Trial of William Palmer

by Unknown

Now, gentlemen, without going through the whole of these details, I will state to you my reasons for saying, on the authorities and from my study of the books of those two gentlemen, that, according to their principles, this cannot have been strychnia poison. Now, I object to the theory of its being strychnia poison, first, on this ground, that no case can be found in the books in which the patient while the paroxysm lasted has had so much command over the muscles of animal life and voluntary motion as Mr. Cook had on the Monday and Tuesday nights. You heard that Mr. Cook was sitting up in his bed, that Mr. Cook was beating the bed-clothes, that Mr. Cook was talking and crying out for Palmer, and to have the remedy given to him; that Mr. Cook, so far from being afraid of people touching him, asked to have his neck rubbed, and it was rubbed. There is not a single instance in the books of Dr. Taylor, or in the books of Dr. Christison, or any other books of any medical man describing the symptoms of the strychnia poison, in which the well-known symptoms the malasaux took place—not one, and it is inconsistent with their description, and what I tell you will be the proof Dr. Letheby will give of the experiment that I saw, and of many others he had performed.

Serjeant Shee

I will go to the next point on the ground of which I say this is not strychnia poison. I say there is no authentic case of tetanus by strychnia in which the paroxysms were delayed so long after ingestion of the poison as in this case. I will refer, however, to their own statements, knowing that they are here. (Extract from Dr. Taylor’s book read.) There was one case to which his attention was called; it was not a fatal one, but it got better, and still he says the symptoms were those which he described, and thought it was too late to get the poison out of the stomach, as in half an hour it had got into the circulation—what can be more clear? it is a broad, distinguishing feature in the strychnia. The interval which took place between the ingestion of the poison in Mr. Cook’s case and the time when the paroxysm commenced was much too long, three times too long, to indicate the effect of poison by strychnia. It cannot be pretended it was a similar case, if the symptoms are properly described, as I will presently call your attention to them, by Elizabeth Mills in her statement in this Court. Now, gentlemen, thirdly, I submit, and I will prove, that there is no case in which recovery from a paroxysm of strychnia poison has been so rapid as in Cook’s case on Monday night, or in which a patient has enjoyed so long an interval of repose or exemption from its symptoms after they had once set in. It is a very remarkable feature, if it be true—if I am right in saying that there is no case in which recovery has been so rapid as in Mr. Cook’s case on Monday night, followed by so long an interval of relief from the paroxysm. In fact, in the case of Mr. Cook’s, on the theory of the Crown, it would not have come on again if a second dose had not been given. There was an end of it when Elizabeth Mills left Palmer sleeping by the side of his friend in the arm-chair. How easy it would have been for him then, if he had been disposed, when Elizabeth Mills had gone to bed and had retired to her room, to have called out to her that Mr. Cook was in another fit, and to have killed him, almost without suspicion on the part of anybody. Dr. Christison tells us in general terms that these convulsions are succeeded by intervals of calm, during which the senses are unnaturally and unusually acute; another fit then begins, it subsides, and is succeeded by another and another, till at length a fit takes place more violent than any before it, and the animal dies suffocated. Here, I submit to you, is a distinction between the case of Mr. Cook and that which these gentlemen state to be the distinguishing feature, in that there is no recurrence.

Now, I will come to another feature of the disease, the post-mortem symptoms of the disease. I saw three animals killed, of which I have spoken to you, and Dr. Letheby was good enough to have dug up from his garden a rabbit which had been killed by strychnia, and to open it before me, to examine the heart, and the heart was full; the heart of the dog was quite full, and the hearts of the two rabbits which I saw killed were quite full—as full as they could possibly be. I am told that the result of an enormous proportion of such examinations has been, and, if properly conducted, of all of them, that the heart is full on the right side invariably. We will prove to you that the heart of the animal which was killed by strychnia poison is invariably full, and it stands to reason it would be so.

