[183] “There were,” says Judge Stephen, “fourteen reasons in all assigned by Sir B. Brodie, six in favour of the prisoner, and eight against him, of which only two of the first and four of the second proceeded on medical or chemical grounds. Until these are published it is impossible to judge fairly of Brodie’s opinion.”
[184] Stephen’s Hist. Crim. Law of Eng., iii., 465.
[185] Margaret Higgins, a servant of Mrs. James, told a very different story when put into the box for cross-examination, her evidence not being taken for the prosecution. “On the morning of the 10th I went into Mrs. James’s bedroom, about half-past eight, and found two or three spoonsful of warmsago in a tea-cup by the bedside, and two cups on the table. I took the cup from the chair by the bedside down stairs, and ate the sago, which did me no harm.”[As the prisoner said he took it in about 5 a.m., the sago, being in an open cup, could not have been warm at 8·30. It was also clear, from other parts of her evidence, that she was in favour of the prisoner, and anxious to throw the crime on the Cafferatas.
[186] Evidence of Mrs. Cafferata, Dr. Cameron, Mr. Clarence Pemberton (surgeon), Mr. Tennyson Lloyd (solicitor), Inspector Horne, and detective Kehoe, who proved the seizure of the medicine bottles, &c., and their safe delivery to Dr. Edwards.
[187] “Free antimony” is what has not been taken up into the system. “Eliminated,” which has been taken up into the system.
[188] For these acids I have used the systematic nomenclature corresponding to the phosphates, as in Bernay’s “Notes for Students,” in preference to Fremy’s original titles.
[189] Sulphuric acid may be freed from arsenic or antimony by treating it with a few small fragments of charcoal and a little rock salt, and boiling till the hydrochloric and sulphurous acids have been expelled.
[190] Solutions of bismuth give with water white precipitates, which are not re-dissolved by tartaric acid.
[191] But it must be borne in mind that it was late in the evening when the cheese was taken up to the bedroom, where the light was not likely to have been strong; probably, on the contrary, was carefully shaded, so as not to annoy the invalid.
[192] This bottle, according to Serjeant Ballantine’s statement, had been sent by Dr. Julius to the deceased containing a quinine mixture.