Benjamin Ward Richardson_, physician, of London, took the prosecution
somewhat by surprise by attributing Cook’s death to _Angina
pectoris_, a cause not as yet hinted at. As the counsel for the
Crown were not prepared with information requisite for an effective
_cross-examination_ on this point, at the close of the prisoner’s case
the Attorney-General asked leave to recall this witness, as he was then
prepared with the books required for that purpose. The Court, however,
refused the application, and the evidence therefore must be accepted
with caution.
_Dr. Richardson_ said:—“I am a physician, practising in London. I
have never seen a case of _tetanus_, properly so called, but I have
seen many cases of death by convulsions. In many instances they have
presented tetanic appearances without being strictly tetanus. I have
seen the muscles fixed, especially those of the upper part of the
body. I have observed the arms stiffened out, and the hands closely
and firmly clinched until death. I have also observed a sense of
suffocation in the patient. In some forms of convulsions I have seen
contortions both of the legs and the feet, and the patient generally
expresses a wish to sit up. I have known persons die of a disease
called angina pectoris. The symptoms of that disease, I consider,
resemble closely those of Mr. Cook. Angina pectoris comes under the
denomination of spasmodic diseases. In some cases the disease is
detectable upon _post-mortem_ examination; in others it is not. I
attended one case. A girl ten years old was under my care in 1850. I
supposed she had suffered from scarlet fever. She recovered so far
that my visits ceased. I left her amused and merry in the morning; at
half-past ten in the evening I was called in to see her, and I found
her dying. She was supported upright at her own request, her face
was pale, the muscles of the face rigid, the arms rigid, the fingers
clinched, the respiratory muscles completely fixed and rigid, and
with all this there was combined intense agony and restlessness, such
as I have never witnessed. There was perfect consciousness. The child
knew me, described her agony, and eagerly took some brandy and water
from a spoon. I left for the purpose of obtaining some chloroform from
my own house, which was thirty yards distant. When I returned her head
was drawn back, and I could detect no respiration; the eyes were then
fixed open, and the body just resembled a statue; she was dead. On
the following day I made a _post-mortem_ examination. The brain was
slightly congested; the upper part of the spinal cord seemed healthy;
the lungs were collapsed; the heart was in such a state of firm spasm
and solidity, and so emptied of blood, that I remarked that it might
have been rinsed out. I could not discover any appearance of disease
that would account for the death, except a slight effusion of serum in
one pleural cavity. I never could ascertain any cause for the death.
The child went to bed well and merry, and immediately afterwards
jumped up, screamed, and exclaimed, ‘I am going to die.’”
_By the Attorney-General._—“I consider that the symptoms I have
described were those of angina pectoris. It is the opinion of Dr.
Jenner that this disease is occasioned by the ossification of some of
the small vessels of the heart. I did not find that to be the case
in this instance. There have been many cases where no cause whatever
was discovered. It is called angina pectoris, from its causing such
extreme anguish to the chest. I do not think the symptoms I have
described were such as would result from taking strychnia. There is
this difference,—that rubbing the hands gives ease to the patient in
cases of angina pectoris. I must say there would be great difficulty
in detecting the difference in cases of angina pectoris and strychnia.
As regards symptoms I know of no difference between the two. I am
bound to say that if I had known so much of these subjects as I do
now, in the case I have referred to I should have gone on to analysis
to endeavour to detect strychnia. In the second case I discovered
organic disease of the heart, which was quite sufficient to account
for the symptoms. The disease of angina pectoris comes on quite
suddenly, and does not give any notice of its approach. I did not send
any note of this case to any medical publication. It is not at all an
uncommon occurrence to find the hands firmly clinched after death in
cases of natural disease.”
_By Mr. Serjeant Shee._—“There are cases of angina pectoris in which
the patient has recovered and appeared perfectly well for a period of
twenty-four hours, and then the attack has returned. I am of opinion
that the fact of the recurrence of the second fit in Cook’s case is
more the symptom of angina pectoris than of strychnia poison.”[59]
_Dr. Wrightson_ was recalled, and in answer to a question put by Mr.
Serjeant Shee he said it was his opinion that when the strychnia
poison was absorbed in the system it was diffused throughout the
entire system.
_By the Attorney-General._—“The longer time that elapsed before the
death would render the absorption more complete. If a minimum dose to
destroy life were given, and a long interval elapsed to the death,
the more complete would be the absorption and the less the chance of
finding it in the stomach.”
_By Mr. Serjeant Shee._—“I should expect still to find it in the
spleen and liver and blood.”
CASES OF _TETANUS_ BROUGHT FORWARD FOR THE DEFENCE.
In answer to the cases of undoubted poisoning by strychnia proved on
the part of the prosecution, four cases of _tetanus_ were brought
forward on behalf of the prisoner, with the object of showing that
the symptoms then exhibited were identical with those in Cook’s case,
and, therefore, raising the presumption that he might have died from
ordinary tetanic convulsions, and not from those produced by strychnia.
The first of these cases was described by _Mr. Robert Edward Gay_,
a member of the College of Surgeons, who had attended a patient of
the name of _Forster_ for _tetanus_ in October, 1855. Apparently,
at first the patient was suffering only from sore throat and its
usual attendant pains in the neck and upper portion of the spine,
for which he was duly treated. On the fourth day of his illness the
muscular pains extended to the face, and particularly to the lower
jaw, and by evening lockjaw had come on, with pains of the muscles of
the bowels, legs, and arms. “He became very convulsed throughout the
entire muscular system, had frequent involuntary contractions of the
arms, hands, and legs; his difficulty of swallowing increased, and
not a particle of food, solid or liquid, could be introduced into the
mouth, the attempt to do so bringing on violent convulsions; so strong
were they, that I could compare him to nothing but a piece of warped
board.” The head was thrown back, the abdomen thrust forward, the
legs frequently drawn up and contracted; the attempt to feed him with
a spoon, the opening a window, or placing the fingers on the pulse,
brought on violent convulsions. While the patient was suffering in
this manner, he complained of great hunger, repeatedly exclaimed that
he was hungry, and could not eat. He was kept alive _to the fourteenth
day_ entirely by injections of a milky and farinaceous character. He
was insensible on the 12th, and continued so till he died. There was
no sore or hurt about his body, and Mr. Gay attributed his death to
an inflammatory sore throat, from cold and exposure to the weather,
assuming a tetanic form, from the patient being a very nervous,
excited, and anxious person. Mr. Gay, whilst satisfied that this was
a case of _idiopathic tetanus_, admitted that he never met with such
another case; that it was altogether progressive from the first onset;
that although for a short time there was a remission of symptoms, they
invariably recurred, and that the locking of the jaw was the very first
symptom that made its appearance.
