr. Berry, who on the night of December 3rd was visiting at Blenheim House, where he saw the poor boy until his death, and observed all the symptoms under which the unfortunate lad suffered. What were they? The lad told him that he was suffering from heartburn, and where was the symptom of heartburn in the administration of aconite in the evidence of the experts that had been brought before them? What medical gentleman had said that heartburn was a sign of aconitia poisoning? The poor lad was found vomiting, and Dr. Berry and another medical man, Dr. Little, treated him for irritation of the stomach. Neither of them treated him for, or thought of, poisoning. The boy was taken from the bath-room, where he was found, to the bed from which he never rose, and from first to last all the symptoms were those of irritation of the stomach. From nine o’clock to past eleven no attempt was made to use the stomach pump; and if the medical gentlemen thought poison had been taken, they never used anything to relieve him, or what might have saved him. If poison was in the minds of these medical men, why did they not treat him for such? It was clear, therefore, there was no thought of poison; and Dr. Berry admitted in evidence that it never occurred to him that it was so until the post-mortem examination. He said he then thought the death was from alkaloid poisoning. It was the duty of him (Mr. Williams) to cross-examine him on vegetable alkaloids. What was his knowledge? His knowledge was a blank, and he admitted he knew nothing of vegetable alkaloids. Therefore, the first expert witness called for the prosecution—who had, moreover, the benefit of seeing the symptoms in life—broke down altogether. It was his case that the theories of the prosecution were of the most speculative character. Dr. Little differed somewhat, and said, ‘We came to the conclusion that the boy was dying from a vegetable poison an hour before his death,’ while Dr. Berry said it was not until the post-mortem examination that they thought anything of the sort. Dr. Little says he read about vegetable alkaloids in his student days. Both those gentlemen, who give the opinion that death resulted from vegetable alkaloids, knew nothing whatever about the subject. Then they had Mr. Bond, a gentleman of great scientific attainments, well known in these courts, who gave the results of the post-mortem examination, and he (the learned counsel) thought it would not be straining the imagination too much to say that that gentleman gave the first idea of poisoning in the matter. Mr. Bond said he came to the conclusion that death resulted from a vegetable alkaloid, and again the same line of questions and answers followed. Mr. Bond admitted he had never known a case of such poisoning. And so the jury were asked to form a verdict on the evidence of two persons who had seen the symptoms of the deceased in life, and were entirely ignorant of the signs of vegetable alkaloid poisoning, and of Mr. Bond, who was not present, and who admitted he was also ignorant upon the subject. They were asked to give a verdict on which an existence hung, and to say they had no doubt whatever that aconitia was in the body. He could only say up to that time there was not one single piece of evidence that the boy died by aconitia poisoning.”

Passing thence to the evidence of Doctors Stevenson and Dupré, whose tests, the former said, “rested on his taste, on the effects of the solutions on the mice and his reading,” he called the attention of the jury to Dr. Stevenson’s admission that the results of most of these tests were consistent with other causes, though consistent with aconitia, and ridiculed the effects on the mice as confirmatory tests, quoting the remarks of Lord Coleridge that tests upon animals were always found to be most unreliable, and of Professor Tidy, “that although useful at arriving at results, they sometimes failed, and were not reliable.” “If they used their common sense they must see that that must be so. So delicate was the constitution of a mouse that one of those experimented on had died because the injecting needle had been stuck in a quarter of an inch too far. Mice would sometimes die from fright, and also from the injection of water, and yet because these mice spoken of died in five minutes they were asked to say that they died of aconitia poisoning.” As to the test of taste, Dr. Stevenson had admitted “that it was like some other alkaloids, and not like others.” The question of the production of cadaveric alkaloids was still sub judice. He was prevented, by the refusal of the Home Office, to allow experts on the prisoner’s behalf to be present at the analytical examination, from calling scientific witnesses to rebut—“an act that was trifling with life—a beautiful bit of red-tapeism; and, if it was contrary to all practice, the sooner it was done away with the better.”

