Rugeley, and knew the late Mr. Cook. I saw him at ten o’clock on Friday
morning, 16th November, 1855. He was having breakfast in bed--a cup of
tea with a wineglassful of brandy in it. I dined with him and Mr. Palmer
about two o’clock. We had a beefsteak and some champagne. After dinner
we had three bottles of port wine, of which Cook drank his share. We
rose from the table between five and six, and Cook and I went to my
house, and then to the Albion Hotel, which is next door, and had a
brandy and water each. Cook left me there between seven and eight. He
said he felt cold. During that day I asked Cook for £50 he was due me.
He gave me £5, and when he took the note out of his case I said, “You
can pay me the whole £50.” He said, “No; there is only £41 10s. due to
you.” Then he said he had given Mr. Palmer money, and he would pay me
the remainder when he returned from Tattersall’s on Monday after the
settling. On the Saturday night following I slept in the same room with
him, as he was not well. We went to bed about twelve o’clock. In the
early part of the night he got some toast and water, and he was sick. I
saw him using a night-chair in the room. He tried to vomit, but I do not
know whether he did so or not. After that I slept until Mr. Palmer and
Mr. Bamford came in the morning to see him. He said, “I am rather better
this morning. I slept from about two or three o’clock, after the
confounded concert was gone.” Mr. Bamford said, “I will send you some
more medicine.” I then got up and left the house. I know Mrs. Palmer,
the mother of the prisoner. She asked me to see her on Monday evening,
and, in consequence of that, I went about two o’clock to see if I could
find Palmer, but could not. About ten minutes past ten I saw him in a
car coming from the direction of Stafford. I asked him, “Have you seen
Mr. Cook to-day?” He said, “No; we had better just run up and see.” We
went up, and Cook told Palmer he was late, and that he had taken the
medicine. We only stayed two or three minutes. Cook said he had taken
some pills Mr. Bamford had sent him. He also said he had been up that
day, and Palmer said he ought not to have been up. Palmer and I then
went to his mother’s house, about 400 or 500 yards. We stayed about half
an hour, and then left for Palmer’s house. I left him at his house and
went home. On the Saturday I asked Cook to dine with me, but he did not.
He said he was not well. I got for him a boiled leg of mutton and some
broth from the Albion, which was taken to him by Ann Rowley, a
charwoman. In the May before his death I borrowed £100 from Mrs. Palmer
and £100 from William Palmer for Cook. I also negotiated a £500 loan
through Mr. Pratt. I know that Palmer and Cook were jointly interested
in one horse, “Pyrrhine,” and that they were in the habit of betting
very frequently for each other. Shortly before Mr. Cook’s death I had
seen Mr. Thirlby, Palmer’s assistant, dress Cook’s throat with caustic.
I have seen this four or five times, chiefly before Shrewsbury races. I
know Mr. Cook’s signature. [Some papers were handed to witness.] Here
are two notes, instructions for the £500. One is signed “J. P. Cook” and
the other “J. Parsons Cook.” I saw that signed. Some weeks before Mr.
Cook’s death he was served with a writ. [The following letter was
read:--]
My dear Sir,--I have been in a devil of a fix about the bill, but
have at last settled it at the cost of three guineas, for the
damned discounter had issued a writ against me, and I am very much
disgusted at it.
JOHN PARSONS.
I destroyed the envelope in which that was contained. [Another letter
was read, dated 25th June, 1855--]
Dear Jimmy,--I should like to have the bill renewed for two months
more. Can it be done? Let me know by return; 4 Victoria Street,
Holborn Bridge. I have scratched “Polestar” for the
Northamptonshire and Wolverhampton Stakes. I shall be down on
Friday and Saturday. In haste.--J. Parsons Cook. Fred tells me
“Bolton” or “Arabus” will win the Northumberland Plate.
J. P. COOK.
I saw that “J. P. Cook” written. [The following paper was read:--]
“Polestar,” three years; “Sirius,” two years, by way of mortgage,
to secure £500, advanced on a bill of exchange, dated 29th August,
1855, payable three months after date.
These were the instructions to prepare the mortgage.
[Sidenote: J. Smith]
Cross-examined by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL--I am the Mr. Smith that took Mr.
