Trial of William Palmer

by Unknown

Then, gentlemen, it is said that there are two other circumstances in the case which make strongly in favour of the prisoner, and negative the presumption of a guilty intention, and those are, the fact that he called in two medical men. Here, again, I admit that this is a matter to which all due consideration ought to be given. He called in Dr. Bamford on the Saturday, and he wrote to Mr. Jones on the Sunday, and desired his presence to attend his sick friend. It is perfectly true that he did. It is perfectly true, as medical men, they would be likely to know the symptoms of poisoning by strychnia, and they would be likely to suspect that death had ensued from it; and yet even here it strikes me that there is a singular inconsistency in the defence. See the strange contradiction in which the witnesses called for the defence involve my learned friend who puts them forward, if all those symptoms were not the symptoms of strychnia. If they are referable to all the multiform variety of disease to which those witnesses have spoken, why, then, should Mr. Palmer have the credit of having selected medical men who would be likely to know from those symptoms that they were symptoms of strychnia? I pass that by; it is not a matter of very much importance. It is true that he did have those two medical men. He called in old Dr. Bamford. I speak of that gentleman in terms of perfect respect; but I think I do him no injustice if I say that the vigour of his intellect and his power of observation have been impaired, as all human powers are liable to be impaired, by the advancing hand of time. I do not think he was a person likely to make very shrewd observations upon any symptoms exhibited to him, either immediately after death or upon the subsequent examination of the body; and the best proof of that is to be found in that which he has actually done and written with reference to this case. As regards Mr. Jones the same observation does not apply. He was a young man in the full possession of his intellect and the professional knowledge which he had acquired. Nevertheless, about him the observations I am about to address to you I think are not unworthy of notice. The prisoner at the bar selected his men well, for what has come to pass shows how wisely he judged of what was likely to take place. This death occurred in the presence of Mr. Jones, with all those fearful symptoms which you have heard described; yet Mr. Jones suspected nothing; and if Mr. Stevens had not exhibited that sagacity and firmness which he did manifest in the after parts of this transaction, and if Mr. Palmer had succeeded in getting that body hastily introduced into the strong oak coffin that he had had made for it, the body would have been consigned to the grave, and nobody would have been aught the wiser. The presence of Mr. Jones, and the presence of Dr. Bamford, would not have led to detection, would not have frustrated the designs with which I shall presently contend before you this death was brought about.

Attorney-General

On the other hand, gentlemen, the matter is perhaps capable of this aspect, it may have been that a man whose cunning was equal to his boldness may have thought it the best course to adopt to avoid suspicion—to prevent its possibility—was to take care that medical men should be called in and should be present at the time of death; nor is there anything to show that the prisoner had the most distant notion that Mr. Jones intended to sleep in this room that night; and if he had not the man would have been found dead in the morning; he would have gone through his mortal struggle and intense and fearful agony; he would have died there alone and unbefriended; he would have been found dead the next morning; the old man would have said it was apoplexy, and the young man would have put it down to epilepsy. If any one had whispered a suspicion, the same argument would have been used which has been used now with so much power and force by my learned friend. Can you imagine that the man would have called in medical men to be the witnesses of a death which he himself was bringing about? But, gentlemen, as I have already said, if you believe the evidence of Newton, and if you believe that that same night pills were administered to Cook by Palmer—and that, I believe, will be your opinion and conclusion, notwithstanding that wretched witness to-day said he heard Cook say to Palmer that he had taken the pills already, because he, Palmer, was late, whereas the woman witness, Mills, told you that the next morning Cook reminded her that his agony was such as she never could have witnessed in any human being, and he told her he ascribed it to the pills which Palmer had given him at half-past ten—if you believe that statement, and that the pills were given him by Palmer at half-past ten, and you find that Palmer a few short minutes, perhaps, before went to Newton, and got the poison from Newton, and you find upon that night the first paroxysms, though not so violent and not fatal, yet similar and analogous in character to those which preceded the death, can you doubt on the first night the poison was administered to him? though with what purpose I know not; I can only speculate—whether it was to bring about by some minute dose convulsions which should not have the complete character of tetanus, but would bear a resemblance to natural convulsions which should justify his saying afterwards that the man had had a fit, and so prepare those who should hear of it on the next night, when the death was to ensue, for the belief that it was merely a succession of the same description of fit that he had had before. That is one solution. The other may be that he attempted on that Monday night to carry out his fell purpose to its full extent, but that the poison proved inefficacious. We hear that an adulterated form, or, at all events, an inferior form, called bruchsia, is occasionally sold, and it may have been that it failed in its effect. It is only one-tenth of the strength. We know that he purchased poison on Tuesday, and that on that night Cook died with all the symptoms of poison; and why he purchased that poison is not in any way accounted for. The symptoms were the same on the Tuesday night in character, though greater in degree, than they were on the Monday; and there is found a witness who comes forward and says, with no earthly motive to tell so foul a falsehood, “I found the character of the convulsions the two succeeding nights the same.” I cannot resist the conclusion to which my reasoning impels me that poison was administered upon both nights, though it failed upon the first. I can only speculate as to what was the cause of failure. There are the facts, and you must deal with them.

