Yet perhaps if Dumas had had the handling of this chapter he would have spun you a wonderful and mysterious story out of the web of it. Though I doubt after all if he would have deigned to write about such a humble practitioner in the art of poisoning. He must have his most noble Marquise de Brinvilliers and her elegant accomplice, Sainte Croix, before he can transpose squalid crime into profitable romance.
Mary Ann Britland is a figure in Manchester history as being the only woman ever hanged for murder in Strangeways Gaol. For myself, I think that nothing could have saved her from the ultimate
penalty of the law, though I recognise that there are distinctions even among evildoers, and that there was sense in the “bull” of the Irish barrister when he was asked his opinion about the Maybrick case, and said: “After all, you can’t expect an English Home Secretary to hang a lady he might meet out at dinner afterwards.” The trial was interesting to me as being the first murder trial I had ever sat through, and the closing scenes of it, horrible as they were, impressed me very strongly with the inadvisability of a Crown Court sitting late into the night on the trial of prisoners, and went far to convince me that capital punishment enshrined the wickedest criminal in a veil of mystery behind which the crime itself and its victims were too often lost sight of.
Mary Ann Britland was a factory operative about thirty-nine years old, living with her husband and daughter in Turner Lane, Ashton. On March 9, 1896, her daughter died very suddenly. On May 3 her husband died equally suddenly. She then went to live with some neighbours named Mr. and Mrs. Dixon. She and Mr. Dixon had been on very friendly terms, and the evidence showed that Mary Dixon, her friend’s wife, invited her to her house out of compassion. On May 14 Mary Dixon died very suddenly. Upon this the Ashton police began to bestir themselves. A post-mortem was held on Mary Dixon, revealing the fact that she died of strychnine poisoning. Mrs. Britland was arrested. The bodies of her daughter and husband were exhumed, and the evidence showed that they, too,
had died of strychnine poisoning. Thomas Dixon was now arrested, and an inquiry begun before the magistrates. Falkner Blair defended the woman, and Byrne appeared for Dixon. There was little or no evidence against the latter, and an eloquent speech by Byrne secured his discharge before the magistrates. Although no doubt he was innocent, it was to this piece of advocacy he probably owed his life, as unless a judge on the trial had withdrawn his case from the jury on the ground that there was no evidence against him it is almost certain he would have been convicted, so hopeless is the position of a man whose only apology is that the woman tempted him and he fell, when he comes before a tribunal of twelve fellow-sinners. Dixon’s only chance would have been a jury of women.
The trial came before Mr. Justice Cave in July of the same year. Addison, Q.C., and Woodard prosecuted, and Blair and Byrne defended. I had made a précis of the case for Blair at his request, and I took a note for them during the trial. The case lasted two days, and at the end of the second day Blair addressed the jury. The evidence was overwhelming. The three deceased persons had been poisoned by strychnine. Mrs. Britland had purchased “mouse powder” in sufficient quantities to kill them all, and there was no evidence of any mice on whom it could have been legitimately used. The case of the poisoning of Mrs. Dixon was the one actually tried, but the deaths of the others
were proved to show “system” and rebut the defence of accident. Even if there had not been sufficient evidence to secure a conviction, Mrs. Britland had had many indiscreet conversations about “mouse powder” and poisoning, and had been anxious to discover whether such poisoning could be traced after death. Blair’s task seemed hopeless enough, but he made an eloquent and cunning address to the jury.
It was one of those cases where anything like reasoned argument would have been useless. The only chance for the advocate who loved his art as Blair did was to endeavour to instil doubt into the receptive minds of the jury, that by good hap the prisoner should gain the benefit of it. This he did with great skill, touching lightly upon the possibilities of accident or of poisoning by some other hands, or even of self-administration. And in those days when the guilty one was safe in the dock and could give no evidence, there was greater scope for the art of advocacy—for is it not an art, as Master Izaak tells us, to “deceive a trout with an artificial fly.” And Blair was a great artist at the raising of haunting doubts, which followed the jury when they retired to their inner room, so that he almost seemed to be the thirteenth man on the jury, he and his doubts remained so present to their anxious minds. And I remember no advocate who could handle a hopeless case more cleverly within the honest rules of the game, unless it be Sir Edward Clarke himself. The result was extraordinary.
Mr. Justice Cave summed up in a businesslike and sensible style, expecting a conviction in a few minutes, and at twenty minutes to six the jury retired. The judge waited some little time, but, as they did not return, he went across to his lodgings, then in the same building, and we went upstairs to the Bar mess. At a quarter to eight they returned. The wretched prisoner was put up in the dock. The foreman explained that they were not agreed. They handed a paper to the judge, who told them to retire and consider the matter further.
Blair left the building and Byrne remained to see what happened. It was well after 10 o’clock at night before they returned into court. I suppose the clerk of assize knew that they had not agreed upon their verdict, and for humane reasons did not send for the prisoner. Then began a conversation between the judge and the foreman. The judge told the jury that he must direct that they be taken to the hotel for the night, and then said, “Is there any legal difficulty in which I can assist you?”