In another case, at the Royal Free Hospital, in 1843, on the 28th of
July, a boy was brought in with the middle toe of his left foot smashed
by a stone, which Mr. John Gay amputated. The accident had happened
a week before, and the wound became very unhealthy. When the surgeon
first saw him, his mouth was almost closed, and continued so until the
1st of August, but a small quantity of medicine could be introduced.
“During the first three days,” said _Mr. J. Gay_, “his paroxysms
were of unusual severity; he complained of a stiff neck, and during
the first night started up and was convulsed. On the following night
he was again convulsed. At times the abdominal muscles, as well as
those of the legs and back, were rigid, and the muscles of the face
in a state of great contraction. He was in the same state the next
day, but at two o’clock there was much less rigidity of the muscles,
especially those of the abdomen and back. On the following morning
the rigidity had gone, he opened his mouth and could talk; he was
thoroughly relieved. He had no return of spasms till half-past five on
the following day. He then asked the nurse to change his linen, and
as she lifted him up in bed to do so, violent convulsions of the arms
and face came on, and he died in a few minutes. About thirty hours
elapsed between the preceding convulsion and the one which ended his
life. Before the paroxysm came on the rigidity had been completely
relaxed. Tartar emetic (containing antimony), which I gave on the
second and third day, did not produce vomiting; the rigidity of the
muscles of the chest would go far to prevent it. The wound might
have rubbed against the bed when he was raised, but I don’t think it
possible. Some peculiar irritation of the nerves would give rise to
the affection of the spinal cord. There may be various causes for this
irritation of the spinal cord, which ends in _tetanus_, but it would
be very difficult merely from seeing symptoms of _tetanus_, and in the
absence of knowledge of how it had been occasioned, to ascribe it to
any particular cause. No doubt the death took place in consequence of
something produced by the injury of the toe.”
The seriousness of the wound in this case, in comparison with any
signs of wounds found on Cook’s body, and the severity of the shock
occasioned by such a painful accident, renders this example almost
valueless.
In a third case, at the London Hospital, on the 22nd of March of 1856,
a patient, aged thirty-seven, was brought in about half-past seven
in the evening. When in the receiving room, he had one paroxysm, and
another soon after when in the ward. After the first, his pulse was
feeble and rapid, his jaws closed and fixed, an expression of anxiety
on his countenance, and his features sunken; he was unable to swallow,
and the muscles of the abdomen and the back were somewhat tense. After
the second paroxysm, his body became arched for about a minute. He was
quieter for a few minutes, had a third attack, and died. He had some
old neglected sores of a chronic character, particularly at the right
elbow, a peculiarly sensitive spot, and Mr. Ross, the house-surgeon,
who attended the case, admitted that the disease had been coming on
since the morning, that he had felt symptoms of lockjaw at breakfast,
and had had successive attacks all the afternoon before coming to the
hospital. Here again the case had been progressive until death, and
commenced with lockjaw, the admitted signs of ordinary tetanus as
distinguished from that due to poison.
The last case proved was that of _Catherine Wilson_, of Garnkirk, near
Glasgow, who “was attacked with a fit,” as she deposed, “in October
last year at night, felt heavy all the day from the morning, but had
no pain till night. My first pain,” she said, “was in the stomach,
and then I had cramp in the arm, and became quite insensible.” By
the administration of chloroform the spasms were relieved, and she
recovered.
_Dr. William Macdonald_, of Edinburgh, who saw the case about an hour
after the attack, admitted that lockjaw came on in about an hour or two
after he was called in.
This witness was also put forward as a medical expert in cases of
strychnia, and attributed Cook’s death to “epileptic convulsions
with tetanic complications,” and was subjected to the following
_cross-examination_ by the _Attorney-General_:—
“I believe,” said _Dr. Macdonald_, “that all convulsive diseases,
including the epileptic forms and the various tetanic complications,
arise from the decomposition of the blood acting upon the nerves. Any
mental excitement might have caused Cook’s death. Cook was excited at
Shrewsbury, and whenever there is excitement there is a consequent
depression. I think Cook was afterwards depressed. When a man is lying
in bed and vomiting he must be depressed.”
_Attorney-General._—“This gentleman was much overjoyed at his horse
winning, and you think he vomited in consequence?”
_Witness._—“It might predispose him to vomit.”
_Attorney-General._—“I am not speaking of ‘mights.’ Do you think that
the excitement of three minutes on the course on Tuesday accounts for
the vomiting on Wednesday night.?”
_Witness._—“I do not. I find no symptoms of excitement or depression
reported between that time and his death. The white spots found in the
stomach of the deceased might, by producing an inflammatory condition
of the stomach, have brought on the convulsions that caused death.”
_Attorney-General._—“But the gentlemen who made the _post-mortem_
examination say that the stomach was not inflamed.”
_Witness._—“There were white spots, which cannot exist without
inflammation. There must have been inflammation.”
_Attorney-General._—“But these gentlemen say there was not.”
_Witness._—“I do not believe them. Sexual excitement might cause
epileptic convulsions with tetanic complications. The chancre
and syphilitic sores were evidence that Cook had undergone such
excitement. That might have occurred before he was at Shrewsbury.”
_Attorney-General._—“Might sexual excitement produce epilepsy a
fortnight after it occurred?”
_Witness._—“There is an instance on record in which epilepsy
supervened upon the very act of intercourse.”
_Attorney-General._—“Have you any instance in which epilepsy came on
a fortnight afterwards?”
_Witness._—“It is within the range of possibility.”
_Attorney-General._—“Do you mean as a serious man of science to say
so?”
_Witness._—“The results might.”
_Attorney-General._—“What results were there in this case?”
_Witness._—“The chancre and the syphilitic sores.”
_Attorney-General._—“Did you ever hear of a chancre causing epilepsy?”
_Witness._—“No.”
_Attorney-General._—“Did you ever dream of such a thing.”
_Witness._—“I never heard of it.”
_Attorney-General._—“Did you ever hear of any other form of
syphilitic disease producing epilepsy?”
_Witness._—“No; but _tetanus_.”
_Attorney-General._—“But you say that this was epilepsy. We are not
talking of _tetanus_.”
