strychnia poison. I say there is no authentic case of tetanus by
strychnia in which the paroxysms were delayed so long after ingestion of
the poison as in this case. I will refer, however, to their own
statements, knowing that they are here. (Extract from Dr. Taylor’s book
read.) There was one case to which his attention was called; it was not
a fatal one, but it got better, and still he says the symptoms were
those which he described, and thought it was too late to get the poison
out of the stomach, as in half an hour it had got into the
circulation--what can be more clear? it is a broad, distinguishing
feature in the strychnia. The interval which took place between the
ingestion of the poison in Mr. Cook’s case and the time when the
paroxysm commenced was much too long, three times too long, to indicate
the effect of poison by strychnia. It cannot be pretended it was a
similar case, if the symptoms are properly described, as I will
presently call your attention to them, by Elizabeth Mills in her
statement in this Court. Now, gentlemen, thirdly, I submit, and I will
prove, that there is no case in which recovery from a paroxysm of
strychnia poison has been so rapid as in Cook’s case on Monday night, or
in which a patient has enjoyed so long an interval of repose or
exemption from its symptoms after they had once set in. It is a very
remarkable feature, if it be true--if I am right in saying that there is
no case in which recovery has been so rapid as in Mr. Cook’s case on
Monday night, followed by so long an interval of relief from the
paroxysm. In fact, in the case of Mr. Cook’s, on the theory of the
Crown, it would not have come on again if a second dose had not been
given. There was an end of it when Elizabeth Mills left Palmer sleeping
by the side of his friend in the arm-chair. How easy it would have been
for him then, if he had been disposed, when Elizabeth Mills had gone to
bed and had retired to her room, to have called out to her that Mr.
Cook was in another fit, and to have killed him, almost without
suspicion on the part of anybody. Dr. Christison tells us in general
terms that these convulsions are succeeded by intervals of calm, during
which the senses are unnaturally and unusually acute; another fit then
begins, it subsides, and is succeeded by another and another, till at
length a fit takes place more violent than any before it, and the animal
dies suffocated. Here, I submit to you, is a distinction between the
case of Mr. Cook and that which these gentlemen state to be the
distinguishing feature, in that there is no recurrence.
Now, I will come to another feature of the disease, the post-mortem
symptoms of the disease. I saw three animals killed, of which I have
spoken to you, and Dr. Letheby was good enough to have dug up from his
garden a rabbit which had been killed by strychnia, and to open it
before me, to examine the heart, and the heart was full; the heart of
the dog was quite full, and the hearts of the two rabbits which I saw
killed were quite full--as full as they could possibly be. I am told
that the result of an enormous proportion of such examinations has been,
and, if properly conducted, of all of them, that the heart is full on
the right side invariably. We will prove to you that the heart of the
animal which was killed by strychnia poison is invariably full, and it
stands to reason it would be so.