Attorney-General

Alas! gentlemen, it does not stop there; there is another part of this case which, though it may not have been the means of death, is of the highest value in estimating the credit that is to be given to the point which we advance of this death having been produced by strychnia—I allude to the antimony. We have had medical men and analytical chemists who have told us a great deal about strychnia, but not one has said a word about antimony. On the Wednesday night, at Shrewsbury, when Cook drinks his glass of brandy and water he fancies there is something in it that burns his throat; he exclaims at the time, and he is seized immediately with vomiting, which lasts for several hours. On that same night Mrs. Brookes sees the prisoner shaking something in a glass, evidently dissolving something in fluid. A man has been called here to-day, the boon companion, the chosen associate, the racing confederate of the prisoner, to come and tell you that all that story is untrue—that the woman never came down stairs—that Palmer never carried out the brandy and water—that there is not a word of truth in it—and the fact is that Palmer and Cook only came in at twelve o’clock, when Myatt, forsooth, had been waiting for two hours. Mrs. Brookes’ story is, according to him, an entire invention from beginning to end; he swears that he must have seen if anything had been mixed with the brandy and water, and nothing was mixed with it. I think you will be more disposed to believe Mrs. Brookes than to believe any of those persons who were the associates of the prisoner, and who had been partners in his transactions. It is a remarkable fact that Cook drinks that brandy and water and a few minutes after is taken ill. There were other persons taken ill at Shrewsbury; it may be within the verge of possibility—although ten minutes after he had drunk the brandy and water he was taken with vomiting—that it was the same form of complaint to which other persons were subject in Shrewsbury; I do not want to press it one jot further than it ought to go, but it is a remarkable circumstance that the man is seen with a glass and with a fluid which he is mixing up and holding to the light, and shortly afterwards his friend who is drinking with him or drinking at the same table at which he is drinking, who, if Myatt be telling the truth, was somewhat in liquor, and ought not to have been pressed to take brandy and water—Palmer says that he will not take anything until Cook has exhausted his portion—and then immediately afterwards the man is taken ill. These are circumstances not altogether incapable of producing certain impressions upon one which it is difficult to shake off.