_Witness._—“You forget the tetanic complication.”
_Attorney-General._—“If I understand it right then, the sexual
excitement produces epilepsy, and the chancre superadds tetanic
complications.”
_Witness._—“I say the results of sexual excitement produce epilepsy.”
_Attorney-General._—“What would be the effect of morphia given a day
or two previously; would it not retard the action of the poison?”
_Witness._—“No. I have seen opium bring on convulsions very nearly
similar.”
_Attorney-General._—“What quantity?”
_Witness._—“A grain and a half. From my experience, I think if
morphia had been given a day or two before, it would have accelerated
the action of the strychnia. If this were a case of poisoning by
strychnia, I should suppose that as both opium and strychnia produce
congestion of the brain, they would act together and have a more
speedy effect. If congestion of the brain was coming on when morphia
was given to Cook on the Sunday and Monday nights it might have
increased rather than allayed it.”
_Attorney-General._—“But the gentlemen who examined the body say
there was no congestion after death.”
_Witness._—“But Dr. Bamford says there was.”
_Attorney-General._—“You stick to Dr. Bamford.”
_Witness._—“Yes; because he was a man of experience and could judge
much better than younger men, and was not so likely to be mistaken.”
_Attorney-General._—“But Dr. Bamford says that Cook died of apoplexy.
Do you think it was apoplexy?”
_Witness._—“No; it was not.”
_Attorney-General._—“What then do you think of Dr. Bamford, who
certified that it was?”
_Witness._—“That was a matter of opinion, but the existence of
congestion on the brain he saw.”
_Attorney-General._—“The other medical men said there was none.”
_Lord Campbell._—“That is rather a matter of reasoning than of
evidence.”
Having thus reported the medico-scientific evidence _pro_ and _con_, we
pass on to the moral evidence—the purchase of poison by the prisoner,
and his acts during Cook’s illness and subsequent to his death.
PURCHASE OF POISON BY PALMER.
The proof that Palmer purchased strychnia on two separate occasions
immediately before the convulsive attacks of which Cook died rested on
the evidence of two druggists’ assistants at Rugeley. One of these,
_Charles Newton_, assistant to _Mr. Salt_, swore that about nine
o’clock on the Monday evening, the 19th of November, Palmer came to his
master’s shop, asked for three grains of strychnia, which he gave him,
without charge, as he knew him as a medical practitioner of the town.
Next morning, between eleven and twelve, _Roberts_, the assistant of
_Hawkins_, another druggist in Rugeley, was asked by Palmer for two
drachms of prussic acid, for which he brought a bottle with him. Whilst
_Roberts_ was preparing this, _Newton_, the former witness, came into
the shop, and Palmer, putting his hand on _Newton’s_ shoulder, said
he wished to speak with him, and together they stepped out into the
street, when Palmer asked some questions about Mr. Edwin Salt going to
a farm about fourteen miles from Rugeley. Whilst they were talking, a
_Mr. Brassington_ joined them, and began to speak to _Newton_ about
some accounts for Mr. Salt, on which Palmer went back into Hawkins’s
shop and asked for six grains of strychnia and two drachms of Batley’s
solution of opium.
“Whilst I was preparing them,” said _Roberts_, “Palmer stood at the
shop door with his back to me, looking into the street. I was about
five minutes preparing them. He stood at the door till they were
ready, when I delivered them to him—the prussic acid in the bottle he
had brought, the strychnia in a paper, and the opium in a bottle. He
paid, and took them away. No one else was in the shop.”
As soon as Palmer had left, Newton came in, and spoke to Roberts
about Palmer’s visit, and no doubt was struck with the information
he received. At that time he did not mention to his master Palmer’s
purchase of the strychnia because, he said, Palmer and Salt were not
friends, and he was afraid that the latter might blame him for having
given Palmer the strychnia. “I first mentioned it,” said _Newton_,
“to Boycott, the clerk to Mr. Gardner, the solicitor, at the Rugeley
station, when I and a number of witnesses were assembled for the
purpose of going to London. He took me to Mr. Gardner’s. I told him
what I had to say, and he took me to the solicitor of the Treasury.”
Counsel for the defence tried to elicit from him that he had given as
his reason for not mentioning it before that he was afraid of being
prosecuted for perjury. “No,” he replied; “I did not give that as a
reason, but I stated to a gentleman that a young man at Wolverhampton
had been threatened by George Palmer because he had said at the inquest
on Walter Palmer that he had sold the prisoner prussic acid, and he had
not entered it in the book, and could not prove it. I stated at the
same time that George Palmer said he could be transported for it. The
inquest on Walter Palmer did not take place until five or six weeks
after that on Cook.”
Not only, however, did Newton[60] not mention this purchase of
strychnia when before the coroner, but he did not state that on the
25th of November he was sent for about seven in the evening to Palmer’s
house, where he found the prisoner in his kitchen, sitting by the fire
reading.
“He asked me,” he now said, “how I was, and to have some brandy
and water. No one else was there. He asked me what was the dose
of strychnia to kill a dog. I told him a grain. He asked me what
would be the appearance after death. I told him that there would be
no inflammation, and that I did not think it could be found. Upon
that he snapped his finger and thumb in a quiet way and exclaimed,
as if communing with himself, ‘That’s all right.’ He made some
other commonplace remark, which I do not recollect. I was with him
altogether about five minutes.”
Though he appears to have related the story of the dog at an earlier
date, it was not until the Tuesday before the trial that he said a word
to anyone about the purchase of the strychnia.
To contradict the evidence of Newton, the inspector of police at the
Euston station was called to prove that the last train for Rugeley
left at 2P.M., and that if Palmer went by the five o’clock express
he would not get to Stafford until 8.45, and would then have nine
miles to travel to reach Rugeley. It was, however, remarked by the
Attorney-General that Newton’s words were “about nine o’clock,” and
“that everyone knows how easy it is to make a mistake of half an hour
or three quarters of an hour, or even an hour, if your attention is
not called to the circumstances within a week or a fortnight, or
three weeks afterwards.” Not content with this evidence, counsel for
the defence called one Jeremiah Smith, an attorney, of Rugeley, and
intimate friend of the prisoner’s mother, who swore that on the night
in question he saw Palmer get out of a car coming in the direction
from Stafford at ten minutes past ten, and went with him to Cook’s
room. The exhibition made by this fellow in the box was disgusting. For
some time he declared that he had never had anything to do with the
applications for the enormous insurances on Walter Palmer’s life; would
not acknowledge his signature to them as a witness, and only after a
most vigorous _cross-examination_ admitted that he witnessed them on
the application of the prisoner. He it was who made the application to
the Midland Insurance Company for the policy of £10,000 on the life of
Bate, the person whom Palmer represented as a gentleman of property
with a fine cellar of wine, but whom the insurance agent found hoeing
turnips in a field of Palmer’s, and with six months’ rent in arrear for
the room in the farm-house which he occupied. The credit of Newton was
set up by the desperate attempt of Mr. Jeremiah Smith.[61]
ACTS OF THE PRISONER DURING COOK’S ILLNESS AND AFTER HIS DEATH.
