Mrs. Jenkins, at whose house L’Angelier came to lodge in the July of 1856, and continued there till his death, spoke of her lodger as of civil habits, but wont to stay out at night, for which purpose he had the use of a latch-key. His health was usually good; but about the middle of February, 1857, he had a severe attack of illness, and another on the 23rd, of which she gave the following account:—
“One night he wished a pass key, as he thought he would be late out. I went to bed and did not hear him come in. I knocked at his door about eight the next morning and got no answer. I knocked again, and he said, ‘Come in, if you please.’ I went in. He said, ‘I have been very unwell; look what I have vomited.’ I said I thought it was bile. It was a greenish substance. There was a great deal of it. It was thick stuff, like gruel. I said, ‘Why did you not call me?’ He said that while on the road coming home, he was seized with a violent pain in his bowels and stomach, and when he was taking off his clothes, thought he should have died on the carpet, and no human eye would have seen him. ‘I was not able,’ he said, ‘to ring the bell.’ He asked me to make a little tea, and said he would not go out. I emptied what he had vomited, and advised him to go to a doctor, and he said he would. He took a little breakfast and then went to sleep for an hour, when I went back to him, and he said he was better, and would go out. Mr. Thuau, who lodges in my house, saw him. He went out between ten and eleven—his place of business is two streets off. He returned about three in the afternoon, said he had been to a doctor and brought a bottle of medicine with him. He took the medicine and complained about feeling very thirsty.
“His illness made a great change in his appearance. He looked yellow and dull, and before that his complexion was fresh. He became dark under the eyes, and the red of his cheeks seemed to be more broken. He complained of being very cold after he came in. He lay down on the sofa, and I laid a railway-rug over him. I did nothing for his feet. He never was the same after his illness. When asked how he felt, he was accustomed to say, ‘I never feel well.’ On a Monday morning, about four o’clock, he called me. He was vomiting. It was the same kind of stuff as before in colour and otherwise. There was not quite so much of it. He complained on this occasion likewise of pain in the bowels and stomach, and of thirst and cold. I did not know he was out the night before. He did not say anything about it. I put more blankets on him, jars of hot water to his feet, and made him some tea. I gave him also a great many drinks—toast and water, lemon and water, and such like—because he was thirsty. I called again about six in the morning. He did not rise until the forenoon. Dr. Thomson came to attend, fetched by Thuau, and left a prescription for powders, of which he took one or two. He said they were not doing him the good he expected; ‘the doctor always said he was getting better, but he did not feel well;’ ‘he did not feel getting better.’ He was eight days away from business at that time. Some time after he went to Edinburgh, and returned to Glasgow on the 17th of March, and stayed till the 19th, when he went away, as he said, to the Bridge of Allan.
“He went away about 10 A.M., and said he would not be home before Wednesday night or Thursday morning next week. A letter came for him on the 19th like those that used to come, and I gave it to Thuau. I don’t remember any coming on Friday, but one more, like a lady’s writing, on Saturday, which I also gave to Thuau. (Identifies envelope as like that of letter received on Saturday, but not another which was shown her.) L’Angelier was much disappointed at not getting a letter before he left, and said, ‘If I get a letter, perhaps I shall be home to-night.’