[Sidenote: Serjeant Shee]
Now, I have discussed what may be said for this purpose to be the theory
of the matter, but I have not yet met the strong point which will be
made for the Crown on the evidence of Elizabeth Mills. I am, on all
occasions, most reluctant to attack a witness examined on his or her
oath, and particularly if she be in a humble position. I am very
reluctant to impute perjury to such a person. Let me point out to you
what occurs to me to be the right opinion to be formed of the evidence
of Elizabeth Mills. I submit to you in this case of life and death, or
in any one case involving any question of real importance to liberty or
to property, that that young woman’s evidence cannot and would not be
regarded in the ordinary administration of justice when on material
points she has stated two different stories. A jury can really hardly
believe such a witness, and in criminal cases the learned judges are,
without altogether rejecting the evidence and withholding it from the
jury, in the habit of pointing out to the jury the discrepancies between
the statements given at different times, and saying that under all the
circumstances of the case it would not be safe to rely on the testimony
in the last instance, if it differ from, and probably is more strongly
adverse to, the party accused than the statements made when the
impression was fresh in the witness’s mind. Now, observe that since the
first time that she gave her evidence she has had the means of knowing
what the case of the Crown is. She has had the means of knowing--I do
not mean to say she has been tutored by the Crown--it would be a gross
injustice to say so; and I know if my learned friend thought that had
been done he would not have called her--or by any of the gentlemen who
act for the Crown; but since she was examined at Rugeley she has had the
means of knowing, by interviews she has had with different people, that
the case of the Crown is, that Palmer, having first prepared the body of
Cook for deadly poison by the poison of antimony, afterwards despatched
him with the deadly poison of strychnia. She has learned that their case
is, that there was an administration of something which did not
eventually kill him, that is, antimony, but which had the effect of
producing retching, and nausea, and irritation of the stomach, which is
attributed, according to the hypothesis of the Crown, to the deliberate,
persevering intention of the prisoner at the bar to reduce him bit by
bit--making him reject everything off his stomach, so that when once the
ingestion of the poison occurred he was certainly dead; that is the
case. In her first evidence before the coroner she was asked whether she
had tasted the broth, and she said that she had tasted the broth, and
thought it very good; she did not say a single word about any ill
effects that broth had produced upon her--not a single word. She has
since learned it is part of the case for the Crown, or of those out of
whose hands the Crown has taken this prosecution--in fact, the theory of
Dr. Taylor--that all this retching and vomiting was the result of a
constant dosing with antimonial poison, in order to prepare him for an
utter inability to resist the fatal dose of strychnia which it was
intended to give him. Accordingly, when she is examined here, fitting
her evidence to the case, and probably after having been asked many
times whether she had not been sick on some Sunday or another, she has
persuaded herself, if she has not been persuaded--I do not wish to use
the word suborned--that her sickness on some Sunday afternoon took place
on the Sunday afternoon that broth was sent, and was caused by her
having taken two spoonfuls of it. She did not say so in the first
instance before the coroner, but that “she tasted it, and it was very
good.” I ask you to consider for a moment whether it is not to the last
degree improbable that a man like Palmer--a shrewd, intelligent, clever
man--would expose himself to such a chance of detection as the sending
of poisoned broth made at the Albion to the Talbot Arms, at the imminent
risk of its finding its way to the kitchen, where, sure as fate, the
cook would taste it. Can you conceive a cook not tasting broth made by
another cook, and sent over as particularly good? I submit to you it
was such a risk as no man in his senses could by any possibility run. A
cook is, in the nature of the thing, a taster; she tastes everything;
she does not know, of course, if it be her own making, whether it is
good until she tastes it; she gets the habit of tasting--and as sure as
Palmer sent the broth to the Talbot Arms, and any part of it reached the
kitchen, so sure, if it contained antimony, would the cook be ill. Is it
credible? I submit to you, it is not credible; and when you find she did
not say a word about it in the first instance, and that an ample
opportunity was afforded for her so to do in the way I have described, I
submit you cannot rely upon her evidence here, as it differs with her
evidence before the coroner. Again, she said that on the Saturday Cook
had coffee for breakfast about eight o’clock. “He ate nothing but he
vomited directly he had swallowed it. Up to the time I had given him the
coffee I had not seen Palmer.” When she gave that evidence she was not
aware it was part of the theory of the Crown that the traces of antimony
(which Dr. Taylor says might have killed him) were to be made to fit
into the theory of the strychnia poison--that it was a gradual
preparation, by vomiting, for strychnia. That chart of the country over
which she was to travel had not been laid before her. She did not then
know what at the time she came here she did know--that it was part of
the case for the Crown.