On Thursday, the 15th of November, Cook returned from Shrewsbury with
Palmer to the “Talbot,” at Rugeley, complaining of being poorly. It
will be remembered that he had been sick at Shrewsbury after partaking
of the brandy and water in Palmer’s company. Next day he dined with
Palmer, and came back to the inn between nine and ten at night, as the
witness Barnes said, sober. Early the next morning (Saturday) Palmer
was in his bedroom, and sent for a cup of coffee for him. Mills, who
brought it up, did not see him drink it; but when soon after she went
into his room she found he had vomited it in the chamber. Palmer was
in and out frequently, and promised to send Cook some soup; for this
he sent _Ann Rowley_, a charwoman to the “Albion Inn,” who brought it
to Palmer in his kitchen, left it there about five minutes with him,
whilst she went about her other work, and then, by Palmer’s orders,
took it to the “Talbot,” with a message that Jerry Smith, a mutual
friend who had dined with them on the Friday, had sent it.[62] Cook,
seeming unwilling to take this, Palmer said he must have it. It was
taken up again; Cook drank it, and shortly after vomited. Again, on the
Sunday, Palmer sent a jobbing gardener in his employ with a covered
cup of broth to the “Talbot,” of which Mills, who took it up to Cook’s
room, tasted about two tablespoonsful, and was so sick that she had to
go to bed. Whether Cook drank this or not was not distinctly proved,
but the cup was afterwards seen empty in the kitchen of the hotel. What
followed as to the pills sent by Dr. Bamford, and the others produced
by Palmer, is already fully given in Mills’s evidence. Immediately
after Cook’s death, Palmer was found by Barnes searching the pockets of
Cook’s coat and under his pillow, and the bank-notes which Cook had had
only a few days before, his betting-book, which had been seen on his
dressing-table, and the letters that had been on his chimney-piece, had
disappeared.[63] Previously to this time Palmer had been very short of
money, being pressed for small debts, but immediately afterwards was
in funds, paying small bills, and depositing £50 in a local bank. On
Tuesday evening (20th), when Cook was in such a serious state, Palmer
sent for Cheshire, the Rugeley postmaster, and asked him to fill up
the body of a cheque on Weatherby for £350 in Palmer’s favour, which
he said that he would take over to Cook to sign. That cheque was
sent to Weatherby’s that night, and returned by them to Palmer, as
Weatherby, not having yet received the stakes Cook had won, was not in
funds to meet it. That cheque was called for by the prosecution, but
not produced by the prisoner. Again, on the Thursday or Friday after,
between six and seven in the evening, Palmer sent for Cheshire. “When
I arrived,” said the witness, “I found him in the kitchen, and he
immediately went out, and shortly after returned with a quarto sheet of
paper in his hand. He gave me a pen, and asked me to sign something. I
asked what it was, and he replied, ‘You know that Cook and I have had
dealings together, and this is a document he gave me some days ago,
and I want you to witness it.’ I said, ‘What is it about?’ He said,
‘Some business that I have joined in with him, and which is all for his
benefit, and this is the document stating so.’” Cheshire refused, and
Palmer, saying perhaps they would not dispute Cook’s signature, took it
away. This document was also called for, and not produced.[64]
On Friday, 23rd, _Mr. Stevens_, who had married the widow of Cook’s
father some years before, and was executor to his grandfather’s will,
arrived in Rugeley, saw Palmer, and asked him about his stepson’s
affairs. “There are £4000 of his bills out,” said Palmer, “and I am
sorry to say my name is to them, but I have got a paper drawn up and
signed by him to show that I never had any money from them.” Mr.
Stevens expressed great surprise, and said, “I fear there will not
be 4000 shillings to pay you.” Then, after discussing his stepson’s
affairs, Mr. Stevens said, “Well, whether he has left anything or not,
poor fellow, he must be buried,” on which Palmer immediately said,
“Oh, I will bury him myself, if that is all.” Mr. Stevens at once
refused, and expressed his intention of removing the body to London
for interment, so as not to inconvenience the inn people. “Oh,” said
Palmer, “that is of no consequence, but the body ought to be fastened
up; as long as the body is fastened up, it is of no consequence.”
Whilst Mr. Stevens was talking with the persons in the room, Palmer
went out, and on his return, when asked by Stevens to recommend an
undertaker, said, “I have been and done this. I have ordered a shell
and a strong oak coffin.” Mr. Stevens expressed his surprise, and
insisted on giving instructions himself to the undertaker.
Later in the day, after dinner, on Mr. Jones reporting to Stevens,
who had asked him to go up to Cook’s room for that purpose, that he
could not find any betting-book or papers, Palmer said, “Oh, it’s no
manner of use if you do find it.” “No use,” replied Stevens, “I am the
best judge of that.” Again said Palmer, “It’s of no manner of use.”
“I am told it is,” was the reply; “my son won a great deal of money
at Shrewsbury, and I ought to know something about it.” “It is of no
use, I assure you,” replied Palmer; “when a man dies, his bets are done
with; and besides, Cook received the greater part of the money on the
course.” “Very well,” replied Stevens, “the book ought to be found, and
must be found,” when Palmer said, in a quieter tone, “It will be found,
no doubt.” The room was then locked by Mr. Stevens’s order, but the
book was never found.
Mr. Stevens returned to London to see his solicitor, and on his way
back met Palmer (who had been to London to pay Pratt £100, and caution
him against giving any information about Cook’s affairs), and told
him his intention of having a _post-mortem_ examination. Apparently
agreeing with that, Palmer offered to introduce him to a local
solicitor to conduct it, which was declined; but, added Mr. Stevens, “I
said, ‘Mr. Palmer, if I should call in a solicitor to give me advice,
I suppose you will have no objection to answer any question he may put
to you.’ I altered my tone purposely; I looked him steadily in the
face, but although the moon was shining, I could not see his features
distinctly. He said, with a spasmodic convulsion of the throat, which
was perfectly apparent, ‘Oh no, certainly not.’” Later in the evening
Palmer came to Mr. Stevens and renewed his conversation about the
bills, hoping that affairs would be settled pleasantly, and was told by
the stepfather that “they could be only settled in Chancery.” Palmer,
at that time, denied that he had attended Cook in a medical capacity.
