[104] Mr. Minnoch, on the contrary, said, “She accepted me on the 28th of January, and then she and I arranged it on the 12th of March. From the 28th of January to the end of March there was nothing to suggest to my mind a doubt as to the engagement continuing. I had no idea she was engaged to any other. When the marriage was fixed in March it was to take place on the 18th of June.”
[105] “But surely,” said the Lord Justice Clerk, “had such been the case, she would never have wished to be ‘clasped to the heart,’ as she expresses it in her letter, of a man whom she had to inform that she was engaged to another, and that all relations must be broken off between them.”
[106] On this latter matter and the identification of the envelopes for the respective letters much time was occupied. In his charge the Lord Justice Clark said, that “though the procedure adopted had been loose and slovenly, it did not appear that the panel had suffered any prejudice from the want of any of them. As to each letter being in its proper envelope, in the first part of the correspondence, it did not much signify whether such were the case; because there was no doubt that those passionate letters written by the prisoner, declaring such strong love for L’Angelier, and some of them expressed in very licentious terms, were written by her at some time or other.”
[107] “Arsenious oil applied to scalp to cure vermin caused death on 10th day.”—Taylor, I., 254. “A solution to cure itch caused death in two years.” Cours de Med., Leq., p. 121. “Arsenious acid and gum to the head, caused death in 36 hours.”—American Journal of Med. Science, July, 1851. “When used as a face powder it caused poisoning symptoms.”—Christison, p. 329. “Arsenical soap applied to scrotum and axillæ produced violent pains in stomach, vomiting, purging, but patient recovered in fourteen days.”—Med. Times and Gazette, December 10, 1853. And see other similar cases in list in “Woodman and Tidy.”
[108] See Chapter VII.
[109] Referring to the evidence of Dr. Penny, the Dean, in his speech for the defence, said: “Here comes again another point on which the evidence for the Crown is very defective, to say the least of it. They knew very well when they were examining the contents of this poor man’s stomach, and his intestines generally, what was the arsenic that the prisoner had bought. They knew from her own candid statement that she bought it partly at Murdoch’s and partly at Currie’s. If that arsenic had been swallowed by the deceased, the colouring-matter could have been detected in the stomach—there was one means of connecting the prisoner with this poison which was found in L’Angelier’s stomach, and a very obvious means. It may be very well for Professor Penny and Dr. Christison to say now that their attention was not directed to this matter. Whose fault was this?—the whole thing was in the hand of the authorities. They kept it to themselves—they dealt with it exclusively—and they present this lame and impotent conclusion.”
[110] 14 Vict. c. 13, sec. 3: “Before the sale, the arsenic shall be mixed with soot or indigo in the proportion of one ounce of soot or half an ounce of indigo, at least, to one pound of arsenic, except in cases where, according to the representation of the purchaser, such mixture would render it unfit for his purpose, when it may be sold in quantities of not less than ten pounds.”
[111] In the Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Dec., 1857, Professor Christison gives the details of a case—not of suicide—in which 90 to 100 grains were found, and the party lived seven hours. In the case of R. v. Dodds, Lincoln Assizes, December, 1860, 150 grains were found; in that of R. v. Hewitt, or Holt, Chester Winter Assizes, 1863, 154 grains were found eleven weeks after death. Professor Christison’s letter will be found in [Appendix B.], p. [358].
[112] In Woodman and Tidy the following Table, showing the solubility of arsenic, is given:—
| Transparent Form. | Opaque Form. | Crystalline Acid. | |
| (1) 1,000 grains of distilledcold water, after standing24 hours—dissolved | 1·74 gr. | 1·16 gr. | 2·0 gr. |
| (2) 1,000 grains of boilingwater, poured on the acid,and allowed to stand24 hours—dissolved | 10·12 gr. | 5·4 gr. | 15·0 gr. |
| (3) 1,000 grains of water,boiled for one hour, thequantity being kept uniformby the addition of boilingwater from time to time,and filteredimmediately—dissolved | 64·5 gr. | 76·5 gr. | 87·0 gr. |