[Sidenote: Serjeant Shee]
The Attorney-General opened the case in that way distinctly, that that
was the theory for the Crown; “that Palmer had ordered some coffee for
Cook on the Saturday morning; it was brought up by the chambermaid,
Elizabeth Mills, and given to Cook by Palmer, who had an opportunity of
tampering with it before giving it to Cook.” That was the statement
which the Attorney-General was instructed to make. There is all the
difference between her first statement, that up to the time she had
given the coffee to Palmer for Cook, and that Palmer had an opportunity
of tampering with it. The young woman would not go so far as that, but
she went to this extent--“Palmer came over at eight o’clock--ordered a
cup of coffee for Cook--I gave it to Cook--I believe Palmer was in the
bedroom--I put it into Mr. Cook’s hands, but I did not see him drink
it--I observed afterwards the coffee had been vomited.” The statement
thus made by her before you was not so strong as that of the
Attorney-General, but, on the other hand, it was a great deal stronger
than the statement she made before the coroner, because, according to
her story then, Palmer had not an opportunity of dealing with it--she
“did not see Palmer up to the time she had given him the coffee.” From
the statement which she made here you might suppose that Palmer, if he
had chosen, might have got the coffee from Cook--but that is in the last
degree improbable--and have done what he wanted to do with it; for she
says, “Palmer came over at eight o’clock and ordered a cup of coffee,
and that when it was made she took the coffee up into the bedroom and
gave it into Cook’s hands” (she believed Palmer was there), “but she did
not see him drink it, and afterwards she observed the coffee had been
vomited.” These two statements, the one before the coroner and the other
before you, are essentially different, and the difference between them
consists in this, that the last one supports the theory now set up on
the part of the Crown, while the first one is totally inconsistent with
it. Can you rely on a woman who has altered her testimony to such an
extent? But that is not all; the case for the Crown is that Cook was
reluctant to take the pills which were given to him, and that he
expressed a reluctance which Palmer of his own head overruled, and that
Palmer knew that Cook was angry with him, or, at all events, displeased
with him, for forcing him to take the pills. In the first statement of
Elizabeth Mills before the coroner she said Cook said it was “the pills
that made him ill, and that he had taken the pills about half-past ten.”
When she came here she swore that Cook said “the pills which Palmer gave
him at half-past ten made him ill”; thereby, you see, fixing the fact
that Palmer gave him the pills, and fixing the time at which Palmer gave
them to him, she having had an opportunity of learning that the later
the pills were given the more favourable it would be to the suspicion
that death had been occasioned by this poison. Before the coroner she
did not say that Palmer was in Cook’s bedroom between nine and ten
o’clock on the Monday night, but she did when she was here. You will see
that makes him more about the bedside of Cook, having more opportunity
of dealing with the pills. By these variances from her first statement
she shows the animus which now, for some reason or other, actuates her.
Perhaps it has been the result of the persuasion that Palmer was the
murderer of Mr. Cook, as Dr. Alfred Swayne Taylor swore he is, and of
her horror of so great a crime; that gives it the just, charitable
construction; still, I say, she is not to be relied upon. I have
mentioned the particulars in which her statements vary, but these are
nothing to the important particulars to which I will now call your
attention. I impeach her testimony on the ground that she adopted here a
manner and a gesticulation in describing the symptoms under which Cook
laboured which, if true, would have exhibited itself at the inquest, and
would have at once attracted the attention of Dr. Taylor. The
contortions into which she put her hands, and her neck, and her mouth,
before you, could not by any possibility have escaped the attention of
Dr. Taylor. If anything like it took place there it would have been
observed by him, and questions would have been put to reduce, so to
speak, those gesticulations into verbal expressions, that they might be
recorded in the depositions. But that is not all. I am told, and you
will have an opportunity of hearing it from Mr. Nunneley, Dr. Letheby,
Dr. Robinson, and other eminent medical men, that the description of the
symptoms which she gave to you is inconsistent with any known
disease--that they were grouped by her in a manner so extraordinary as
to be quite inconsistent with strychnia tetanus.