On the 17th of November, _Ishmael Fisher_, who was Cook’s usual racing
agent, received a letter from Cook requesting him to pay Pratt £200,
which he would repay him on the following Monday, when the Shrewsbury
bets would be settled at Tattersall’s. Much to his surprise, he was not
employed as usual, and in consequence lost the money he had advanced,
for on the 19th _Mr. George Herring_, another betting man, got a letter
from Palmer to call on him at the latter’s lodgings, in London, at
half-past two that day. He did so.
“I found Palmer there,” said _Herring_. “He asked me what I would
take. I declined to take anything. I then asked him how Mr. Cook was.
He said, ‘He’s all right; his physician gave him a dose of calomel,
and advised him not to come out, it being a damp day.’ I don’t know
which term he used, ‘damp’ or ‘wet.’ He then went on to say, in the
same sentence, ‘What I want to see you about is settling his account.’
While he was speaking he took out half a sheet of note paper from his
pocket, and it was open when he had finished the sentence. He held it
up and said, ‘This is it.’ I rose to take it. He said, ‘You had better
take its contents down; this will be a check against you.’ At the same
time he pointed to some paper lying on the table. I wrote on that
paper from his dictation. I have here the paper which I so wrote. [The
witness read the document in question, which contained instructions
as to certain payments he should make out of moneys to be received by
him at Tattersall’s on account of the Shrewsbury races.] Palmer then
said that I had better write out a cheque for Pratt and Padwick—for
the former £450, and for the latter £350, and send them at once. I
told him I had only one form of cheque in my pocket. He said I could
easily fill up a draught on half a sheet of paper. I refused to comply
with his request, as I had not as yet received the money. He replied
that it would be all right, for that Cook would not deceive me. He
wished me particularly to pay Mr. Pratt the £450. His words, as nearly
as I can remember them, were, ‘You must pay Pratt, as it is for a bill
of sale on the mare.’ I don’t know whether he said ‘a bill of sale,’
or ‘a joint bill of sale.’ He told me he was going to see both Pratt
and Padwick, to tell them that I would send on the money. Previous to
his saying this, I told him that if he would give me the address of
Pratt and Padwick I would call on them, after I had got the money from
Tattersall’s, and give it to them. He then asked me what was between
us. There were only a few pounds between us, and after we had had
some conversation on the point, he took out of his pocket a £50 Bank
of England note. He required £29 out of the note, and I was not able
to give it; but he said that if I gave him a cheque it would answer
as well. I gave him a cheque for £20 and nine sovereigns. When I was
going away I do not remember that he said anything about my paying the
money to Pratt and Padwick. He said on parting, ‘When you have settled
this account write down word to either me or Cook.’ I turned round
and said, ‘I shall certainly write to Mr. Cook.’ I said so because I
thought I was settling Mr. Cook’s account. He said, ‘It don’t much
matter which you write to.’ I said, ‘If I address Mr. Cook, Rugeley,
Stafford, it will be correct, will it not?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ After
leaving Beaufort Buildings I went to Tattersall’s. I then received all
the money I expected, except £110 from Mr. Morris, who paid me £90
instead of £200. I sent from Tattersall’s a cheque for £450 to Mr.
Pratt. I posted a letter to Cook from Tattersall’s, and directed it
to Rugeley. On Tuesday the 20th, next day, I received a telegraphic
message. I have not got it here. I gave it to Captain Hatton at the
coroner’s inquest at Rugeley. In consequence of receiving that message
I wrote again to Cook that day. I addressed my letter as before, but
I believe the letter was not posted till the Wednesday. I have three
bills of exchange with me. I know Palmer’s handwriting, but never saw
him write. I cannot prove his writing; but I knew Cook’s writing, and
I believe the drawing of two and the accepting of the three bills to
be in his writing. I got them from Fisher and gave him cash for them.”
[The witness Boycott was recalled, and identified the signatures on
the bills as those of Palmer and Cook.]
_Examination continued._—“The bills are each for £200. One of them
was payable in a month, and when it fell due on October 18, Cook paid
the £100 on account. He paid me the remaining £100 at Shrewsbury, but
I cannot tell with certainty on what day. I did not pay the £350 to
Padwick. I hold another bill for £500.” [Thomas Strawbridge, manager
of the bank at Rugeley, identified the drawing and endorsing as in the
handwriting of Palmer. The acceptance, purporting to be in the writing
of Mrs. Sarah Palmer, he did not believe to have been written by her.]
_Examination continued._—“I am sure that the endorsement on the £500
bill is in Cook’s writing. I got the bill from Mr. Fisher. I paid
£200 on account of it to Palmer, and £275 to Mr. Fisher. The balance
was discount. It was not paid at maturity. I have taken proceedings
against Palmer to recover the amount.”
On the 26th of November, the _post-mortem_ examination was held, at
which Palmer was present, and the incidents of the pushing of the jar
containing the contents of the stomach and the cutting of its coverings
occurred; and if the evidence of _Myatt_, the postboy, is to be taken
as true, Palmer tried to bribe him to upset the fly in which Mr.
Stevens and his solicitor’s clerk were to take the jar to the Stafford
station, _en route_ to London,
_James Myatt, examined by Mr. James._—“In November last I was
postboy at the ‘Talbot Arms,’ Rugeley. I know Palmer, the prisoner,
and I remember Monday, the 26th of November last. I was ordered on
that night, a little after five o’clock, to take Mr. Stevens to the
Stafford station in a fly. Before I started I went home to get my tea,
and on returning from my tea to the ‘Talbot Arms’ I met the prisoner.
He asked me if I was going to drive Mr. Stevens to Stafford. I told
him I was.”
_Question._—“What did he say to you then?”
_Answer._—“He asked me if I would upset them.”
_Question._—“Them? Had anything been said about a jar?”
_Answer._—“He said he supposed I was going to take the jar.”
_Question._—“What did you say then?”
_Answer._—“I said I believed I was.”
_Question._—“What did he say after that?”
