Misdirection as to Mr. Maybrick’s Symptoms
From the testimony it appears that on the 27th of April James Maybrick, before starting to the Wirrall Races, was sick. There is no actual evidence of vomiting, but he is described as sick, and as feeling a numbness in his legs while walking downstairs, which was an old-standing complaint of his of many years. Both he himself and Mrs. Maybrick told the servants that this was due to a double dose of some London medicine. He got wet through at the races and dined in his wet clothes at a friend’s (Mr. Hobson), on the other side of the Mersey, and did not return home till after the servants had retired to bed; but the next morning, Sunday, the 28th of April, he was taken ill, and Mrs. Maybrick sent a servant off hurriedly for Dr. Humphreys, who had not attended her husband before, but who was the doctor living nearest the house, and in the mean time got some mustard and water, telling him to take it, as it would remove the brandy at all events. Dr. Humphreys attended James Maybrick on the 28th, but was not told by him that he had vomited the day before.
Mr. Justice Stephen, when referring to this, said: “The Wirrall Races were followed by symptoms which were described to be arsenical.” It is submitted that this was a misdirection, the symptom there referred to being sickness, and there was no evidence of vomiting on any of the days immediately succeeding the Wirrall Races. But on the 28th of April the mustard and water was given him by Mrs. Maybrick for the purpose of producing sickness and removing the brandy, and if he had been sick it would have been attributable to mustard and water, not to arsenic.
On the other hand, the medical evidence showed that gastro-enteritis might have been set up either by improper food or drink, or an excess of either; or, again, by such a wetting through as deceased got at the Wirrall Races. On the 8th of May Alice Yapp communicated to Mrs. Briggs and Mrs. Hughes her suspicions that James Maybrick’s illness was due to Mrs. Maybrick poisoning him with fly-papers.