To Serjeant Byles.—“The same peculiar action at the back of the throat is, I think, felt by others on putting prussic acid to the nose. I communicated the nature of my evidence to the solicitor of the prisoner about a month ago.”
Baron Parke.—“Have you or have you not a doubt upon your mind from the result of your experiments as to the existence of prussic acid in the stomach?”
Witness.—“None whatever! I have no doubt that prussic acid may exist without being smelt.”
Baron Parke.—“If there was an absence of smell, would you suppose that the prussic acid was present in the shape of a salt, and that, therefore, you did not smell it?”
Witness.—“Absence of smell may arise from dilution, or from its being covered by the smell of other substances.”
Baron Parke.—“Do you, in this particular case, ascribe the absence of smell to the circumstance of the prussic acid being in the form of a salt?”
Witness.—“No, because it could not exist in the stomach as a cyanide of potassium, which is a salt, or as a cyanide of soda, when another and more powerful acid was present; as, for instance, muriatic acid, which in this case was found in considerable quantity, it being an acid generated by the process of digestion.”
Baron Parke.—“Do you not believe that there was also acetic acid present. Is not that a strong acid?”
Witness.—“I have no doubt there was also acetic acid present, and it would have a greater affinity for soda or potash than prussic acid. I think prussic acid cannot be formed by putrefaction in the stomach.”
Mr. Joseph Cooper, a son of the last witness, and his assistant for four years, deposed to having smelt the ordinary prussic acid at the time in the process, mentioned by his father.