On the second point, whether if aconitia was given, it was given by the prisoner, Mr. Montagu Williams, after alluding to the way in which his admitted poverty had been pressed against the prisoner, called the attention of the jury to the facilities the prisoner would have had of poisoning his brother-in-law during the boy’s visit at his house in the summer, or his projected visit at Christmas; to the fact that the supposed attempt was made in the full light of gas, and in the presence of both the master and the victim; that there was no proof that he had brought a capsule ready charged with poison, and that he must have manipulated one before their eyes, and that it was not by his request that powdered white sugar was brought. “What was there to prevent lump sugar being brought?” As to the pills found with the capsules,

“Where did they come from? No pills were given to the boy by the prisoner, for Mr. Bedbrook was present the whole time and no mention was made of pills. Where was the boy all the afternoon? In the room downstairs, and able to move about, though this was studiously concealed by everyone from Blenheim House. In this room was the box in which two pills were afterwards found, one of which was charged with aconitia. Were there other pills in that box? It was known that Percy John kept medicine unknown to everyone in the establishment, although it was against the rules of the school; it being the duty of the master to administer all medicine. The poor fellow was called ‘the swell pill taker,’ and what was more likely than that, with the fascination of the new capsules before him, he should have taken a pill for the heartburn from which he was suffering. Did he do so? It was suggested that these pills were some sent by the prisoner, but Mr. Bedbrook had exploded that idea. He swore that he thought he had destroyed those referred to, but at any rate he had never given them back to the prisoner. Now did these four or five pills, found on the table, come from the box? Was there any evidence to show that the boy did not carry pills in his pocket, and took one in consequence of the heartburn? What did the prosecution mean? Did they mean to say that there was a pill hidden in the capsule? If the boy had thought of such a thing, would he not have asked Mr. Bedbrook or Banbury whether they felt in a similar state? The boy was in the possession of all his faculties when questioned, but he did not say one word about the capsules.”

Mr. Montagu Williams then alluded to the admission of Mr. Whalley that poisons were occasionally left in the house after the chemical lectures, and to the probability that so large a dose of aconitia as was assumed to have been given would have acted sooner, as Dr. Stevenson admitted that ¹/₂₁ of a grain might kill, and ¹/₁₃ would certainly have a fatal effect. As for the medical note-book found in the prisoner’s possession, he reminded the jury of Lord Campbell’s opinion in Palmer’s case that nothing was more natural for a professional man, and added, “It had no more bearing on the case than if ‘Russell on Crimes’ had been found in his own possession, on a charge of murder.”

On the proof of the purchase of aconitia at Allen’s, he begged them to note, that on the 5th of December the police commenced their enquiries, on the 6th the assistants at Allen’s communicated with them, saying that the prisoner had purchased atropia, and that it was not until after that that they changed their opinion and were convinced that it was aconitia. It was true that no entry of 3d. was found in the cash book, but there was one of 8d., and one of the chemists had deposed that the wholesale price of atropia, to a medical man, was 4d. a grain. But even if it was aconitia that the prisoner then purchased, it was only natural for him so to do, as he was suffering from rheumatism, of which it was a cure. Again, though they knew where the larger quinine powders, which were not poisoned, came from, it had not been proved whence the smaller came, which it was the duty of the prosecution to have done. “Oddly enough, they were tied up with a piece of string, a most unusual thing coming from a chemist’s shop. They had traced twelve quinine powders, but they had failed to trace the pills sent from America which Mr. Bedbrook swore were not given back to the deceased. He, Mr. Williams, could not say where the smaller powders came from, nor where the pills came from. The burden was not on him to do so, but on the prosecution.”

Turning then to the evidence of the visit to the boy at Shanklin, Mr. Williams said he would deal with that important episode most successfully.