[Sidenote: Serjeant Shee]
Let me call your attention to this part of the evidence. You are aware
that in the months of February (the last week of February) and March a
very frightful case of strychnia poisoning occurred at Leeds. It was a
case in which a person, having constant access to the bedside of the
patient, was supposed to have administered repeated small doses of
strychnia so as not at once to strike her down, but gradually to destroy
her; and that after having kept her in a state of irritation for a
lengthened period, he at last consummated the work and killed her. That
was the case. It appeared in all the newspapers. The nurse who attended
the patient and the medical gentlemen spoke of symptoms which she
exhibited from the 24th or 25th February to the 1st of March, and they
described it in this way--She had “prickings” and “twitchings” in the
legs, coming on without any violent paroxysms or spasms, and was alarmed
at the thought even of being touched by anybody in the intervals of the
spasms which occurred from time to time. Now, let me call your attention
to the evidence before you of Elizabeth Mills. She says, “He said, ‘I
cannot lie down’; his body and neck were moving and jerking; he would
throw himself up, jumping and jerking all over his body all the time; he
asked me to rub his hands; I noticed him to ‘twitch’ while I was rubbing
his hands.” (The learned serjeant read a portion of the evidence.) Now,
I submit to you that some of these expressions, particularly the
twitching, are very remarkable; and it may well have been that, this
case coming before the public and exciting no little degree of
attention, although not to the same extent as this Rugeley case, persons
who had been in the habit of going to see her and conversing with her
may have been asking her questions about this case, of which she
admitted she had heard, “Did you observe in Cook any such symptoms as
these?” her attention being called to them in such a way as to induce
her to alter the statement made by her at the inquest. You cannot,
indeed, account, as I submit to you, for so remarkable a difference
between the first and second statements, without supposing something of
that kind. Now, is it improbable that that did take place? From the
time she left the Talbot Arms till she came here she seems to have been
a person of very remarkable importance. She went to Dolly’s, and Mr.
Stevens visited her six or seven times. Why did he visit here? What for?
Mr. Stevens is unquestionably--and if under proper self-restraint, no
one can blame him for it--very indignant at what he fears to have been
the foul play of Palmer with Cook. He is not in the same condition of
life as Elizabeth Mills. Why should he have gone to visit her six or
seven times, conversing with her in a private room? She says, “He only
came to see whether I liked the place; he called to inquire after my
health.” Gardner also, his attorney, saw her once, but only asked her
how she was, and they talked about other things. She said she gave the
last authentic account of her evidence to a man she did not know--whom
she had never seen before; and when I found out, after much questioning,
that Mr. Stevens was with him, and asked her why she had not told me so,
her answer was, “Because you never asked me.” That raised a laugh, and
she enjoyed her triumph. All this looks like having been tutored. I put
it to you that you cannot, with any degree of satisfaction, rely on the
evidence of the young woman; and you will learn that the confusion and
the variety of the symptoms she has put together, taking them partly
from her depositions and partly from this new version, have made the
case which she described not only not a case of tetanus, but not of any
known disease.
[Sidenote: Serjeant Shee]
Now, on this part of the case I have this observation to make; the
illness of the Sunday night appears to have been a very remarkable
occurrence. It came out in the course of the examination, as a fact
spoken to by Cook, and it will be for you to judge, after you have heard
the evidence of the medical gentlemen, whether the periodicity of the
attacks does not militate against the theory of death by strychnia
poison. The illnesses of Cook take place three nights running, exactly
at the same time, or if not exactly at the same time, very nearly. I
find that is a symptom of very frequent occurrence, that about the same
hour of the night, or of the week, or of the month, and very often after
the patient has got to bed, the thing occurs. It is about the same hour
in this case of Mr. Cook’s. On the question whether the symptoms were
such as are consistent with the theory of strychnia poison, and
inconsistent with the theory of death from other and natural causes, I
have only now further to state what I intend to prove. I will not go
through in detail what will be better stated by the gentlemen who will
be called; but I shall call a number of most respectable physicians,
surgeons, and general practitioners, having extensive experience in our
large cities, who all support the view I have to submit to you, and
which they have suggested to me as the probable one--that these fits of
Mr. Cook were not tetanus, but violent convulsions, the result of the
weak habit of his body, which had been increased by his mode of life.