_Answer._—“He said—‘Do you think you could upset them?’”
_Question._—“What answer did you make?”
_Answer._—“I told him ‘No.’”
_Question._—“Did he say anything more?”
_Answer._—“He said—‘If you could, there’s a £10 note for you.’”
_Question._—“What did you say to that?”
_Answer._—“I told him I could not. I then said, ‘I must go, the
horses are in the fly ready for us to start.’ I do not recollect
that he said anything more about the jar. I said, that if I didn’t
go somebody else would go. He told me not to be in a hurry, for if
anybody else went he would pay me. I saw him again next morning, when
I was going to breakfast. He asked me then who went with the fly. I
told him Mr. Stevens, and, I believed, one of Mr. Gardner’s clerks.”
_Cross-examined by Mr. Serjeant Shee._—“Were not the words that
Palmer used—‘I wouldn’t mind giving £10 to break Stevens’s neck?’”
_Answer._—“I don’t recollect the words ‘break his neck.’”
_Question._—“Well, ‘upset him.’ Did he say, ‘I wouldn’t mind giving
£10 to upset him?’”
_Answer._—“Yes; I believe those were the words. I do not know that
Palmer appeared to have been drinking. I don’t recollect that he had.
I can’t say that he used any epithet, applied to Stevens—he said it
was a humbugging concern altogether, or something of that. I don’t
recollect that he said Stevens was a troublesome fellow, and very
inquisitive. I don’t remember anything more than I have said. I do not
know whether there was more than one jar.”
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:—
“MY DEAR SIR,—I am sorry to tell you that I am still confined to my
bed. I don’t think it was mentioned at the inquest yesterday that Cook
was taken ill on Sunday and Monday night, in the same way as he was
on the Tuesday, when he died. The chambermaid at the ‘Crown’ Hotel
(Masters’s) can prove this. I also believe that a man by the name of
Fisher is coming down to prove he received some money at Shrewsbury.
Now, here he could only pay Smith £10 out of £41 he owed him. Had you
not better call Smith to prove this? And, again, whatever Professor
Taylor may say to-morrow, he wrote from London last Tuesday night
to Gardner to say, ‘We (and Dr. Rees) have this day finished our
analysis, and find no traces of either strychnia, prussic acid, or
opium.’ What can beat this from a man like Taylor, if he says what
he has already said, and Dr. Harlands’s evidence? Mind you, I know
and saw it in black and white what Taylor said to Gardner; but this
is strictly private and confidential, but it is true. As regards his
betting-book, I know nothing of it, and it is of no good to anyone. I
hope the verdict to-morrow will be that he died of natural causes, and
thus end it.
“Ever yours, “W. P.”
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.
“‘A little learning is a dangerous thing.’
“It appears to me there never was a case in which the adage was so
applicable as it is in this. Of all the works of God, the one best
calculated to fill us with wonder and admiration, and convince us of
our dependence on our Maker, and the utter nothingness of ourselves,
is the mortal coil in which we live, and breathe, and think, and
have our being. Every minute of our lives, functions are performed
at our will, the unerring accuracy of which nothing but omniscience
and omnipotence could have secured. We feel and see exactly what
takes place, and yet the moment we attempt to explain what takes
place, the instant we endeavour to get a reason for what we know, and
see, and do, the mystery of creation—‘God created man in his own
image, in the image of God created he them’—arrests our course, and
we are flung back on conjecture and doubt. We know in a sense—we
suppose—that the soft medullary substance which is within the cavity
of the head is the seat of thought, of sensation, and of will. We
know that that soft medullary substance is continued down the middle
of the back, protected by a bony duct or canal, within which it lies
embedded, and we know that from the sides of that bony duct and
from this medullary substance proceed an infinite variety of nerves
(the conduits of sensation from all parts of the body to the soul)
and of muscles connected and dependent on them, the instruments of
voluntary motion. This we know; and we know that by that process all
the ordinary actions of ourselves, at our will, are effected with the
most wonderful precision. Sometimes, however, these nerves and muscles
depart from their normal character, and instead of being the mere
instruments of the soul, become irregular, convulsive, tumultuary,
vindicating to themselves a sort of independent vitality, totally
regardless of the authority to which they are ordinarily subject. When
thrown into this state of excitement, their effects are known by the
general name of convulsions. It is remarkable, unlike most other fine
names, they are not of modern adaptation. The ancients had them to
express the very same thing. The spasmodic and tetanic affections were
known then, and as much about them hundreds and thousands of years ago
as is known now. Tetanic convulsions have been divided in later times
into two specific branches of tetanus—idiopathic and traumatic.”
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:—
“He went there in the imminent peril of returning from them a ruined
man. His stepfather assured Palmer that there would not be 4000
shillings for those who had claims on his estate. From the necessity
he was under of raising money at an enormous discount we may easily
infer that he was in desperate difficulties, and that unless some
sudden success on the turf should retrieve his fortunes, they were
hopeless. His health was shattered, his mind distracted; he had long
been cherishing hopes that Polestar would win, and so put him in
possession of something like a thousand guineas. The mare, it was
true, was hardly his own, for she had been mortgaged; and if she
should lose, she would become the property of another person. Picture
to yourselves what must have been the condition, mental and bodily,
of that young man when he rose from his bed on the morning of the
races. It is scarcely possible, as he went down to breakfast, that
this thought must not have crossed his mind, ‘My fate is trembling
in the balance; this is the crisis of my destiny. Unless my horse
shall win, to-night I am a beggar.’ With these feelings he repairs to
the course. Another race is run before Polestar is brought out. His
impatience is extreme. He looks on in a state of agonising excitement.
Will the minutes never fly? At last arrives the decisive moment; the
time has come for his race. The flag is dropped; the horses start;
his mare wins easily, and he, her master, has won a thousand guineas!
For three minutes he is not able to speak, so intense is his emotion.
Slowly he recovers his utterance, and then how rapturous is his joy!
He is saved, he is saved! Another chance to retrieve his position—one
chance more to recover his character! As yet, at all events, he will
not be a disgrace to his family and his friends. Conceive him to be,
with all his faults, an honourable young man, and you may easily
imagine what his ecstasy must have been. He loves the memory of his
dead mother—he still reverences the name of his father—he is jealous
of his sister’s honour, and it may be that he cherishes silently in
his heart the thought of some other being dearer still than all to
whom the story of his ruin would bring bitter anguish. But he is not
ruined; he will meet his engagements like an honourable man. There is
now no danger of his being an outcast, an adventurer, a black-leg.