“Albert Smith,” he said, “proved that on the 28th of August he sold to prisoner three grains of atropia and one grain of aconitia, charging 4d. per grain for the first and 1s. 6d. per grain for the last named. The suggestion on the part of the prosecution was that in the month of August the assassin was at work and an attempt was made on the life of the lad. In his judgment he would make that melt into the thinnest of thin air. The 28th of August was a Sunday, and on the previous day Mr. and Mrs. Chapman and the boy arrived. At that time there were four persons of the name of Lamson residing at the Isle of Wight—namely, the prisoner’s father and mother, and himself and his wife. On the 27th of August they met the boy at the station, and went to Mrs. Jolliffe’s lodgings, and here again there appeared a kindness and solicitude for the deceased. The 28th was Sunday, and it was said that he bought aconitia on that day, and that he was present on the 29th, and in order to prove it it was said that a parcel was left at the station in the name of Lamson, when there were four persons on the island named Lamson. It was further said that the deceased suffered from illness after taking something given to him by the prisoner, and from that they assumed it was aconitia bought at the shop of Mr. Smith that he had taken. The proof was all the other way, as the symptoms upon which the prosecution relied all through the case were not those which could be assigned to aconitia, while he recovered within a few hours. Beyond that, it was shown that he suffered from indigestion, especially by the fact that although he dined at one o’clock on the day of his death, undigested food was found in the vomit at nine o’clock at night. The prisoner purchased the atropia and aconitia on the 28th of August, he was to leave for America on the 30th. This mixture was the very thing he would have taken, and the very time he would have bought it for the purpose of going on the voyage. The dates exactly suited.”

Counsel’s explanation of the story told by the prisoner to the witness Tulloch was ingenious.

“The prisoner did not deny that he went down to Wimbledon on December 2 with Tulloch, but if he contemplated assassination then would he have been likely to have taken Tulloch with him? That was an observation worthy of some note. He would try and imagine a state of things to have existed, which was not impossible but more than probable. It was admitted that upon the 2nd of December the boy had been passing an examination. It was also admitted the first thing the prisoner was greeted with on the 3rd was, ‘I am glad you did not come yesterday.’ When he went down on the 2nd what was more likely than that he met some one, perhaps one of the boys, for it was a holiday, who told him it was an examination day, and he therefore postponed his visit until the next day? All the importance of this visit depended on the evidence of a man who had altered his evidence as originally given, and who, it was suggested, was on that night the worse for liquor.”

With the remarks that the flight of the prisoner to Paris, where he could have been arrested, and his return to England and surrender to the police, were not the acts of a guilty man; that, to obtain the pecuniary gain from the boy’s death, the prisoner must have applied to the Court of Chancery, and if there had been suspicion of foul play would find, instead of receiving £1,500, the hangman’s halter round his neck, and a fervid appeal on behalf of the wife who had stood by him in Court, and his young child, Mr. Montagu Williams concluded his minute and able survey of the case against his client.

THE REPLY.

The Solicitor-General, in his comparatively brief reply, directed the attention of the jury to the following points. He admitted that, in this case, they had to traverse a branch of science but little known, that little was known of aconitia, and everything speculation. He urged, however, that “that argument, whilst fair, might be pressed too far, as then a man desirous of taking life had only to use some poison but little known, and then to ask that he should not be rendered liable for the results of his crime. They found, no doubt, from time to time, fresh materials used for the commission of crime. If a man from his knowledge used a poison little known and little used, still science, with unerring precision, and working as fast as him, could bring the crime to light.” The idea of death from natural causes had apparently been abandoned by the prisoner’s counsel, so that it was impossible to doubt that it was due to poison, and what that poison was must rest on the evidence of the scientific witnesses, “the first in their profession, of the highest skill, not called in to prop up any theory, but to frame an independent opinion. The presence of a third party would not have been likely to assist the analysis, while on the other hand it might have led to difficulty, and even mistake.” He disputed the correctness of the quotation from Dr. Tidy. What he really did say, was, “Experiments on animals may furnish us with much useful information in cases of suspected poisoning, but their value must not be over-estimated.” In this case they were only used to strengthen the evidence from taste. “The two tests must be used together. It was their combined force that drove home to the mind the conviction that Dr. Stevenson was right when he said that what he found in the body was aconitia, and nothing but aconitia.” “As to the cadaveric alkaloids, they had in evidence that they were only produced along with putrefaction, and that their results on animals were totally different from those of the extracts from the boy’s body. Would they not say that Dr. Stevenson’s experiments had been conducted in every way to exclude error, and must they not, looking at the whole of the scientific evidence, accept his judgment?”

As to the possibility of the boy himself obtaining this poison, it was fenced round with such safeguards that not even a medical man, unless personally known, could obtain it without a record being kept. His story about the visit to Wimbledon was pure invention, and the explanation of it by counsel ingenious, and no more. Falsehood seemed to have been uttered by him at every turn. The taking Mr. Tulloch with him was a mere blind: his return and surrender intended to divert suspicion. Had he remained in France he must have been arrested, and, if he had no money, he was compelled to return to England.