Serjeant Shee

Now, I have discussed what may be said for this purpose to be the theory of the matter, but I have not yet met the strong point which will be made for the Crown on the evidence of Elizabeth Mills. I am, on all occasions, most reluctant to attack a witness examined on his or her oath, and particularly if she be in a humble position. I am very reluctant to impute perjury to such a person. Let me point out to you what occurs to me to be the right opinion to be formed of the evidence of Elizabeth Mills. I submit to you in this case of life and death, or in any one case involving any question of real importance to liberty or to property, that that young woman’s evidence cannot and would not be regarded in the ordinary administration of justice when on material points she has stated two different stories. A jury can really hardly believe such a witness, and in criminal cases the learned judges are, without altogether rejecting the evidence and withholding it from the jury, in the habit of pointing out to the jury the discrepancies between the statements given at different times, and saying that under all the circumstances of the case it would not be safe to rely on the testimony in the last instance, if it differ from, and probably is more strongly adverse to, the party accused than the statements made when the impression was fresh in the witness’s mind. Now, observe that since the first time that she gave her evidence she has had the means of knowing what the case of the Crown is. She has had the means of knowing—I do not mean to say she has been tutored by the Crown—it would be a gross injustice to say so; and I know if my learned friend thought that had been done he would not have called her—or by any of the gentlemen who act for the Crown; but since she was examined at Rugeley she has had the means of knowing, by interviews she has had with different people, that the case of the Crown is, that Palmer, having first prepared the body of Cook for deadly poison by the poison of antimony, afterwards despatched him with the deadly poison of strychnia. She has learned that their case is, that there was an administration of something which did not eventually kill him, that is, antimony, but which had the effect of producing retching, and nausea, and irritation of the stomach, which is attributed, according to the hypothesis of the Crown, to the deliberate, persevering intention of the prisoner at the bar to reduce him bit by bit—making him reject everything off his stomach, so that when once the ingestion of the poison occurred he was certainly dead; that is the case. In her first evidence before the coroner she was asked whether she had tasted the broth, and she said that she had tasted the broth, and thought it very good; she did not say a single word about any ill effects that broth had produced upon her—not a single word. She has since learned it is part of the case for the Crown, or of those out of whose hands the Crown has taken this prosecution—in fact, the theory of Dr. Taylor—that all this retching and vomiting was the result of a constant dosing with antimonial poison, in order to prepare him for an utter inability to resist the fatal dose of strychnia which it was intended to give him. Accordingly, when she is examined here, fitting her evidence to the case, and probably after having been asked many times whether she had not been sick on some Sunday or another, she has persuaded herself, if she has not been persuaded—I do not wish to use the word suborned—that her sickness on some Sunday afternoon took place on the Sunday afternoon that broth was sent, and was caused by her having taken two spoonfuls of it. She did not say so in the first instance before the coroner, but that “she tasted it, and it was very good.” I ask you to consider for a moment whether it is not to the last degree improbable that a man like Palmer—a shrewd, intelligent, clever man—would expose himself to such a chance of detection as the sending of poisoned broth made at the Albion to the Talbot Arms, at the imminent risk of its finding its way to the kitchen, where, sure as fate, the cook would taste it. Can you conceive a cook not tasting broth made by another cook, and sent over as particularly good? I submit to you it was such a risk as no man in his senses could by any possibility run. A cook is, in the nature of the thing, a taster; she tastes everything; she does not know, of course, if it be her own making, whether it is good until she tastes it; she gets the habit of tasting—and as sure as Palmer sent the broth to the Talbot Arms, and any part of it reached the kitchen, so sure, if it contained antimony, would the cook be ill. Is it credible? I submit to you, it is not credible; and when you find she did not say a word about it in the first instance, and that an ample opportunity was afforded for her so to do in the way I have described, I submit you cannot rely upon her evidence here, as it differs with her evidence before the coroner. Again, she said that on the Saturday Cook had coffee for breakfast about eight o’clock. “He ate nothing but he vomited directly he had swallowed it. Up to the time I had given him the coffee I had not seen Palmer.” When she gave that evidence she was not aware it was part of the theory of the Crown that the traces of antimony (which Dr. Taylor says might have killed him) were to be made to fit into the theory of the strychnia poison—that it was a gradual preparation, by vomiting, for strychnia. That chart of the country over which she was to travel had not been laid before her. She did not then know what at the time she came here she did know—that it was part of the case for the Crown.