He will live to redeem his position, and to give joy to those who
love him. With such thoughts in his heart, he returns to his inn in a
state of indescribable elation, and with a revulsion from despair that
must have convulsed—though not in the sense of illness—every fibre
of his frame. His first idea is to entertain his friends, and he does
so. The evidence does not prove that he drank to excess, but he gave a
champagne dinner; and we all know that is a luxurious entertainment,
at which there is no stint and not much self-respect. That evening he
did not spend in the society of Palmer; indeed, it is not clear in
whose company he spent it. But we find him on the evening of Wednesday
at the ‘Unicorn’ with Saunders, his trainer, and a lady. On Thursday
he walks upon the course, and Herring remonstrates with him for doing
so, as the day is damp and misty, and the ground wet. That night he
is seized with illness, and he continues ailing until his death at
Rugeley. Arrived at Rugeley, it is but natural to suppose that a
reaction of feeling may have set in. Then the dark side of the picture
may have presented itself to his imagination. The chilling thought
may have come upon him that his winnings were already forestalled
and would scarcely suffice to save him from destruction. It is
when suffering from a weakened body, and an irritated and excited
mind, that he is attacked by a sickness which clings to his system,
leaves him without any rest, incapacitates him from taking food,
distracts his nerves, and places him in imminent danger of falling
a victim to any sudden attack of convulsions to which he may have a
predisposition. He relished no society so much as that of Palmer,
whose residence was immediately opposite the ‘Talbot Arms’ Inn, where
he was lying on his sick bed. For two days he had been taking opiate
pills prescribed by Dr. Bamford. On Sunday night, at twelve o’clock,
he started as from a dream in a state of the utmost excitement and
alarm. He admitted afterwards that for two minutes he was mad, but he
could not ascribe it to anything unless to his having been awakened
by a squabble in the street. But do no such things happen to people
of sound constitutions and regular habits? Do no such people awaken
in agony and delirium because there is a noise under their windows?
No; these are the afflictions of the dissipated and anxious, whose
bodies are shattered and whose minds are distracted. Next day,
Monday, he was pretty well, but not so well as to mount his horse or
to take a walk in the fields. He could converse with his trainer and
jockey, but he could take no substantial food, and drank not a drop
of brandy-and-water. You will bear in mind that Palmer was not with
him that day. In the middle of the night he was seized with an attack
similar in character to that of the night preceding, but manifestly
much milder, for he retained his consciousness throughout it, and was
not mad for a moment. The evidence of Elizabeth Mills is conclusive
on the point. At three o’clock on the following day (Tuesday) Mr.
Jones, the surgeon of Lutterworth, arrived, and spent a considerable
time—probably from three to seven o’clock—in his company. They had
abundant opportunity for conversing confidentially, and they were
likely to have done so, for they were very intimate, and Jones appears
to have been on more familiar terms with Cook than was any other
person, not even excepting Mr. Stevens. Nothing occurred in the entire
and unbounded confidence which must have existed between Mr. Cook and
Mr. Jones, to raise any suspicions in the mind of Mr. Jones; and at
the consultation, which took place between seven and eight o’clock on
Tuesday evening between Jones, Palmer, and Bamford, as to what the
medicine for that evening should be, the fit of the Monday night was
not mentioned. That is a remarkable fact. The Crown may say that it
is remarkable, inasmuch as Palmer knew it, and said not a word about
it; but I think that it shows that the fit was so little serious in
the opinion of Cook that he did not think it worth mentioning to his
intimate friend.”
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.
“Was it,” he said, “to his interest that in the second week in
November Cook should be killed, say by a railway accident? For some
time they had been mixed up together in racing transactions, had made
heavy losses during the late sporting season, and Cook at least—and
most probably Palmer, as associated with him—was looking forward to
the success of Polestar to save them from ruin. At that time Pratt,
the bill discounter, was pressing for an extra £200 to stave off legal
proceedings on the £2000 bill, to which his mother’s name had been
forged. To whom does Palmer apply? To Cook, who at once writes to his
betting agent Fisher to advance and pay that to Pratt on the Saturday
before the Monday’s settlement at Tattersall’s of the Shrewsbury
winnings. Fisher having done this, was it not probable that Cook
arranged with Palmer, that in order to get the use of this £200 for
a few days, Herring, and not Fisher, should be authorised to collect
the winnings and secure a sufficient payment to Pratt to stave off
the action?” [Cook’s letter of the 19th of November was accordingly
cited as a proof of his anxiety to assist Palmer.] “Again, there was
in Herring’s hands a bill of Palmer’s for £500, bearing his mother’s
forged acceptance. Was it likely that with this danger staring him
in the face, Palmer would kill the only man from whom he could look
for money? The transaction as to the bill for £500, secured on Cook’s
racehorses, discounted by Pratt, for which, as Pratt wrote him at
once, Palmer would have to provide, was another reason for not killing
his only friend.”
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
“Weatherby, on whom it was drawn,” said Serjeant Shee, “was under the
impression that the signature was Cook’s.[66] As it was not certain
that Frail would have sent up to Weatherby the stakes against which
it was drawn by the Monday, was it likely that, had Palmer meditated
Cook’s death at the time, he would have risked its being returned—as
it was—and passing into the hands of Cook’s executors, who would be
certain to enquire into the matter, on Cook’s sudden death? From the
enquiries that had been instituted as to his brother’s life policy,
he knew himself to be an object of suspicion, and, if any foul play
happened to Cook, all hope of recovering that would be gone. ‘Their
refusal,’ wrote Pratt to him, ‘altered the whole state of affairs, and
Palmer must be prepared to pay his mother’s acceptances for £4,000
due at the end of the month.’ There was the pinch; the office would
not pay; the £4,000 was becoming due; the holder of the bills saw
that he was without security, and, if anything occurred to increase
the suspicions of the insurance office, which was very reluctant to
pay, the £13,000 was lost for ever, lost beyond hope. Gentlemen, that
£13,000 is sure to be paid, unless this man is convicted of murder;
and that has a great deal to do with the clamour and alarm which
have been excited. So sure as that man is saved, and saved I believe
he will be, that £13,000 is paid. There is no defence, no pretence
for a defence—the letters of the office make that plain. They took
an enormous premium; knowing that the man was only 30, they took a
premium for a man of 50—at least, the letters show that the premium
was enormous—and I say that, as sure as this man is saved, that
£13,000 is good for him, and will pay his creditors. Do not these
facts show that in this October suspicions were hanging in menacing
meteors about Palmer’s head, which would come down with irresistible
momentum and crush him upon suspicion of a sudden death by murder? Do
you believe that a man who wrote what the effects of strychnia were
in his manual would risk such a scene as a death-bed by it, in the
presence of the dearest and best friend of Cook—a man whom he could
not influence; a medical man, who liked him and loved him well enough
when he knew he was ill to sleep in the same room with him, that he
might be able to attend to him in case he wanted assistance during the
night? Is that common sense? Are you going to endorse such a theory as
that upon the suggestion of Dr. Taylor about the effects of strychnia
produced upon his five rabbits? Impossible! perfectly impossible! as
I submit to you. So sure as anything happened by foul play to Cook,
he had no more chance of getting the £13,000 than the £180,000 from
the Prince of Wales Insurance Office—none whatever. That was the
only means he had at that time of extricating himself from these
encumbrances.”
