On the question whether the death of the boy was from poison, Mr. Montagu Williams, necessarily laid great stress on the admitted inability of the scientific witnesses to rely on any other test than that of taste. “Scientifically,” he said, “it was a leap in the dark, and they had to traverse a region of science up to the present moment unexplored. Who knows about aconite? and echo answers who? What was it? The root of monkshood. Aconite was one form, and aconitia was the active principle of that form: and up to the present moment, with the exception of one reported case, there was not a single authority on the subject.” Pursuing this subject, he said:—
“The first medical witness called was Dr. Berry, who on the night of December 3rd was visiting at Blenheim House, where he saw the poor boy until his death, and observed all the symptoms under which the unfortunate lad suffered. What were they? The lad told him that he was suffering from heartburn, and where was the symptom of heartburn in the administration of aconite in the evidence of the experts that had been brought before them? What medical gentleman had said that heartburn was a sign of aconitia poisoning? The poor lad was found vomiting, and Dr. Berry and another medical man, Dr. Little, treated him for irritation of the stomach. Neither of them treated him for, or thought of, poisoning. The boy was taken from the bath-room, where he was found, to the bed from which he never rose, and from first to last all the symptoms were those of irritation of the stomach. From nine o’clock to past eleven no attempt was made to use the stomach pump; and if the medical gentlemen thought poison had been taken, they never used anything to relieve him, or what might have saved him. If poison was in the minds of these medical men, why did they not treat him for such? It was clear, therefore, there was no thought of poison; and Dr. Berry admitted in evidence that it never occurred to him that it was so until the post-mortem examination. He said he then thought the death was from alkaloid poisoning. It was the duty of him (Mr. Williams) to cross-examine him on vegetable alkaloids. What was his knowledge? His knowledge was a blank, and he admitted he knew nothing of vegetable alkaloids. Therefore, the first expert witness called for the prosecution—who had, moreover, the benefit of seeing the symptoms in life—broke down altogether. It was his case that the theories of the prosecution were of the most speculative character. Dr. Little differed somewhat, and said, ‘We came to the conclusion that the boy was dying from a vegetable poison an hour before his death,’ while Dr. Berry said it was not until the post-mortem examination that they thought anything of the sort. Dr. Little says he read about vegetable alkaloids in his student days. Both those gentlemen, who give the opinion that death resulted from vegetable alkaloids, knew nothing whatever about the subject. Then they had Mr. Bond, a gentleman of great scientific attainments, well known in these courts, who gave the results of the post-mortem examination, and he (the learned counsel) thought it would not be straining the imagination too much to say that that gentleman gave the first idea of poisoning in the matter. Mr. Bond said he came to the conclusion that death resulted from a vegetable alkaloid, and again the same line of questions and answers followed. Mr. Bond admitted he had never known a case of such poisoning. And so the jury were asked to form a verdict on the evidence of two persons who had seen the symptoms of the deceased in life, and were entirely ignorant of the signs of vegetable alkaloid poisoning, and of Mr. Bond, who was not present, and who admitted he was also ignorant upon the subject. They were asked to give a verdict on which an existence hung, and to say they had no doubt whatever that aconitia was in the body. He could only say up to that time there was not one single piece of evidence that the boy died by aconitia poisoning.”
Passing thence to the evidence of Doctors Stevenson and Dupré, whose tests, the former said, “rested on his taste, on the effects of the solutions on the mice and his reading,” he called the attention of the jury to Dr. Stevenson’s admission that the results of most of these tests were consistent with other causes, though consistent with aconitia, and ridiculed the effects on the mice as confirmatory tests, quoting the remarks of Lord Coleridge that tests upon animals were always found to be most unreliable, and of Professor Tidy, “that although useful at arriving at results, they sometimes failed, and were not reliable.” “If they used their common sense they must see that that must be so. So delicate was the constitution of a mouse that one of those experimented on had died because the injecting needle had been stuck in a quarter of an inch too far. Mice would sometimes die from fright, and also from the injection of water, and yet because these mice spoken of died in five minutes they were asked to say that they died of aconitia poisoning.” As to the test of taste, Dr. Stevenson had admitted “that it was like some other alkaloids, and not like others.” The question of the production of cadaveric alkaloids was still sub judice. He was prevented, by the refusal of the Home Office, to allow experts on the prisoner’s behalf to be present at the analytical examination, from calling scientific witnesses to rebut—“an act that was trifling with life—a beautiful bit of red-tapeism; and, if it was contrary to all practice, the sooner it was done away with the better.”