Myatt to Stafford gaol. I have been employed a good deal by Mr. Palmer
as his attorney. I do not recollect that he applied to me in December,
1854, to attest a proposal on the life of his brother Walter for £13,000
at the Solicitors and General office. Nor do I recollect that I was
applied to by Palmer to attest a proposal for £13,000 to the Prince of
Wales office on his brother Walter’s life. I knew that Walter Palmer had
been a bankrupt six years before, but not that he was in great distress
for money. I believe he had an allowance from his mother. I do not
recollect that I was called upon to attest another proposal in the
Universal office for £13,000 upon the life of Walter Palmer. If I could
see any document or any letter to remind me of the circumstance I would
not deny it. [An assignment of this policy by Walter Palmer to William
Palmer was handed to witness. He was asked if he received £5 for
attesting the assignment, and answered he might have, he did not
recollect.] This is very like my signature. It is a good imitation. I
have some doubt that it is not my handwriting. That is Walter Palmer’s
signature, and the attestation, “signed, sealed, and delivered,” is in
Mr. Pratt’s handwriting. I got the document from Mr. Palmer. I still do
not think that what bears to be my signature is in my handwriting. In
October, 1855, I applied to the Midland Counties office to be appointed
their agent. Bates and Palmer came together to my office with a
prospectus, and asked me if there was any agent in Rugeley. I said I
never heard of one. They asked me to write and get an appointment, as
they wanted to raise money. I did so. The reason I became an agent was
to get an insurance effected upon Bates’ life for £10,000. Bates at that
time was the superintendent of William Palmer’s stud and stables. After
this I went to the widow of Walter Palmer to get her to give up her
claim upon the policy of her husband. She refused. This document, the
signature to which I doubt whether it is my handwriting or not, is
signed by Walter Palmer. I do not know that he got nothing for the
assignment. I understood he got a house furnished for him. I do not
recollect being applied to by William Palmer in December, 1854, to
attest a proposal on his brother’s life for £13,000 in the Solicitors
and General office. I have no doubt I might. The body of the document
[handed to witness] is in the handwriting of William Palmer. The
signature is mine. I may have signed it blank. I do not remember getting
£5 for attesting the execution of that deed of assignment by Walter
Palmer to his brother. [The witness gave similar answers to questions
put as to his attestation of proposals for policies of £13,000 on Walter
Palmer’s life in two other offices.] With reference to that £200 which I
got for Mr. Cook, £100 from Mrs. Palmer and the other £100 from William
Palmer, Cook gave £10 for the accommodation to William Palmer. William
Palmer was the drawer of the bill and Cook the acceptor. He received
£100 less £10 in cash. When the bill was given I handed it over to Mr.
Palmer. What he did with it I do not know. I do not know if he
discounted with Mr. Pratt. I have never seen the bill since. Palmer was
not short of money at this time, as he lent £100 to Cook. I do not know
that he wanted some money to make up the sum of £500 payable to Mr.
Sargent.
_Proof closed._
Attorney-General’s Address to Jury.
[Sidenote: Attorney-General]
Mr. ATTORNEY-GENERAL--May it please your lordships--Gentlemen of the
jury, the case for the prosecution and the case for the defence are now
before you; and it becomes my duty to address to you such observations
upon the whole of the materials, upon which your judgment is to be
founded, as suggest themselves to my mind. I have a solemn and an
important duty to perform. I wish that I could have answered the appeal
made to me the other day by my learned friend, Mr. Serjeant Shee, and
have felt that I was satisfied with the case that he submitted to you on
the part of the defence. But, standing here as the instrument of public
justice, I feel that I should be wanting in the duty that I have to
perform if I did not ask at your hands for a verdict of guilty against
the accused. I approach the consideration of the case in what, I hope, I
may term a spirit of fairness, of moderation, and of truth. My business
is to convince you, if I can, by facts and legitimate argument, of the
prisoner’s guilt. If I cannot establish it to your satisfaction, no man
will rejoice more than I shall in the verdict that you will pronounce of
not guilty.
Gentlemen, in the vast mass of materials which the evidence in this case
has brought before you, two main questions present themselves
prominently for your consideration--- did the deceased man, into whose
death we are now inquiring, die a natural death, or was he taken off by
the foul means of poison? And if the latter proposition be sanctioned by
your approbation, then comes the important--if possible the still more
important--question of whether the prisoner at the bar was the author of
his death? I will proceed at once without further observation to the
discussion of those questions, taking them in the order in which I have
proposed them. Did John Parsons Cook die by poison? I assert and
maintain the affirmative of that proposition. The case which is
submitted to you on behalf of the Crown is this, that having been first
practised upon by antimony, he was at last killed by strychnia; and the
proposition which I have to establish is that the death of the deceased
was occasioned by that poison. The first question, with a view of seeing
what is the conclusion at which we shall arrive upon that point, is,
what was the immediate and proximate cause of his death? The witnesses
for the prosecution have told you one and all that he died, in their
judgment, of tetanus, which signifies a spasmodic convulsive action of
the muscles of the body. Can there be any doubt that that opinion is
correct? Of course, it does not follow that because he died from tetanus
it must be tetanus from strychnia; that is a matter for after
consideration; but inasmuch as strychnia produces death by
[Sidenote: Attorney-General]
[Illustration: Sir Alexander Cockburn.]