THE JUDGE’S CHARGE.

In his charge to the jury, after pointing out that the two points to which they had to direct their attention were whether the boy died from poison or a natural disease, and if by poison, whether it was administered to him by the prisoner, Sir Henry Hawkins alluded to the alleged motive—the prospect of an accession of fortune at the time when the prisoner was in great pecuniary difficulties—and the fact that until the day of his death the deceased, though a cripple, was free from any mortal disease. Then, after referring to the details of the prisoner’s visit to the boy on the 3rd of December, the judge made the following remarks on the results of the chemical analysis, and the comments of Mr. Williams on them:—

“The presence of morphia was, he said, accounted for, as it had been injected beneath the skin for the purpose of allaying the pain. With regard to the dark fluid in the stomach, it contained, according to the evidence of Dr. Stevenson, traces of food, an apple, and a raisin, and from it an alkaloidal extract was obtained; on applying which to the tongue a slight taste of aconitia was produced. The sensation extended to the lip, although the extract did not touch it. The sensation was a burning, tingling, numbing one difficult to define. Salivation and a desire to expectorate were produced—there was a sensation at the back of the throat, a swelling up: this was followed by a peculiar seared sensation of the tongue, as though a hot iron had been passed over it or strong caustic. Experiments were made with extracts from the liver, spleen, and kidneys, from the dark fluid, and from the stomach itself, and within nine minutes mice showed symptoms of poisoning, and died in about twenty-two minutes afterwards. The same sensation, in fact, was produced on the mice as had been produced on his own tongue previously. In the urine there was a taste of aconitia, which brought on a sickening and a burning sensation. Mr. Montagu Williams had said that the experiments upon mice were hardly a test as to what the effect of the extract would be upon human beings. Granted; but they were about the only tests that could properly be made, and they proved the presence of aconitia. The drug, Dr. Stevenson said, produced a sensation to the tongue and throat which was unmistakable, and its property of killing was proved by its test upon the mice. Could they believe Dr. Stevenson mistaken about that, it was asked—were there not other vegetable alkaloids? There were; and Dr. Stevenson said they all had peculiar tastes which differed from that of aconitia. He further said that, having made himself acquainted with between 50 and 80 vegetable alkaloids, aconitia differed in taste from any of them. The learned Judge proceeded to read the evidence given by Dr. Stevenson as to the action of the extract and of prepared aconitia on the mice. Dr. Stevenson had minutely examined the vomit to endeavour to trace some of the fibre of monkshood from which aconite was extracted, and which, as was known, had sometimes been mistaken for horse radish, but not a particle could he find. But he obtained all the symptoms of aconitia upon his tongue, and death resulted in 15½ minutes when a small quantity was injected into the back of a mouse. He gave it as his opinion that 1-13th of a grain was sufficient to kill, and that he found enough aconitia in the stomach to cause the death of two persons. Dr. Stevenson had been submitted to a severe cross-examination, and it would be for the jury to say whether they believed that he had really found aconitia. Mr. Williams had said they were embarking in a new region in aconitia poisoning. It might be they were not very learned in it, though they would doubtless advance as fresh experiments were made and fresh tests applied. At present it was true there was no chemical test. That was admitted. Mr. Williams, in the course of his cross-examination, had spoken of phosphoric acid, but Dr. Stevenson said that only applied to foreign aconitia, and not to Morson’s English preparation. They had before them the explanation of Dr. Stevenson. It stood for what it was worth, and it was for them to say if he was correct, after the experiments he had made, in saying that he had found aconitia. Dr. Stevenson had explained the only tests, physiological and otherwise, to trace aconitia, and had formed his opinion that death arose from that substance. With reference to cadaveric alkaloids, Dr. Stevenson did not admit that poisonous cadaveric alkaloids were to be found in the human body. He did not dispute there were cadaveric alkaloids, but he disputed their being poisonous. He did not say they were not so; it was still an open question. The result of the 22 experiments he had made by tasting cadaveric alkaloids never gave him any taste like aconitia, and in only one case did death ensue to a mouse experimented upon, which was where the little animal’s spine was injured by the needle used for the injection. Another circumstance spoken to by Dr. Dupré was that no trace of quinine was found in the vomit, but that might be due to the fact that a portion of the vomit was thrown away. Upon the testimony as to the cause of death the prosecution said that there was no possibility of accounting for death by natural causes, and it was for the jury to say whether the death was from aconitia.”

