ANALYSIS OF WAKLEY'S DEFENCE ON THE LATE TRIAL.
We last week presented our readers with a full[20] and, we trust, accurate account of the trial for libel, which has recently excited so much interest; and we offered some remarks of a general nature upon its result and tendency. We had purposed at the same time to subject Mr. Wakley's mode of conducting his cause to a critical investigation, but this we were prevented from doing by want of time and space. We thought it likely, too, that the Editor of the Lancet would have fairly met the question in his next publication, and himself put the facts of the case, at least, on record: instead of this, however, he has devoted his pages to compliments to himself, and scurrilous and absurd abuse of Sir James Scarlett, in which he informs us that in his opinion that gentleman is "prodigiously overrated even as a lawyer," and says many other things, which serve only to shew how dreadfully Wakley himself had smarted under his lash.
We find the general opinion to correspond with that which we expressed last week—that the defendant had managed his cause in a very bungling manner; and the estimation in which he and his witnesses were held by Judge and Jury is apparent from the charge of the one, and decision of the other. Both, indeed, regarded the asseverations of his whole family party as dust in the balance against the testimony of one single competent and honourable man—Mr. Callaway; for on his evidence the result obviously hinged. Our contemporary affects to look upon the verdict as a triumph on his part—so he would if the damages had been five hundred or a thousand pounds, for in truth he has nothing else for it; and with all our hearts we wish him many such victories.
With regard to the amount of damages, we certainly should have been better pleased had it been larger; but we did not expect that it would—nay a reference to our number which was published while the trial was going on, will shew that we were even doubtful of the verdict, because we know how extremely difficult it is for a jury to comprehend such a complicated question—how easy for a knave to impose upon their ignorance by misrepresentation and falsehood. It is quite obvious that if the jury had believed one syllable of the evidence of Wakley's witnesses, they must have given the verdict in his favour. In a case like this, where one individual only, and he the plaintiff, can be fully aware of the difficulties which had to be overcome, it is almost impossible to bring evidence into a court of justice capable of satisfying the minds of twelve unprofessional men. From this circumstance alone it was that we expressed a doubtful opinion of the result. But besides all this, it is well known to all—that one talesman might go determined to starve out the rest—that ten special jurymen might wish to give 500l. and yet that, by the absurd constitution of the English law, their verdict might be thus controlled by one individual friendly to the defendant.
Most fortunately for the cause of truth, Wakley had the vanity and folly to conduct the defence himself, and, judging of other men's estimation of moral character by his own, he did not hesitate to place in the box witnesses whom no counsel would have suffered to go there, and who, being unable to stand the cross-examination, led to what must have been to Wakley a most humiliating exposure. Next to this, the most beneficial effect produced was that of the defendant's cross-examination of his opponent's witnesses: it was amusingly absurd, and shewed a lamentable want of tact, always eliciting something which he ought to have avoided. Lastly came the reply, of which he tells us he is himself ashamed—"We may state most unfeignedly," says he, "that we look back with regret to our errors in point of omission." Nor is this the only part of it for which he has cause to blush, for any thing more miserably deficient we never heard: it was a mass of confusion throughout—a repetition of the same ideas and expressions—and a most injudicious betrayal of rancorous feeling, at the very moment he was profanely invoking heaven to witness that he bore enmity to no man. In speaking of his reply in our last number, we declared it to be "false in statement—sophistical in argument—coarse in language—and diabolical in tendency;" and we now proceed to illustrate these several qualifications, in doing which little more will be necessary than to select a few passages, and arrange them under their appropriate heads.