tetanus, we must see, in the first place, whether it admits of any doubt
that he did die of tetanus. I have listened with attention to every form
in which that disease has been brought under your consideration, whether
by the positive evidence of witnesses, or by reference to the works of
scientific authors; and I assert deliberately that no case either of a
human subject, or of any animal, has been brought under your notice in
which the symptoms of tetanus have been so marked as they are in this
case; from the moment the paroxysm came on, of which this unhappy man
died, the symptoms were of the most marked and of the most striking
character. Every muscle, says the medical man who was present at the
time, of his body was convulsed; he expressed the most intense dread of
suffocation; he entreated them to lift him up lest he should be
suffocated, and when they stooped to raise him every muscle of his body,
from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, was so stiffened
that the flexibility of the trunk and limbs was gone, so that they could
have raised him as you would raise a dead corpse or a lifeless log. It
was found to be impossible, and the man prayed to be turned over in
order to escape from the sense of the imminent risk of suffocation; they
turned him over, and in the midst of doing so a fearful paroxysm, one
mighty spasm, seems to have seized upon his heart, to have pressed from
it the life blood, so that in a moment vitality ebbed, and the man was
dead before them; when dead, the body exhibited the most marked symptoms
of this most fearful disease; it was bowed from head to foot, and it
would have rested, if it had been so placed, says the witness, upon the
back of the head and the heels; the hands were clenched with a grasp
which it required power to overcome, and the feet were curved till they
assumed the appearance of a natural malformation. It is impossible to
conceive symptoms more striking of tetanus; nor is it possible to
conceive evidence more dishonest than that which has attempted to
represent it as any other than as a case of tetanus.
[Sidenote: Attorney-General]
Well, then, if it was a case of tetanus, as to which I will not waste
your time with any further observations, was it a case of tetanus from
strychnia? I will confine myself for the moment to the exhibition of the
symptoms as they have been described by the witnesses. Tetanus may
proceed from natural causes as well as from the administration of
poison. While the symptoms last they are the same, but in the course of
the symptoms before the disease reaches its consummation in the death of
the patient the distinction between the two is marked by characteristics
which will enable any one conversant with the subject to distinguish
between the two. We have been told upon the highest authority that the
distinctions are these--Natural tetanus is a disease not of minutes, not
even of hours, but of days. It takes, say several of the witnesses,
from three to four days, and will extend to a period of even three
weeks, before the patient is destroyed. Upon that point we have the most
abundant and conclusive evidence. We have the evidence of gentlemen who
have made it their especial study, like Mr. Curling and Dr. Todd. We
have the evidence of one of the most eminent practitioners who ever
adorned that profession or any other, I mean Sir Benjamin Brodie. We
have the evidence of Mr. Gordon, who for twenty-eight years was surgeon
to the Bristol Hospital; we have the evidence of Mr. Daniel, who saw
twenty-five or thirty of these cases of natural tetanus; we have the
evidence of a gentleman who practised for twenty-five years in India,
where, owing to the particular character of the climate, those cases are
infinitely more frequent than they present themselves here, and he gives
exactly the same description of the course of symptoms through which
this disease runs. Idiopathic or traumatic tetanus are therefore, upon
the evidence, out of the question; but traumatic tetanus is out of the
question for a very different reason. Traumatic tetanus is tetanus
brought on by lesion of some part of the body. What is there in this
particular case to show that there was lesion in any part of the body at
all? We have had the most singular representations upon the subject of
Mr. Cook’s health made by the witnesses who have come here on behalf of
the defence, and who appear to have come into that box with the
determination as far as possible to misconceive every fact which they
could pervert to their purpose. We call before you for the purpose of
showing what Cook’s health was an eminent physician who had had him
under his care. It seems that in the spring of 1855 Cook, having found
certain small spots manifest themselves in one or two parts of his body,
and having something of ulcers under his tongue, or in his throat,
conceived that he was labouring under symptoms of a particular
character, and he addressed himself to Dr. Savage, who found the course
of medicine he had been pursuing, founded upon this belief, was, in his
judgment, an erroneous one; he altered it altogether; he enjoined the
discontinuance of mercury, and was obeyed in his injunction; and the
result was that the deceased, who was suffering, not from disease, but
from the treatment, rapidly grew well. Nevertheless, lest there should
be the possibility of mistake, Dr. Savage made him come to him from time
to time that he might see that things were going on right, and he sees,
long before the summer had advanced, the very unsatisfactory symptoms
had entirely gone, and that there was nothing about him except that
affection of the throat to which sometimes people are subject, some
abnormal condition of one of the tonsils, but in other respects the man
was better than he had been, and might be said to be perfectly
convalescent. On the very day he left London to go into the country
about a fortnight before the races, his stepfather accompanied him to
the station, and congratulated him upon his healthy and vigorous
appearance, and the young man, in the consciousness of the possession of
health, struck his breast, and said he was well, and he felt so.
