No species of murder is so base and cowardly, or so cool and deliberate
in its perpetration as murder by poison, which because of its secresy
prevents all precaution, whereas most open murder gives the party killed
some opportunity of defence;[108] it is generally committed in violation
of domestic duty and confidence, and too frequently evinces that
unrelenting and barbarous depravity, which can witness the sufferings of
its victim for days nay months unmoved; therefore our ancient laws
adjudged those convicted of poisoning to a severer punishment than other
offenders. 3 _Nels. Abr._ 363. _Jac. Law Dict. tit. Poison._ By the 22
_Hen._ 8. it was _ex post facto_ enacted that _Richard Roose_, (or
_Cooke_), for putting poison into a pot of pottage in the Bishop of
Rochester’s kitchen, by which two persons were killed, should be boiled
to death; and that the offence in future should be adjudged High
Treason; but this among other new treasons (with which the reign of
_Henry_ the 8th had abounded) was abolished by the statute of _Edward_
6, and now to poison any one wilfully is murder if the party die in a
year. 1 _Edw._ 6. _c._ 12.
By the 43 _Geo._ 3. _c._ 58. (commonly called Lord _Ellenborough’s_ Act)
any person administering poison with _intent_ to murder another, (though
no death ensue) or to procure the miscarriage of a woman quick with
child, is declared guilty of felony without benefit of clergy: and
persons administering medicines to procure miscarriage, though the woman
is not quick with child, are declared guilty of felony, punishable by
imprisonment or transportation (_vide post_). If a man persuade another
to drink a poisonous liquor, under the notion of a medicine, who
afterwards drinks it in his absence, or if _A_, intending to poison _B_,
put poison into a thing, and deliver it to _D_ who knows nothing of the
matter, to be by him delivered to _B_, and _D_ innocently delivers it
accordingly in the absence of _A_;[109] in this case the procurer of the
felony is as much a principal as if he had been present when it was done
(2 _Hawk. P. C._ 443: _Vin. Ab. tit. Accessory_) or if one mix poison
with any eatable with intent to kill another, and a stranger casually
eat it and die,[110] it is murder; _Dalton_, 93. _Agnes Gore’s_ case for
poisoning by ratsbane (9 _Co. Rep._ 81: _Palm. R._ 547.), not so if it
be to kill vermin; but query if it be manslaughter where there is not
proper precaution, as where the poison is laid in ordinary places for
keeping meat, and mixed with ordinary food, so that a child may take it.
1 _East. P. C._ He that counsels another to give poison, if that other
doth it, the counsellor, if absent, is accessory _before_. _Coke, P. C._
49. Case of the murder of Sir _Thomas Overbury_, _Harg. St. Trials_. But
he that absolutely gives or lays the poison, to the intent to poison,
though he be absent when it is taken by the party, yet he is principal,
and this was _Weston’s_ case. _Harg. St. Trials_: _Co. P. C._ _p._ 49.
_Vaux’s_ case, _ubi supra_, and _Donellan’s_ case for the murder of Sir
_Theodosius Boughton_, _Warwick Assizes_, 1784. See _Appendix_, 243.
It is not our intention to detail every mode by which murder by poison
may be committed; too many are already known to the world in general; on
those which are known, we may safely comment; nor would there be as much
mischief as is commonly supposed in hinting at some others; for if any
should study this subject with evil intention, he may be assured that
the progress of modern science, though it may have discovered some new
modes of destruction, has been yet more fertile in antidotes for the
injured, and in means of detecting the guilty.