Then going through the evidence of the prisoner’s pecuniary embarrassments, he alluded to the sending of the pills from America as showing that if he had entertained the design of poisoning the boy, he had done so long before the fatal act.

Reviewing then the prisoner’s conduct in London, and the story invented by him about his pretended visit to the boy on the 2nd of December, “which,” he said, “did not amount to much, but must be taken, with the other circumstances of the case, to show that the prisoner’s word was not to be relied on,” the learned judge then referred to the incidents of the fatal night. As to the two boxes of capsules, he continued:—

“The prosecution suggested that these two boxes of capsules were brought by the prisoner, but they did not suggest there was poison in any of them. They were clearly innocent capsules, as two of them did no harm either to Mr. Bedbrook or to the lad Banbury, each of whom swallowed one. What the prosecution suggested, however, was that whilst Mr. Bedbrook was examining the capsule he had taken from the box, the prisoner took another, in which there was aconitia, from another box, and that over that aconitia he put in the sugar, and then administered it to the boy. That was the suggestion made. They asked for those facts to be put together—the boy was in as good health as he ordinarily was, in as good spirits as usual, having neither eaten nor partaken of anything in which there was a suggestion of poison during the day, and yet within half-an-hour, or less, of seeing the prisoner and swallowing the capsule he was taken ill. The cake, the sweets, and the capsule were all three given him by the prisoner, and within a short time he showed the first symptoms described, viz., heartburn, which was followed rapidly by painful sensations, and the contraction of the throat, retching, vomiting, agony, and raving to the time of death. On these facts the prosecution asked them to come to the conclusion that he not only died by aconitia, but by aconitia administered to him by the prisoner, it being clear that no other person administered anything to him during the prisoner’s visit. The prosecution contended farther that they had shown the prisoner to be possessed of aconitia, upon the evidence of two purchases of aconitia by him, one from the chemist at Ventnor on the 28th August, and the other about the 20th November at Allen and Hanbury’s, in Plough Court.

Then again placing before the jury the two questions he had referred to in the opening of his charge, and warning them not to allow sympathy either for the poor boy or the prisoner to bias their decision, Sir Henry Hawkins left the case in their hands.

In less than three-quarters of an hour the jury returned a verdict of “Guilty.” When called upon as usual to say why judgment should not be passed upon him, the prisoner, standing with arms folded, in a loud voice, “protested his innocence before God,” and with very few words, the learned judge pronounced sentence of death.

EVIDENCE OF LAMSON’S STATE OF MIND.

Within a short time after the conviction of the prisoner, Mr. Lowell, the American Minister, by the instruction of President Arthur, requested the Home Secretary to suspend the execution, on the faith of a statement from the United States Attorney-General that evidence bearing on the state of mind of the prisoner, was preparing in America, and would be shortly forwarded to England. To this novel application Sir William Harcourt acceded, in courtesy to the applicant. The promised affidavits arrived, and were considered by the Home Secretary as insufficient. Again a further application for delay was made, on the promise of further evidence, and acceded to for the term of a fortnight, with clear notice to Lamson that if the promised affidavits were not more satisfactory than the preceding ones, the sentence would be carried out. Such they proved in the opinion of Sir William Harcourt, and Lamson was at length executed on the 28th of April.

The proffered evidence not only covered the whole of Lamson’s life from the days of his medical pupilage at Paris till his trial, but sought to establish “a marked hereditary tendency to insanity,” from the fact that his grandmother had been in the New York Bloomingdale Asylum from the age of seventy-six till her death four years after, and had been previously suffering from “senile dementia,” the apparent cause of which was entered in the Hospital Register as “predisposing;”—that her brother, a sea captain, at the age of eighty, was in the same asylum, having been suffering for two years from “dementia,” also entered as “predisposing;” and that her daughter, a Mrs. McGregor, at the age of thirty-one, was a patient until her death about three years after—her mania “puerperal,” and also entered as “predisposing.”[215] No evidence, however, was offered of the mental condition of any less remote ancestors.