[Sidenote: Attorney-General]
Well, he goes to Shrewsbury, and shortly afterwards came those matters
to which I shall have to call your attention presently, more
particularly that ended in his death. I want to know upon what part of
this evidence there is the slightest pretence for saying that this man
had any affection about him from which traumatic tetanus could ensue. It
is said at some former time he had exhibited his throat to some of the
witnesses who were called, and that he had applied to Palmer for some
mercurial wash to apply to his throat, or some of those ulcers. The
precise period of it is not fixed, but it is perfectly clear that though
he had at one time 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; nevertheless that fact was distinctly and unequivocally
negatived by a man of the highest authority--a medical gentleman of
eminence--under whose treatment the man got so rapidly well. That fact
is assumed by the witnesses for the defence as the ground upon which to
suggest that there was traumatic tetanus in this case. 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 attention. There was nothing about the man, according to the
statement of all 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 the man’s 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. One
or two cases of traumatic tetanus have been adduced in evidence on the
part of the defence. We had the case of a man who was brought to the
London Hospital in the evening, and who died the same night. Yes, but
what were the facts of that case? The facts are that he had had before
he was brought in repeated paroxysms; that he felt premonitory symptoms
early in the morning; he was suffering from ulcers of a most aggravated
description; and that the symptoms had run their course, rapidly it is
true, but still the disease was not a matter of minutes, but a matter of
hours. There is no other case that I am aware of. There is the case of
the boy who was brought in, if it be necessary to allude to it. But
there again we have the disease existing for some time before it ends
in death. It is a matter there again of hours, and not of minutes, and
not a single paroxysm like this was observed. But it is then suggested
that this may have been a case of idiopathic tetanus. Idiopathic tetanus
proceeding from what? They say that Mr. Cook was a man of delicate
constitution--subject to excitement--that he had something the matter
with his chest--that in addition to having something the matter with his
chest, he had this diseased condition of the throat--and, putting all
these things together, they say that the man, if he took cold, might get
idiopathic tetanus. We are launched into a sea of speculation and of
possibilities. Mr. Nunneley, who comes forward here for the purpose of
inducing you to believe that there was anything like idiopathic tetanus,
goes through a bead-roll of the supposed infirmities of Mr. Cook and
talks about his excitability--talks about his delicacy of chest--talks
about the affection of his throat--goes through those various heads, and
says that those 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. The man, from the beginning to the end of the
symptoms, was never treated for cold by anybody, or ever complained that
he had taken cold. I cannot help saying, to me it seems that it is a
scandal upon a learned, a distinguished, and a liberal profession, that
men should come forward and put forward such speculations as these,
perverting the facts, and drawing from them sophistical and unwarranted
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
occasion of idiopathic tetanus. You remember the sorts 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.
[Sidenote: Attorney-General]
But suppose for a single moment that excitement of this kind could
produce any such effect or influence, where is the excitement manifested
by Cook as leading to this supposed disease? They say that the man, when
his mare won at Shrewsbury, was full of excitement; and well he might
be--his fortunes depended upon the result of that race; and I do not
deny for a few minutes he was overpowered by the emotions that the joy
of the moment excited in his breast. But that subsided, and we have no
further trace of it from that time to the moment of his death. The man
passed the rest of the day with his friends in ordinary conversation and
in ordinary enjoyment. No trace of emotion was left about him. He is
taken ill; he goes to Rugeley; he is taken ill there again; is there the
slightest symptom of excitement about the man, or, on the other hand, of
depression? Not the slightest in the world. When he is ill, like most
other people, he is low; but as soon as he gets a little better he is
cheerful and happy; he admits his friends, and he converses with them;
the very night of his death, so far from any excitement, his
conversation is full of cheerfulness and mirth--he is laughing and
happy, little thinking, poor wretch, of the fate that was impending over
him. He is cheerful and happy, talking of the future, not in the
language of excitement on the one hand, or of depression on the other.
What pretence is there for this idle story of excitement and depression?
Not the slightest shadow of foundation in the world. But if there
were--if those things were capable of producing that form of tetanus
which goes by the term “idiopathic,” the character of the disease is so
essentially different that it is impossible to mistake the two. What are
the cases which they attempt to set up against it? They have brought you
the case of Mary Watson, which a gentleman came all the way from
Scotland to tell us about. The girl had been ill all day. She was taken
with cramps in the night, probably originating in the stomach, extending
to all other parts of her body. She gets well in a very short time, and
goes about her business. Is that case to be compared for a single
instant to the death agony of that wretched man, and the paroxysm that
destroyed him? Those are the sort of cases with which they attempt to
meet such symptoms as those which are spoken to by the witnesses as
accompanying the decease of Mr. Cook.
[Sidenote: Attorney-General]