False in Statement.—One of Wakley's principal objects was to impress upon the Jury a belief that he had not in any way attempted to influence his witnesses, nor even spoken to most of them, anterior to the trial. "Out of nine witnesses I have placed in the box, (says he) I never saw five of them, nor even spoke to five of them till yesterday." We appeal to any man of common sense, whether it be probable that this is true. It is possible indeed, and only just possible, that he was contented with employing others to question his witnesses, and ascertain what evidence they would give; but even if it were so, the assertion was not the less false in a moral point of view, because his intention was to convey the belief that he had inquired no farther than merely whether or not the witnesses had been present at the operation. But incredible and absurd as this was, he ventured a step farther, and assigned a reason for the choice made of one witness—(Lee the potatoe-merchant.) "I had heard (said Wakley) he was present at the operation—an honest man, and that he was a friend of Mr. Bransby Cooper, under the highest obligation to the Cooper family. Without asking him a single question I put him into the box, as I was most anxious you should hear all the evidence that could be adduced, and from unsuspected and untainted quarters." This lie carried with it its own refutation; for Lee swore that he had never even spoken to Mr. Cooper; and we are therefore amazed that Wakley should have hazarded so gross an assertion, as it could only have been effective on the supposition of his addressing a jury of absolute simpletons. But again—"Who were my witnesses? not men whom I had trained and lectured on models, and sketches, and drawings. Has it been shewn to you that I was closeted with any person or set of persons?" Yes, Mr. Thomas Wakley, it has been shewn, and by no less an authority than that of your fidus Achates, Mr. James Lambert. "The defendant (says the worthy author of the libel), the defendant was there whilst I was explaining the parts to persons who were to be witnesses—the defendant also explained them to the same persons." And again, "I have heard explanations given to persons who were to be witnesses in this cause FOUR OR FIVE TIMES within the last six weeks." So also that excellent thorough-going witness, Mr. Jeffry Pearl: "a gentleman of the name of Lambert introduced me to the defendant; THE DEFENDANT and Mr. Lambert endeavoured to shew that the forceps had passed between the bladder and the rectum." So much for placing men in the box because they are friends of Mr. Cooper—so much for procuring evidence from "untainted quarters!"
This is only to be matched in effrontery by the statement of some wise-acre at the radical meeting on Tuesday night. Being asked why no notice had been taken in the Lancet of a successful operation of lithotomy performed by Mr. B. Cooper, soon after the publication of the libel, he assigned as the reason that Mr. Wakley thought it might increase the damages, and otherwise injure Mr. Cooper! What a noodle the man must be to expect any one to believe him[21]!
Mr. Wakley asserted that the evidence of his witnesses remained "untouched—wholly uncontradicted;"—whereas there was scarcely a single point in their statements which was not contradicted either by Mr. Callaway, who was present at the operation, or Mr. Key and Dr. Hodgkin, who examined the parts after death. But what is more remarkable, there was scarcely a circumstance on which his own witnesses agreed—for example, they differed with regard to the nature and direction of the incisions; with regard to the manner and frequency of introducing the forceps; with regard to the number of instruments used, and the mode of applying them; with regard to the size of the wound; with regard to the degree of force employed, and with regard to the appearances after death. Yet, in the face of all this, Wakley had the impudence to tell the jury that his evidence remained "uncontradicted." We have no hesitation in asserting that his own witnesses (putting Mr. Cooper's out of the question) advanced no charge of which they did not also furnish the refutation.
Mr. Wakley asserted that Mr. Cooper was incapable of telling why he could not extract the stone, even "while he had his finger in the bladder." This is false: neither Mr. Cooper nor Mr. Callaway were able to reach the bladder with the finger at all, owing to the depth of the perineum.
Mr. Wakley told the jury that the plaintiff did not like the bladder to be exposed, "because to surgeons there is indisputable proof that Bransby Cooper did not perform that operation as he ought," and that "Mr. Key and Mr. Callaway knew it." This is false: Mr. Key, Mr. Callaway, and Dr. Hodgkin, who had examined the parts, all deposed that there was nothing in them indicative of the operation having been improperly performed. Indeed, had it been as Wakley asserted, the plaintiff would not have been so foolish as to have had the parts preserved at all.
Sophistical in argument.—One of the pieces of sophistry on which Wakley seems chiefly to have depended, inasmuch as he went over it six times in the course of his speech, was, that if his account of the operation had been incorrect more of those who were present would have been brought forward to prove it so. But, as we stated in our last Number, to have objected to Wakley bringing forward pupils, on the ground of their being incompetent, and then to have done the same thing, would have been grossly inconsistent. Lord Tenterden, in his charge, said, "he did not see whom he (Mr. Cooper) could, with propriety, have called besides Mr. Callaway; the others were all young men, only pupils, and probably too young and inexperienced to form any judgment on the case that could be relied on." There is also another person who has objected to these witnesses whom we may mention—not, indeed, one for whose authority we have the highest possible respect, but of whom the defendant in this case probably thinks more favourably—we mean Mr. Thomas Wakley, who, speaking of the Letter formerly published by Mr. Cooper's pupils on the subject of this operation, says, "their united opinion of the skill, dexterity, and self-possession exhibited by Mr. Bransby Cooper on this occasion, is not likely to influence the judgment of the profession, whatever it may effect with the public."
