Cross-examined by Mr. Serjeant Shee.—I do not think that the deceased was fond of taking mercury before I advised him against it; but he was timid on the subject of his throat, and was apt to take the advice of anyone. No; I don’t think that he would take quack medicines. I don’t think he was so foolish as that.
Mr. Stevens, his stepfather, who saw him at the Euston Station on the 5th of November, when starting for Rugeley, said, “he looked better than he had seen him for a long time. ‘You don’t look,’ he said to him, ‘like an invalid’; and Cook, striking his chest, said he was quite well, and should be all right if he was happy.” In point of appearance he was not a robust man; his complexion was pale, and he had sore throat in the previous winter for some months.
For the defence, Foster, a farmer, said he considered him of a weak constitution, because he had bilious headaches, the last a year and a half back, but admitted that he hunted three days a week.
John Sargeant, a betting man, who met him at the races which he attended, said:—I had an opportunity of seeing the state of his throat before he died. I was with him at the Liverpool meeting the week previous to the Shrewsbury races; we slept in adjoining rooms. One morning he called me into his room and drew my attention to his throat, which was much inflamed. There were ulcers upon it, and the tongue was so swollen, that I said I was surprised at the state of his mouth. He said he had been in that state for weeks and months, “And now,” he said, “I don’t take notice of it.” He had shown me his throat before this at almost every meeting we attended. He took some gingerbread and cayenne on the platform at Liverpool, and told me afterwards it nearly killed him. (It came out afterwards that the cayenne nut was a trick nut.) The witness had also known Palmer supply Cook with blackwash before his death. He had never seen Cook’s throat dressed by anybody, and was surprised to see him eat and drink so well. He saw the blackwash applied (externally) at the Warwick Spring Meeting in 1855. With reference to another point, this witness spoke to Cook being unable to pay him more than £10 out of £25 at the Liverpool meeting, and promising the balance at Shrewsbury.
[31] On the part of the prisoner, a saddler at Rugeley, of the name of Myalt, whom Fisher spoke of as being in the room with Cook and Palmer, was called to give an entirely different account of this suspicious incident. “I saw Cook,” said this witness, “in Palmer’s company on Wednesday, about twelve o’clock. I had not dined with Palmer, but at my house at Rugeley, and got back to Shrewsbury between eight and nine, and went to Palmer’s room to see if he was in. The first person I saw was Cook at the room door, who said, ‘What brought you here?’ I told him, ‘to see how they were getting on.’ Palmer, I found, had gone out, and I went into the town, and was away about an hour. “When I returned Palmer was not there, so I waited in his room till he returned, about a couple of hours. He came in with Cook, who was the worse for liquor—not very drunk—rather. They asked me to take some brandy and water; it was produced directly afterwards—the brandy in a decanter, the water might be on the table. I did not leave the room at all, from the time Cook and Palmer came in till they all went to bed. I did not see anything put into the brandy and water; nothing could be without my seeing it. Palmer and I left together, and slept that night in the same room. Cook said something about its being bad. He drank part of it off, and then gave it to some one to taste. He proposed to have some more, but Palmer said he would not unless Cook drank his out. Nothing more happened that night. Next morning Palmer asked me to call Cook. I went into his room, and he told me how ill he had been in the night, and obliged to send for a doctor. He asked me what had been put into the brandy and water, and I told him I did not know of anything. He asked me to send for the doctor—Palmer. I did so. The witness did not remember Mrs. Brooks coming, or Palmer being called out of the room. He swore that Cook did not say ‘it burns my throat.’ Did not remember Fisher saying that it was no good his tasting it, as there was nothing in the glass. He told Mr. Gardner and Mr. Stevens before the inquest what he now said, but they had not subpœnaed him.
[32] “Lord Campbell did not even read this portion of the witness’s evidence to the jury. Whatever its value might be, and it had some in the prisoner’s favour, they were not reminded of it, and can hardly be expected to have remembered it after a twelve days’ trial.” Letter to Lord Campbell, p. 24.
[33] Some questions on this point were put to Mr. Gardner, the solicitor for the prosecution, but were stopped as too general.
[34] Mills, in her cross-examination, said that Palmer “had on a plaid dressing-gown, but could not say whether he had on a cap or not.”
[35] Lord Campbell had omitted from his notes this contradiction of the statement of Mills and others that the body was arched, and when Mr. Serjeant Shee called his attention to it, made no comment on it to the jury.—Evidence of Mary Keeling.
[36] But see the evidence of Mr. Partridge, Mr. Rogers, and Mr. Pemberton as to the state of the exhumed corpse, and the probable effect of the granules.—Evidence of scientific witnesses for the defence, post, pp. 170-4.