Attorney-General

Nevertheless, I pass on from that, and go to Rugeley. From the Saturday morning until the Monday morning I find this poor man suffering under the influence of constant vomiting; that was not the Shrewsbury disease—he had got rid of it; he was well on Thursday and he was well on Friday. On Saturday morning, after dining at Mr. Palmer’s, he is taken ill; and then we have the fact of Mr. Palmer administering his food, administering his remedies, sending over toast and water, sending over broth; and, no sooner has this poor man taken those things than he is seized with incessant vomitings of the most painful description. What about the broth? The broth is said to-day by Smith to have been sent from the Albion. Yes; and where does it find its way to? It is taken, not to the Talbot Arms, but to the prisoner’s kitchen. After that, instead of leaving it, as one would suppose he would leave it, to the woman to take to the Talbot Arms, he takes it himself from the fire, puts it into the cup, gives it to her, it is taken over, and the man vomits immediately after he has drunk it. On the Sunday the same thing is done again; the broth is brought from the same quarter, and attended with the same results. Of that broth the woman takes a couple of spoonfuls, and she is sick for several hours. She vomits twenty times, and is unable to leave her bed for some hours. My learned friend said she did not state that before the coroner. Nevertheless, it is sworn to by the other servant that the woman was ill. I can quite understand why the woman did not state it before the coroner. It shows the honesty of the woman’s character. It did not occur to her to connect the sickness from which she suffered with the taking of the broth; but afterwards, when the story of the antimony came up, and Cook’s sickness was connected with it, then she remembered perfectly well, after the evidence had been given, how she, having taken the broth, immediately became ill. The fact is not one capable of dispute, although it may be that she did not mention it before the coroner. And I think you will regard it as a very important and significant fact in the case, that, on the Monday when Palmer is absent, Cook is better. On the Tuesday he vomits again, though not in the same degree. But after death—now comes the important fact—antimony is found in the tissues of that man’s body, and his blood shows the presence of it; the blood shows distinctly that it must have been taken recently, within the last eight-and-forty hours previous to his death. How came it there? The small quantity that is found does not form the slightest criterion of the quantity that had been administered to him. Part of it, you know, would be thrown up by the act of vomiting which it provokes; part of it would pass away in other forms, but none would be there unless he had taken some. When did he take it? If you find that he is suffering from vomiting for days before his death—that a person is constantly administering things to him, and after taking those things he vomits—when the prisoner sends him over a basin of broth he vomits, and when the servant takes a couple of spoonfuls she is reduced to the same condition—what other conclusion can you come to, knowing that antimony is an irritant that will produce vomiting and retching in the human system, than that the antimony must have been administered to him by some one? By whom? Who but the prisoner at the bar could have done it? My learned friend says Cook might have taken antimony at some former time—that he might have taken James’ powder for a cold. There is not the slightest trace of evidence from the beginning to the end of the case that he ever had a cold, or ever took James’ powder over the whole period we are now ranging. Moreover, as I have even now said, it was in his blood, it must have been administered eight-and-forty hours before death; who could have administered it but the prisoner at the bar? I ask you to form your own judgment upon that matter, but I cannot resist the conclusion, it is irresistible. If so, for what purpose was it administered; it is difficult to say with anything like precision; one can only speculate upon it. It may have been, however, to produce the appearance of natural disease, to account for the calling in of medical men, and to account for the catastrophe which was already in preparation; but it may also have had another and a different object, and it is this—if we are right as to the motives which impelled the prisoner at the bar to commit this great crime, it was, at all events in part, that he might possess himself of the money which Cook would have to realise upon the settling day at Tattersall’s on Monday. If Cook went there himself the scheme was frustrated; Mr. Cook intended to go there himself, and if he had done so the prisoner’s designs would have failed of accomplishment. To make him ill at Shrewsbury—to get him in consequence to go to Rugeley, instead of going to London or anywhere else—to make him ill again and keep him ill at Rugeley might be part of a cleverly contrived and organised scheme. It might have been with one or other of those motives, it might have been with both, that the antimony was administered, and so sickness produced, but that the sickness was produced and that the antimony was afterwards found in the body are incapable of dispute. Put them together and you have cause and effect; and if you are satisfied that antimony was introduced into that poor man’s body for the purpose of producing vomiting and sickness, then, I say there is no one who could have given it to him within that recent period but the prisoner at the bar. Neither the doctor at Shrewsbury nor the doctor at Rugeley ever gave him one fraction of antimony which had those natural effects which as a cause it was certain to produce; then it will be for you to ask yourselves whether it can have been with any other than a fell purpose and design—with a view of paving the way for the more important act which was afterwards to follow.

My learned friend has dealt with this case of antimony in no other way than that which I have suggested, namely, casting out some loose, floating, imaginary notion that at some period or other, for which no precise date is given, he may have taken James’ powder for the purpose of getting rid of a cold. Alas! gentlemen, I feel that so idle an objection cannot stand between you and the conclusion which, I submit to you, arises from the fact that this antimony was given to Mr. Cook with a wicked design. If it was, just see the important influence which it exercises upon the other question. If antimony was found—if antimony can have been given with no legitimate object, and if it can only have been given by the prisoner at the bar—how great does it render the probability that to carry out the purpose, whatever it may be, that he had in his mind, he gave him this strychnia, of which the deadly effects and consequences have been but too plainly made manifest.