The use made by Wakley of Sir Astley Cooper's expression, "give him time," is another specimen of sophistry. Sir Astley evidently meant merely to say that, ceteris paribus, a man who had been twenty years surgeon to an Hospital would be more experienced than one who had held the situation but one-fourth of that period. This we believe to have been his sentiment, though nothing was ever less happily expressed. Accordingly it was not lost upon the defendant, who exclaimed, "Is that the way in which our hospitals are to be conducted? Is that the mode in which your poor patients are to be treated?—that young and inexperienced men are to be placed there to learn their profession—not to know it before they get there, but are to go there to learn it—and learn it upon whom?—upon individuals who are as much entitled to the best and most scientific practice of surgery as any nobleman in this land." All very fine—but we should be glad to know how or where a practical acquaintance with surgery is to be acquired but in public hospitals—and if no man is to be appointed till after he has gained experience, where are such men to come from? Where are ready-made surgeons to be found fit to operate even before Lambert, without his being able to make a hole in their reputation?
One of the most knavish attempts in the whole speech, to take advantage of the jury, was exhibited in his description of the operation. How different from the clear, perspicuous, and candid narrative of Sir James Scarlett. You are told, says Wakley, that the stone was shelved above the pubes and behind the pubes; but, continued he, (placing a pelvis in the position in which it is during the operation,) a stone cannot be lodged above the pubes, because, you see, the pubes is above the bladder! This was, indeed, calculated to confuse men unaccustomed to the subject, and who did not probably reflect that above and below are merely relative terms, which must change with every change of position, and that it was not meant that the stone was between the pubes and external integuments, which, in the position for lithotomy, would be the literal meaning of above the pubes, but that it was in such a situation as, in the ordinary position of the body, was above the pubes. But Wakley assured the jury that it was impossible for any stone to be above the pubes, for there was a tendon to prevent it which no force could overcome; and he affected to ridicule the idea of there being anything unusual, any extraordinary shelf behind the pubes, in which the stone could have been lodged. "Had there been a shelf here," said he,—"had there been a crooked passage—had there been a cavity, or any place for the deposition of the stone, do you suppose that shelf would not have been produced? Had there been any thing particular in the formation of the pubes, would they not have cut out the man's bone as well as the bladder?" It is probably impossible for any but medical men to appreciate fully the impudent imposition—the fraud of this statement,—this knavish artifice to mislead the jury. No attempt was made in any part of Mr. Cooper's case to show that there was such malformation, or that the stone was in the position which Mr. Wakley demonstrated it could not occupy—thus answering an argument which had never been advanced.
The following is a good specimen of sophistry and stupidity. Finding it proved that there was no opening between the bladder and rectum, Wakley wanted to make out that he never had said otherwise, having stated the cellular membrane to be lacerable, and therefore not lacerated. And then, forgetting the nature of his argument, immediately added, "remember this; the gorget is not as wide as the finger, and that it is not an uncommon thing for an unskilful operator to drive the gorget in between the bladder and rectum." Thus insinuating what had been proved to be false, and what he had just argued, from the words of the libel, he could not have meant.
Coarse in language.—This scarcely requires illustration. But as specimens, on the present occasion, of vulgar slang and miserable attempts at wit, we may mention his talking of "hole and corner" proceedings,—his comparing Sir James Scarlett to sour milk, and which happy thought he has, in hand-bills pasted about the town, converted into "Knight and Professor of Sour Milk,"—his explanation of the term bat as applied to surgeons, "because they live in the dark, they suckle their young, and live in creaks and crevices of old walls, hospitals, and dungeons, thriving and fattening on their own species,"—his address to the "gang" of hospital surgeons, whom he represented as wading "through blood up to the neck,"—and lastly, his exclamations, several times repeated, perhaps with prophetic phrenzy, that he "would die in a dungeon and expire in a ditch."
