[22] The potash and ferrous salt form potassium sulphate and ferrous hydroxide, the latter combines with cyanogen and more potash to form potassium ferro-cyanide, the ferric chloride with the potash produces ferric hydroxide and potassium chloride; when the hydrochloric acid is added, it dissolves up the excess of ferrous and ferric hydroxides, forming ferrous and ferric chlorides, and the ferric chloride unites with the potassium ferrocyanide to form ferric ferrocyanide or Prussian blue.
[23] Professor Carey Lea (American Journal of Science, 3, ix., 121) prefers to mix a weak solution of ammonio-ferrous sulphate with a little ammonio-ferric citrate, to acidify with hydrochloric acid, then to place two or three drops of this on a white plate, and to add a few drops of the suspected solution. A blue cloudiness indicates HCN. This method, he says, is capable of detecting 1/5000 of a grain of HCN. But I do not think it more delicate than the old method if properly performed, and it does not so easily admit of comparative experiment as to quantity.
[24] Professor Toynbee met his death by incautious use in this way.
[25] Death from suffocation.
[26] 19 Vict. c. 16.
[27] The authorities for the following report are (1) Report of Trial of William Palmer. J. Gilbert, Lond., 1856. (2) Reprint of Times Report of the Trial. Ward and Lock, Lond., 1856; and the Life and Career of William Palmer, by the same publishers. (3) Verbatim Report of the Trial, from shorthand notes of Mr. Angelo Bennett. J. Allen, Lond., 1856. (4) Letter to Lord Chief Justice Campbell by the Rev. Thomas Palmer, brother to the prisoner, with appendix of documents, including memorial from his solicitor to Sir G. Grey, letters and newspaper criticisms. Taylor, Lond., 1856. I have also availed myself of Mr. Justice Stephens’ summary of the trial and his comments on the evidence, in the appendix to the third volume of his History of the Criminal Law of England.
[28] “From his childhood upward,” says his brother, “no man was gentler of heart—his charity was inexhaustible; his kindliness to all who were in distress well known. To him the wanderer resorted in his afflictions; by him the poor and houseless were fed and comforted. I write in the face of the public, with my character as a gentleman and a clergyman at stake, and I avow only facts that cannot be denied. His liberality was a proverb; his frank sincerity, his courage, his faithful loyalty to his friends, his temperance, his performance of the duties of religion, his social relations in the character of father, husband, and son, won for him the love and confidence of all who approached him; and though it is true that in one fatal instance he violated the laws of his country, and subjected himself to a severe penalty for an infringement of its commercial code, yet, this excepted, his was in all respects the very opposite of that cool, calculating, cowardly, crafty temper, which is essential to the poisoner, and we know cannot co-exist with those qualities which my brother possessed from his earliest years down even to the day when your lordship sent him to his death.” Letter to Lord Campbell, pp. 4, 5.
[29] The excuse put forward for this was his wish to raise money for Bate. The prisoner’s brother complains, in his letter to Lord Campbell, pp. 29, 30, and with justice, that though the evidence of the negotiation for this insurance was afterwards excluded as irrelevant, the statement was allowed to be made by the Attorney-General without a comment, which Lord Campbell must have known would prejudice the case against the prisoner. This exclusion of the evidence of a statement which has been allowed to pass unchallenged is nearly as useless as the formal warning not to pay any attention to some evidence that has been wrongly admitted—the prejudice has been raised, and the mischief already done. But for the result of this trial, he would have been tried for the murder of his wife, whose body had been exhumed and analysed.
[30] As the probability of Cook’s state of health predisposing him to epileptic attacks was made part of the prisoner’s case, the evidence of his regular medical attendant is subjoined:—
Dr. Henry Savage, physician, of 7, Gloucester-place, examined by the Attorney-General.—I knew John Parsons Cook. He had been in the habit of consulting me professionally during the last four years. He was a man not of robust constitution; but his general health was good. He came to me in May, 1855, but I saw him about November of the year before, and early in the spring of 1855. In the spring of 1855 the old affair—indigestion—was one cause of his visiting me, and he had some spots upon his body, about which he was uneasy. He had also two shallow ulcers on his tongue, which corresponded with two bad teeth. He said that he had been under a mild mercurial course, and he imagined that those spots were very syphilitic. I thought they were not, and I recommended the discontinuance of mercury. I gave him quinine as a tonic, and an aperient composed of cream of tartar, magnesia, and sulphur. I never at any time gave him antimony. Under the treatment which I prescribed the sores gradually disappeared, and they were quite well by the end of May. I saw him, however, frequently in June, as he still felt some little anxiety about the accuracy of my opinion. If any little spot made its appearance he came to me, and I also was anxious on the subject, as my opinion differed from that of another medical man in London. Every time he came to me I examined him carefully. There were no indications of a syphilitic character about the sores, and there was no ulceration of the throat, but one of the tonsils was slightly enlarged and tender. I saw him last alive, and carefully examined him, either on the 3rd or 5th of November. There was in my judgment no venereal taint about him at the time.