On the second point, whether if aconitia was given, it was given by the prisoner, Mr. Montagu Williams, after alluding to the way in which his admitted poverty had been pressed against the prisoner, called the attention of the jury to the facilities the prisoner would have had of poisoning his brother-in-law during the boy’s visit at his house in the summer, or his projected visit at Christmas; to the fact that the supposed attempt was made in the full light of gas, and in the presence of both the master and the victim; that there was no proof that he had brought a capsule ready charged with poison, and that he must have manipulated one before their eyes, and that it was not by his request that powdered white sugar was brought. “What was there to prevent lump sugar being brought?” As to the pills found with the capsules,
“Where did they come from? No pills were given to the boy by the prisoner, for Mr. Bedbrook was present the whole time and no mention was made of pills. Where was the boy all the afternoon? In the room downstairs, and able to move about, though this was studiously concealed by everyone from Blenheim House. In this room was the box in which two pills were afterwards found, one of which was charged with aconitia. Were there other pills in that box? It was known that Percy John kept medicine unknown to everyone in the establishment, although it was against the rules of the school; it being the duty of the master to administer all medicine. The poor fellow was called ‘the swell pill taker,’ and what was more likely than that, with the fascination of the new capsules before him, he should have taken a pill for the heartburn from which he was suffering. Did he do so? It was suggested that these pills were some sent by the prisoner, but Mr. Bedbrook had exploded that idea. He swore that he thought he had destroyed those referred to, but at any rate he had never given them back to the prisoner. Now did these four or five pills, found on the table, come from the box? Was there any evidence to show that the boy did not carry pills in his pocket, and took one in consequence of the heartburn? What did the prosecution mean? Did they mean to say that there was a pill hidden in the capsule? If the boy had thought of such a thing, would he not have asked Mr. Bedbrook or Banbury whether they felt in a similar state? The boy was in the possession of all his faculties when questioned, but he did not say one word about the capsules.”
Mr. Montagu Williams then alluded to the admission of Mr. Whalley that poisons were occasionally left in the house after the chemical lectures, and to the probability that so large a dose of aconitia as was assumed to have been given would have acted sooner, as Dr. Stevenson admitted that 1/21 of a grain might kill, and 1/13 would certainly have a fatal effect. As for the medical note-book found in the prisoner’s possession, he reminded the jury of Lord Campbell’s opinion in Palmer’s case that nothing was more natural for a professional man, and added, “It had no more bearing on the case than if ‘Russell on Crimes’ had been found in his own possession, on a charge of murder.”
On the proof of the purchase of aconitia at Allen’s, he begged them to note, that on the 5th of December the police commenced their enquiries, on the 6th the assistants at Allen’s communicated with them, saying that the prisoner had purchased atropia, and that it was not until after that that they changed their opinion and were convinced that it was aconitia. It was true that no entry of 3d. was found in the cash book, but there was one of 8d., and one of the chemists had deposed that the wholesale price of atropia, to a medical man, was 4d. a grain. But even if it was aconitia that the prisoner then purchased, it was only natural for him so to do, as he was suffering from rheumatism, of which it was a cure. Again, though they knew where the larger quinine powders, which were not poisoned, came from, it had not been proved whence the smaller came, which it was the duty of the prosecution to have done. “Oddly enough, they were tied up with a piece of string, a most unusual thing coming from a chemist’s shop. They had traced twelve quinine powders, but they had failed to trace the pills sent from America which Mr. Bedbrook swore were not given back to the deceased. He, Mr. Williams, could not say where the smaller powders came from, nor where the pills came from. The burden was not on him to do so, but on the prosecution.”
Turning then to the evidence of the visit to the boy at Shanklin, Mr. Williams said he would deal with that important episode most successfully.
“Albert Smith,” he said, “proved that on the 28th of August he sold to prisoner three grains of atropia and one grain of aconitia, charging 4d. per grain for the first and 1s. 6d. per grain for the last named. The suggestion on the part of the prosecution was that in the month of August the assassin was at work and an attempt was made on the life of the lad. In his judgment he would make that melt into the thinnest of thin air. The 28th of August was a Sunday, and on the previous day Mr. and Mrs. Chapman and the boy arrived. At that time there were four persons of the name of Lamson residing at the Isle of Wight—namely, the prisoner’s father and mother, and himself and his wife. On the 27th of August they met the boy at the station, and went to Mrs. Jolliffe’s lodgings, and here again there appeared a kindness and solicitude for the deceased. The 28th was Sunday, and it was said that he bought aconitia on that day, and that he was present on the 29th, and in order to prove it it was said that a parcel was left at the station in the name of Lamson, when there were four persons on the island named Lamson. It was further said that the deceased suffered from illness after taking something given to him by the prisoner, and from that they assumed it was aconitia bought at the shop of Mr. Smith that he had taken. The proof was all the other way, as the symptoms upon which the prosecution relied all through the case were not those which could be assigned to aconitia, while he recovered within a few hours. Beyond that, it was shown that he suffered from indigestion, especially by the fact that although he dined at one o’clock on the day of his death, undigested food was found in the vomit at nine o’clock at night. The prisoner purchased the atropia and aconitia on the 28th of August, he was to leave for America on the 30th. This mixture was the very thing he would have taken, and the very time he would have bought it for the purpose of going on the voyage. The dates exactly suited.”
Counsel’s explanation of the story told by the prisoner to the witness Tulloch was ingenious.