Diabolical in tendency.—The general tendency of Wakley's writings, and especially of his address to the Jury on this occasion, so far as such ravings can have any influence, is to sow distrust between men in every class of society and their medical attendants; to poison the sources of public charity, and arrest the hand of benevolence; to contract the relief afforded to human suffering, leading the poor and uninformed to suppose themselves the objects of cruel and wanton experiment, thus encouraging them rather to suffer disease to run its course than seek relief in such abodes of blood and horror as he most falsely represents our public hospitals to be.
One of the first ebullitions of this demoniacal effort consisted in representing to the Jury, which he did in two different parts of his address, that the patient had been kept bound during the operation, as if some unusual degree of coercion had been employed. "Yet, in opposition to the patient's cries—in opposition to his repeated entreaties to be unbound, still the operator kept him upon the table."—"Gentlemen," continued he, "I should like to know upon what principle it was that the man was kept bound upon the table when he implored to be loosened. Was he not a free agent?" And then he goes on to put into Mr. Cooper's mouth not only words, but a sentiment he never uttered.—"No, no, (says the operator,) my reputation is concerned. You were brought here to have the stone extracted, and extracted it shall and must be—if you were to die upon the table." Unless Wakley was intoxicated we cannot in any other manner account for an argument at once so absurd, so unprofessional, and so malignant. It evidently excited no feeling but that of disgust in the minds either of the Judge or the Jury.
The next paragraph to which we shall allude is a masterpiece of hypocrisy—"Let me ask you (said he) what you have heard respecting the miseries of the individual on whom the operation was performed? Not one word has escaped the lips of the counsel on that subject—not one word from the mouth of one of the witnesses. No, gentlemen, they are hospital surgeons themselves, and they know too well what the practices of our hospitals are, and the sufferings patients are in the habit of enduring at their hands, to feel for this man, or for any other man placed in a similar situation!" Canting hypocrite! this from the man who in the very case before us published his account of the patient's sufferings in the form of a drama, mingled with low and scurrilous gibes. Mark also the following—"Give such a verdict as shall satisfy the poor—as will shew that men are not to go into offices of this sort where the poor are to be killed, and that they shall not be at liberty to wade and ride through blood up to their necks to eminence in their profession. Ah! gentlemen, give such a verdict as shall satisfy the poor!"
There is in the various paragraphs we have quoted, more deep-rooted malice—more abandoned violation of the truth—more hypocrisy—and more open outrage of common sense, decency, and feeling, than we ever remember to have met with, even in the pages of the Lancet. It is now quite obvious that Wakley, alarmed at the change which has taken place in the estimation of his work within the last few months, finds it necessary to adopt a new system; he therefore throws off the mask, and openly declares himself the champion of the ignorant and illiterate[22]—conjuring up to their imaginations evils which do not exist—denouncing the medical profession as one of blood and murder—medical men as "thriving and fattening on their fellow-creatures"—and calling upon the "humane contributors to our hospitals and infirmaries" to support him.
Why really now, if the times of political turbulence were to return, and radical reform again to come into vogue, Cobbett and Hunt would have a most valuable coadjutor; but as it is, we almost think the sphere he has chosen is too limited for such a genius. Humbug, to be successful, ought not to be very open to detection; alleged abuses ought not to be of a kind which every man can satisfy himself are entirely without foundation; and he who professes disinterested motives ought not to begin by raising a subscription for himself. We offer these few hints to Wakley, in hopes they may be of use to him in his new career; above all, we advise him to be sparing in protestations: there are some already who look upon his sincerity with a suspicious eye; for although it is no doubt true, that he would "rather die in a dungeon, and expire in a ditch," than injure any man, yet somehow an idea has got abroad, that his constant habits of lying and slandering are not quite in keeping with these assertions. Nay, we have heard of some even of the "humane contributors" to our charitable institutions, who have been so unreasonable as to disbelieve all Wakley's stories about the cannibalism of hospital surgeons, and to look upon the whole system of the Lancet as one of knavery and imposition.