As a Medical Student in Paris in 1869-70, Lamson is described as suffering from cerebral anæmia with a tendency to melancholia, given to imaginary complaints about the surgical theatre, apt to take offence, with a passion for chemical experiments of a morbid character, generally genial in manner, and taciturn of speech. When employed in the American Ambulance during the siege of Paris in 1870-71, “his behaviour was so wild, erratic, and bad, that his associate aids were not prepared to say whether it was that of an idiot or the result of special wickedness—his mind so disordered that he could not be entrusted to administer medicines, as to the effects of which he seemed to be utterly destitute of judgment and common sense—just as likely to give a large and dangerous dose as a smaller and safe one, no matter how particularly instructed, and seemed to be utterly reckless of results.”[216]

From this date to the year 1877, no evidence was offered of his conduct or state of mind. In that year he acted as a surgeon for the Red Cross Society at Bucharest, in the Servian War. Whilst there “he exhibited a mania for the administration of aconitia in almost every case, using it in season and out of season, and in such quantities as to alarm the medical staff and render his recall to England necessary. Here, too, he appears to have commenced on himself the extravagant use of hypodermic injections of morphia, to which he subsequently became so notoriously addicted, on the plea that he was in constant pain and misery,” and to have been constantly under the influence of some anæsthetic. He was also habitually incoherent and inconsistent in his way of talking, boasting of adventures in the American Civil War, when he could have been only twelve years of age. His father, who was with him, seemed to keep a constant watch over his son, and frequently expressed his wish that some other surgeon should be associated with him.[217]

In 1879 Lamson purchased a medical practice at Bournemouth, and during the two years that he remained there, according to the testimony of friends and servants, behaved in a most erratic and strange manner. Whilst there his habit of injecting morphia under his skin increased in a most extraordinary degree, one witness saying that “he was hardly ever in his company for more than an hour that he did not use the hypodermic syringe.” When visiting patients he seemed not to know why he had come, or what he ought to do, behaving so strangely that his services were eventually dispensed with. His habit of telling extravagant stories grew rapidly upon him. His eyes had a fitful and nervous look as if afraid of phantoms. He seemed to be perpetually trying to look sane, and the witness (Warren, an artist) who spoke to these symptoms said “he had frequently seen him walking along quickly, his head hanging down, when he would stop suddenly, turn back, and branch off in some other direction, crossing backwards and forwards over the road without rhyme or reason.” Mr. Radcliffe Hall, of Welbeck-street, to whom Lamson had made in writing a perfectly baseless statement about Mrs. Hall’s antecedents, and afterwards could remember nothing about it, had seen him inject morphia twenty times a day. His servants thought him mad, and humoured him accordingly, and the patients who attended at the dispensary which with another medical man he managed, with only one or two exceptions, refused to be attended by him.[218]

From April to May, 1881, Lamson was staying at Rouse’s Point, New York, with the Rev. Irving McElroy, the rector of Christ Church, during which period his habit of injecting morphia was continued, and, according to the testimony of the rector and his wife, Dr. Winston, the Medical Director of the New York Mutual Life Assurance Company, Dr. Murray, Physician of Rouse’s Point, Dr. Hall, and others who knew him, it was seriously affecting his brain. On one occasion he was found in the public street with no coat on, and his left arm bared. He had a syringe in one hand, and with the thumb of the other was pressing down the place where the injection had been made.[219] At his friend’s house he passed the greater part of the day on the lounge, either dozing or attempting to read. He was then using a mixture apparently of morphia and atropine, but told them he preferred aconitine, but could not procure it in that section of the county. To one of the witnesses he admitted that his whole existence depended on the constant use of morphia. The marks of these repeated injections were detected by Dr. Williamson of Edinburgh whom Lamson consulted in New York in October, 1881, who marked the serious change that had taken place in his health, and urged his discontinuance of this baneful practice. Dr. Hall considered Lamson “not a perfectly sane man,” Dr. Winston considered that he “had become a helpless victim of the habit (of injecting morphia) which had seriously impaired his mental powers and destroyed his moral responsibility,” and in Dr. Murray’s opinion “he was utterly irresponsible for his acts.” It is admitted, however, that at intervals his conversation was perfectly clear and lucid, and to none of the medical men appears to have been put the legal test question, “did he know the difference between right and wrong, at the time wherein he committed the crime?”[220]