Attorney-General

Then, gentlemen, let us take the conduct of the prisoner into consideration in the after stages of the case, and also in one remarkable particular—in an incident that took place on the day of the death, on the evening of the preparation of the pills—and in his conduct taken in all its circumstances I fear you will find but too cogent proofs of his guilt. I begin with the Tuesday, the day of the death. Mr. Cook had had what every one will admit to have been a most severe fit on the night before. Dr. Bamford comes upon the Tuesday, but not a word is said to him about it. He comes, and the prisoner is solicitous that he shall not see Cook; and twice in the course of that morning, when old Mr. Bamford is desirous of coming up to see the man, the prisoner said, “He is tranquil and dozing; I wish him not to be disturbed.” That may have been innocent, but on the other hand, if Dr. Bamford had come at that time when the fit was fresh in Cook’s mind, the probability is great that Cook would have told him what had happened the night before. Cook does not see him till seven o’clock, when Mr. Jones had arrived. One would have expected that, having been invited to come by the prisoner, the first thing Mr. Palmer would have done would have been to mention how he found him the night before. He talks of nothing but about the bilious symptoms—bilious at Shrewsbury, bilious to Dr. Bamford, and bilious to Mr. Jones; and thus he is represented throughout by the prisoner at the bar, yet all this time the medical men agree in saying that there was not a bilious symptom about him from beginning to end; no feverish skin, no loaded tongue, and none of the concomitants of a bilious condition. The moment Mr. Jones sees him, considering he had heard that this man was suffering under a bilious affection, he says, “That is not the tongue of a bilious patient.” The only answer he gets is, “You should have seen it before.” When? When the man saw him at Shrewsbury, or when Dr. Bamford saw him, they both found his tongue perfectly clean; the irritation in the bowels was not the result of natural action, but of the antimony; and not one single word does he say to Mr. Jones of the fit that had taken place the night before. It is a remarkable circumstance, when the three medical men are consulting at the bedside, the patient says, “I will have no more pills—no more medicine to-night,” intimating that his sufferings of the night before he ascribed to the pills which he had taken. There is no observation made by Mr. Palmer as to what had been the nature of the man’s attack the night before, he having been called up in the dead of the night. They go into an adjoining room to consult as to the best thing to be done. The man had declared his aversion to taking any pills or medicine; and Mr. Palmer immediately proposes that he shall take the same pills that he took the night before. He says to Mr. Jones, “Do not tell him the contents, because he has a strong objection to them.” It is arranged to have the pills made up; he does not wait to have the pills sent by Dr. Bamford, though it was early in the evening, but he accompanies Dr. Bamford down to his surgery. I cannot for the life of me understand why Dr. Bamford should have made up those pills at all. The prisoner had a surgery of his own close by, and he could have made up the pills in two minutes, he knew perfectly well their contents, instead of which he goes down with Dr. Bamford to his surgery. One would have supposed it would have been quite enough, as he was the person who every night administered the pills to Cook, if Dr. Bamford put the pills in a box and handed them over to Mr. Palmer, who knew what was to be done with them, instead of which Mr. Palmer asks Dr. Bamford to write the direction. He does write the direction, and then Mr. Palmer walks away with the pills. An interval occurs of an hour or two, during which time he had abundant opportunity of going home to his surgery and doing what he pleased in the way of substituting other pills. He comes back, and before he gives the pills he takes care to call the attention of Mr. Jones, who was present, to the remarkable handwriting of the old gentleman, Dr. Bamford, as being worthy of attention in a man of his advanced age. What necessity was there for all that? Was not it, think you, part of a scheme, that in case there should afterwards be any question as to the cause of this man’s death, or the possibility of his having had poison administered to him, he should be able to say to Mr. Jones, “Why, you know they were Dr. Bamford’s pills. You were present at the bedside of the deceased, you saw that I administered nothing except pills, and you must be clear they were Dr. Bamford’s pills. Did not I show you the address written, and call your attention to the excellence of the handwriting?” Who knows but all that prevented the possibility of suspicion being excited and presenting itself to the mind of Mr. Jones.