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 Crown had, no doubt, originally intended to rely upon the
prisoner’s medical books as affording damning proof of his guilt; but
I will refer to those volumes for evidences that will speak eloquently
in his favour. In youth and early manhood there is no such protection
for a man as the society of an innocent and virtuous woman to whom
he is sincerely attached. If you find a young man devoted to such a
woman, loving her dearly, and marrying her for the love he bears her,
you may depend upon it that he is a man of humane and gentle nature,
little prone to deeds of violence. To such a woman was Palmer attached
in his youth, and I will bring you proof positive to show that the
volumes cited against him were the books he used when a student, and
that the manuscript passages are in the handwriting of his wife. His
was a marriage of the heart. He loved that young and virtuous woman
with a pure and generous affection; he loved her as he now loves
her first-born, who awaits with trembling anxiety the verdict that
will restore him to the arms of his father, or drive that father to
an ignominious death upon the scaffold.” [The prisoner here covered
his face with his hands and shed tears.] “Here in this book I have
conclusive evidence of the kind of man that Palmer was seven years
ago. I find in its pages the copy of a letter addressed by him while
still a student to the woman whom he afterwards made his wife. It is
as follows:—
“‘MY DEAREST ANNIE,—I snatch a moment from my studies to your dear,
dear little self. I need scarcely say that the principal inducement I
have to work is the desire of getting my studies finished, so as to be
able to press your dear little form in my arms. With best, best love,
believe me, dearest Annie,
‘Your own WILLIAM.’
“Now this is not the sort of letter that is generally read in courts
of justice. It was no part of my instructions to read that letter, but
the book was put in to prove that this man is a wicked, heartless,
savage desperado; and I show you what he was seven years ago—that he
was a man who loved a young woman for her own sake—loved her with a
pure and virtuous affection—such an affection as would, in almost all
natures, be a certain antidote against guilt. Such is the man whom it
has been my duty to defend upon this occasion, and upon the evidence
that is before you I cannot believe him to be guilty. Don’t suppose,
gentlemen, that he is unsupported in this dreadful trial by his family
and his friends. An aged mother, who may have disapproved of some
part of his conduct, awaits with trembling anxiety your verdict; a
dear sister can scarcely support herself under the suspense which now
presses upon her; a brave and gallant brother stands by him to defend
him, and spares neither time nor trouble to save him from an awful
doom. I call upon you, gentlemen, to raise your minds to a capacity to
estimate the high duty which you have to perform. You have to stem the
torrent of prejudice; you have to vindicate the honour and character
of your country; you have, with firmness and courage, to do your
duty, and to find a verdict for the Crown if you believe that guilt
is proved; but, if you have a doubt upon that point, depend upon it
that the time will come when the innocence of that man will be made
apparent, and when you will deeply regret any want of due and calm
consideration of the case which it has been my duty to lay before you.”
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:—
“It is said that at some former time he had exhibited his throat to
some of the witnesses that were called, and had applied to Palmer for
mercurial wash to apply to it, or to some of the ulcers. The precise
period is not fixed, but it is perfectly clear that, though at one
time he had adopted that course, under the recommendation of Dr.
Savage he had got rid of it, and there is not the slightest pretence
for saying that this man was suffering under a syphilitic affection
of any kind; that fact was negatived distinctly and unequivocally by
a man of the highest authority, a medical gentleman of eminence,
under whose treatment the man got so rapidly well. It is a pretence,
gentlemen, which has not the shadow of a foundation, and which I
should be shrinking from my duty if I did not denounce as altogether
unworthy of your consideration. There was nothing about the man,
according to the statement of those who were competent to give you an
opinion, which would warrant, for a single moment, the supposition
that there was anything in any part of his body which could justify
the notion of _traumatic tetanus_. Even if there were, the character
which his symptoms assumed when the _tetanus_ set in, is utterly
incompatible, according to the evidence of all the witnesses, with a
case of _traumatic tetanus_.”
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_.
“_Idiopathic tetanus?_ Proceeding from what? They say that Mr. Cook
was a man of a delicate constitution, subject to excitement; that
he had something the matter with his chest; that, in addition, he
had this diseased condition of his throat, and, putting all these
things together, they say, that if he took cold, he might get
‘_idiopathic tetanus_.’ We are launched into a sea of speculation and
impossibilities. Mr. Nunneley, who came forward for the purpose of
inducing you to believe this, goes through a bead-roll of the supposed
infirmities of Mr. Cook; talks about his exciteability, about his
delicacy of chest, about the affection of his throat, goes through
these various heads, and says that these things may have predisposed
him to ‘_idiopathic tetanus_,’ if he took cold. What evidence is
there that he ever did take cold? Not the slightest in the world.
From beginning to end he was never treated for cold by anybody, and
never complained of it to anyone. _I cannot help saying that to me it
seems a scandal upon a learned, distinguished, and liberal profession,
that men should put forward such speculations as these, perverting
facts, and drawing from them sophistical and unwarrantable conclusions
with the view of deceiving a jury. I have the greatest respect for
science, no man can have more; but I cannot repress my indignation
and abhorrence when I see it thus perverted and prostituted to the
purposes of a particular cause in a court of justice._ Do not talk
to me about excitement, as Mr. Nunneley did the other day, being the
cause of _idiopathic tetanus_. You remember the sort of excitement
he spoke of, they are unworthy of your notice, and they were topics
discreditable to be put forward by a witness as worthy of the
attention of sensible men constituting such a tribunal as you are.”
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:—