Lastly, we are offered testimony as to the condition of Lamson’s mind for a few days immediately preceding the fatal occurrence, and that of his father and wife as to his strange conduct for some time previous. All, however, that this evidence amounts to is, that he was so strange and extravagant in his manner and conduct, that he was spoken of by friends and acquaintance as a lunatic, that “for a year past his wife’s fears and anxieties had been greatly and increasingly aroused for the soundness of his mind—that his brain, predisposed to weakness, or constitutionally liable to disturbance, was unsettled by ill-health and trouble, and its disease aggravated by the use of morphia.” His father spoke to the wild and fanciful delusions in which his son indulged—the whole being myths, and believed “that for at least eighteen months he had been in an unsound state of mind, steadily increasing in its character and blinding him to the natural and inevitable effects of his acts; and that the balance of his mind had been quite destroyed.” His solicitor deposed that “he could obtain no assistance from him in the preparation of his defence—that he appeared to have no memory and to be incapable of appreciating the bearing of any of the facts of his case, or the gravity of his position; that he laboured under extravagant hallucination, whilst his statements were either incoherent, inconsistent, or manifestly the creations of a disordered brain.”

Three medical men of experience speak to the effects almost certain to be produced by such an habitually excessive use of morphia or opium, as that of which Dr. Lamson was the victim. Dr. Coghill, of the Ventnor Consumptive Hospital, and for eight years municipal medical officer and consulting physician to a general hospital in China, where he had unusual facilities for becoming familiar with the effects of opium smoking and eating, has no hesitation in saying that “anyone in the habit of using opium to such an extent would be incapable of self-control, and have his moral senses and powers of judgment deteriorated to a degree rendering him incapable of resisting morbid influences.” Dr. H. H. Kane, of Fort Washington, New York, who had written on the effects of “these drugs that enslave,” and on the “Hypodermic Injection of Morphia,” and was then in charge of a hospital devoted to the treatment of opium smokers and eaters and the like habits, admits that “as regards the question of insanity from the habitual use of opium or its alkaloids, more especially morphia, but little definite is known. Insane Asylum reports,” he adds, “record every year from six to eight cases of insanity attributed to the prolonged use of opiates; and physicians in general practice recognise it as a rare, though well-established, form of insanity. A person with an hereditary tendency to insanity, or with a mind weakened from any combination of circumstances, or from bodily disease, using this drug in large amount for a considerable time, could hardly escape some unsettling of his mental and moral powers. Actual mania, melancholia, and dementia are probably rare, but have undoubtedly occurred from this cause. Of all the forms of the opium habit that by hypodermic injection, as a rule, works the most harm in the shortest time.”

Dr. R. M. Miller, of Norwood, who saw Lamson professionally in July, 1881, when his friends were alarmed at his condition, is of opinion “that morphia and atropia, taken in such quantities, would gradually ruin the powers of the nervous system and also the powers of self-control.”

Such is the substance of the testimony of the cloud of witnesses proffered in support of the appeal for a scientific investigation into the mental state of Lamson at the time when he committed the act for which he was arraigned. To what does it amount? Even if it goes beyond proof that he was occasionally nervous, disconnected in his ideas, aimlessly untruthful, and with a hobby for the administration of aconitia as a panacea for all diseases, and a loss of vital nerve and energy, there is no evidence to suggest that these eccentricities were dangerous or ever assumed the form of homicidal mania. “If,” said a contemporary writer, “Lamson could appreciate the pecuniary benefit he would derive from Percy John’s death—and why else should he have selected his victim?—he could realise the wickedness of his act. A symptom of dangerous madness is that it acts without apparent motive—the immediate circumstances of the murder pointed to the exercise of a crafty deliberation, which, though not in itself inconsistent with homicidal mania, was not as aimless as homicidal mania.” Is it not a parallel case to that of Dove, a weak and erratic mind, in that case further weakened and unhinged by drink, in this case by the vicious use of morphia? Are not the words of Baron Bramwell in Dove’s case strictly applicable to this? “The rules of law,” said that judge, “are that it must be clearly proved that, at the time of committing the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; and if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing wrong.” Until the law is altered it is impossible to doubt that the Home Secretary was right, “that he could find in the affidavits and statutory declarations no sufficient grounds for advising an interference with the sentence of the law.”

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