“I next saw L’Angelier on Sunday night, about eight. He said the letter sent had brought him home. I told him it had come on Saturday afternoon. He did not say where he had come from. I understood he had been at the Bridge of Allan. He looked much better, and said he was so. He went out about 9 P.M., and asked for a latch-key, as he might be late. I was to call him early. It was about half-past two next morning when I next saw him; he did not use the latch-key, but rang the bell violently. When I opened the door, he was standing with his arms on his stomach. He said, ‘I am very bad. I am going to have another vomiting of that bile.’ The first time I saw the vomitings, I said it was bile. He said he was never troubled with bile. He said he never thought he should have got home, he was so bad on the road. He did not say how he had been bad. The first thing he took was a little water. I filled up the tumbler, and he tried to vomit. He wished a little tea. I went into the room (with it?), and before he was half undressed he was vomiting severely. It was the same kind of matter as I had seen before. There was a light. The vomiting was attended with great pain. I asked him whether he had taken anything to disagree with his stomach. He said he had taken nothing since he was at the Bridge of Allan. He was chill and cold, and wished a jar of hot water to his feet, and another to his stomach. I got these for him, and two blankets and mats. He got a little easier. About four o’clock he was worse, and on my proposing to go for a doctor said he was a little better, and I need not. About five he was worse again, and his bowels became bad. He had been vomiting only up to this time. I went for Dr. Steven, who could not come so early, but told me to give him twenty-five drops of laudanum, and put a mustard blister on his stomach, and if he did not get better he would come. At L’Angelier’s request, I went again, and the doctor came, who immediately ordered him mustard. I said to him, ‘Look at what he has vomited.’ He said, ‘Take it away, it is making him faint.’ I got the mustard, and the doctor put it on, and I think gave him a little morphia. I said to L’Angelier, ‘This is the worst attack you have had.’ The doctor stayed about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. I took him into the dining-room, and asked him what was wrong; he asked me if he was a person that tippled. I said, ‘No,’ and that this was the second time this had occurred, and asked what was the reason. The doctor said this was matter for explanation. The first time I went back, L’Angelier asked what the doctor had said. I said he thought he would get over it, and L’Angelier replied, ‘I am far worse than he thinks.’ About nine, when I drew the curtains, he looked very ill, and I asked if there was no one he wished sent for. He asked to see Miss Perry, of Bamfield Street. I sent for her. He said he thought that if he could get five minutes’ sleep he should be better. These were the last words I heard him use. I went back into the room in about five minutes; he was then quite quiet, and I thought he was asleep. The doctor then returned, and I told him so. He went into the room, felt his pulse, lifted his head, and said he was dead.”
Nothing of importance with reference to the symptoms of his attacks was elicited in cross-examination. His first illness, according to the witness, was a great deal worse than the second. It was in January that he first complained of ill health. He then first complained of his tongue; then a boil came out on his neck, and shortly after another. She did not think that he ate what suited him, and especially too many vegetables, to which he said he was accustomed in France. On the morning of his death he complained about his mouth being sore. The doctor gave him some water, and he said it was choking him, or that it was going into his chest. When in bed that morning he always had his arms out on the bed clothes. She did not remember his hands being clenched. His right hand was clenched when he died. The remainder of the cross-examination related to the dress he usually wore, and the search by the officers for his papers.[106]
MEDICAL EVIDENCE.
Dr. Thomson, a physician in Glasgow, who had known L’Angelier for two years, gave the following evidence as to his health up to about the 10th of March:—
“He consulted me professionally, the first time, fully a year ago, when he had a bowel complaint, of which he got better. Next time was on the 3rd February this year for a cold and cough, and boil on his neck, for which I prescribed. The next week after I saw him, when another boil had appeared. On the 23rd of February he came to me. He was very feverish, and his tongue was furred, and had a patchy appearance, from the fur being off in various places. He complained of nausea, and had been vomiting. He was prostrate, his pulse was quick, and he had general symptoms of fever. I prescribed for him (taking his complaint to be bilious derangement) an aperient draught. He had been ill, I think, for a day or two, but he had been taken worse the night before he called on me—during the night of the 22nd and the morning of the 23rd. He was confined to the house for two or three days. I visited him on the 24th, 25th, and 26th of February, and on the 1st of March met him. The aperient draught I prescribed contained magnesia and soda. On the 24th I prescribed powders containing rhubarb, soda, chalk of camomile, and ipecacuanha. On the 24th he was much in the same state. He had vomited the draught I had given him on the 23rd, and I observed that his skin was considerably jaundiced; and from the whole symptoms I called the disease a bilious fever. On the 25th he was rather better, and had risen from his bed to the sofa, but was not dressed. On the 26th he felt considerably better and cooler, and I did not think it necessary to repeat my visits till I happened to be in the neighbourhood. It did not occur to me that these symptoms arose from the action of any irritant poison. If I had known that he had taken an irritant poison, these were the symptoms I should expect to follow. I don’t think I asked him when he was seriously taken ill. I had not seen him for some little time before, and certainly he looked very dejected and ill; his colour was rather darker and jaundiced, and round the eye the colour was rather darker than usual. I saw him again eight or ten days after the 1st of March. He called on me, but I have no note of the day; he was much the same as on the 1st of March. He said he was thinking of going into the country, but did not say where. I did not prescribe for him then. On the 26th of February, I think I told him to give up smoking. I thought it was injurious to his stomach. I never saw him again in life.”