I propose now to discuss the question whether the circumstantial
evidence against Palmer be such as to be inexplicable on the supposition
of his innocence, and if I show you on the broad and salient features of
the evidence that it is not (you will not expect me to go into the more
minute details), and I have succeeded in satisfying you on any
considerable portion of the points to which I have directed your
attention, and if the evidence comes up to what I have been instructed
to say it will, you will be too happy, recollecting that you are the
country in the language of the law--that the country out of doors, in a
case of crime, of life and death, is uninformed, without the opportunity
of hearing the witnesses examined or cross-examined on their oaths to
decide between the Crown and the Queen’s subject on the evidence alone.
Every word of this evidence will be carried to all the ends and corners
of the earth, and it will remain to be seen whether this great country
of England, in a paroxysm or convulsion of prejudice, created by the
rashness of one scientific man who had no knowledge of his own about the
matter, has made up its mind to sacrifice the life of a fellow-creature
under circumstances which would expose any person who has ever been
present at deathbed convulsions liable to the same charge.
I say the circumstantial evidence in this case is not such as to justify
you in coming to a conclusion of the guilt of the prisoner. I will
endeavour in this part of the discussion to address myself to those
portions of the case which seem at the first blush of them, and on
judicial consideration of them, to require notice. I will not avoid
anything that is difficult or that may seem to you difficult, so that
when I sit down you will see that I have discussed this great argument
fully and fairly in every branch of it, and ask yourselves, what ground
is there for any verdict but a verdict of “not guilty”? I will avoid
nothing, and proceed at once to one of the most salient points. I will
pass over, after an intimation that was made from the bench, the point
about pushing the man at the inquest, or the accident of a slit in the
covering of the jar, which, sharp instruments being used by the
operators, may easily have occurred, or the putting it in a further
corner of the room, from which there was no possibility of its being
removed. I do not believe that any such circumstances as these would
induce you to come to a conclusion against the prisoner.
LORD CAMPBELL--No member of the Court, I think, has intimated any
opinion as to the other portions of the case; merely as to the pushing.
[Sidenote: Serjeant Shee]
Mr. SERJEANT SHEE--I do not wish to suggest anything which is not
strictly correct, and perhaps I ought not to use what was intimated from
the bench in any way, but rather submit that, where everybody perfectly
well knew Palmer, in any little apparent shove, so to speak, during the
course of the post-mortem, is not to be taken as an evidence of his
guilt. It was in leaning over, if at all, to observe an examination of
considerable interest to all persons present, and I cannot conceive that
anything of this kind can be taken into consideration. No serious
complaint was made at the time. Mr. Devonshire said nothing was lost by
it. He said also the jar was removed to a corner of the room. It was not
removed out of sight. It was in the broad daylight. It was impossible it
could be taken away without observation. It would be absurd that Palmer
should be suspected of having done so with an improper object. This we
know, that he was very reluctant to have the jar removed out of the
possession of those on whom he could rely. That is very true; there were
some persons who did not want to pay him £13,000; there were some
persons who had been doing all they could to undermine his character for
a very considerable time, imputing to him the most wicked conduct
respecting a near relation, which none of his own relations ever joined
in, knowing that there were many persons at Rugeley much prejudiced
against him, and it was in his judgment of the last importance that
anything which could be brought against him (and it was clear that this
post-mortem, from the conduct of Stevens, was intended to found a charge
against him), should be kept in unsuspected custody, and that nobody
should have an opportunity of tampering with it and its contents. When
told that Dr. Harland is coming to make the post-mortem, he says, “I am
glad of that, for there is no knowing who might have done it; and it is
a satisfaction that you, whom I do know, are coming to superintend it.”
I say that was the conduct of a respectable man, who knows that his
conduct would bear investigation if it were properly inquired into. But
we know also that in a town like Rugeley there were a great many serious
people, who could not approve of his habits of life, to whom his running
about to races would not much recommend him, and whom he has reason to
know would not very much regret any injury which might happen to him.
[Sidenote: Serjeant Shee]