Serjeant Shee

The Attorney-General opened the case in that way distinctly, that that was the theory for the Crown; “that Palmer had ordered some coffee for Cook on the Saturday morning; it was brought up by the chambermaid, Elizabeth Mills, and given to Cook by Palmer, who had an opportunity of tampering with it before giving it to Cook.” That was the statement which the Attorney-General was instructed to make. There is all the difference between her first statement, that up to the time she had given the coffee to Palmer for Cook, and that Palmer had an opportunity of tampering with it. The young woman would not go so far as that, but she went to this extent—“Palmer came over at eight o’clock—ordered a cup of coffee for Cook—I gave it to Cook—I believe Palmer was in the bedroom—I put it into Mr. Cook’s hands, but I did not see him drink it—I observed afterwards the coffee had been vomited.” The statement thus made by her before you was not so strong as that of the Attorney-General, but, on the other hand, it was a great deal stronger than the statement she made before the coroner, because, according to her story then, Palmer had not an opportunity of dealing with it—she “did not see Palmer up to the time she had given him the coffee.” From the statement which she made here you might suppose that Palmer, if he had chosen, might have got the coffee from Cook—but that is in the last degree improbable—and have done what he wanted to do with it; for she says, “Palmer came over at eight o’clock and ordered a cup of coffee, and that when it was made she took the coffee up into the bedroom and gave it into Cook’s hands” (she believed Palmer was there), “but she did not see him drink it, and afterwards she observed the coffee had been vomited.” These two statements, the one before the coroner and the other before you, are essentially different, and the difference between them consists in this, that the last one supports the theory now set up on the part of the Crown, while the first one is totally inconsistent with it. Can you rely on a woman who has altered her testimony to such an extent? But that is not all; the case for the Crown is that Cook was reluctant to take the pills which were given to him, and that he expressed a reluctance which Palmer of his own head overruled, and that Palmer knew that Cook was angry with him, or, at all events, displeased with him, for forcing him to take the pills. In the first statement of Elizabeth Mills before the coroner she said Cook said it was “the pills that made him ill, and that he had taken the pills about half-past ten.” When she came here she swore that Cook said “the pills which Palmer gave him at half-past ten made him ill”; thereby, you see, fixing the fact that Palmer gave him the pills, and fixing the time at which Palmer gave them to him, she having had an opportunity of learning that the later the pills were given the more favourable it would be to the suspicion that death had been occasioned by this poison. Before the coroner she did not say that Palmer was in Cook’s bedroom between nine and ten o’clock on the Monday night, but she did when she was here. You will see that makes him more about the bedside of Cook, having more opportunity of dealing with the pills. By these variances from her first statement she shows the animus which now, for some reason or other, actuates her. Perhaps it has been the result of the persuasion that Palmer was the murderer of Mr. Cook, as Dr. Alfred Swayne Taylor swore he is, and of her horror of so great a crime; that gives it the just, charitable construction; still, I say, she is not to be relied upon. I have mentioned the particulars in which her statements vary, but these are nothing to the important particulars to which I will now call your attention. I impeach her testimony on the ground that she adopted here a manner and a gesticulation in describing the symptoms under which Cook laboured which, if true, would have exhibited itself at the inquest, and would have at once attracted the attention of Dr. Taylor. The contortions into which she put her hands, and her neck, and her mouth, before you, could not by any possibility have escaped the attention of Dr. Taylor. If anything like it took place there it would have been observed by him, and questions would have been put to reduce, so to speak, those gesticulations into verbal expressions, that they might be recorded in the depositions. But that is not all. I am told, and you will have an opportunity of hearing it from Mr. Nunneley, Dr. Letheby, Dr. Robinson, and other eminent medical men, that the description of the symptoms which she gave to you is inconsistent with any known disease—that they were grouped by her in a manner so extraordinary as to be quite inconsistent with strychnia tetanus.

Serjeant Shee

Let me call your attention to this part of the evidence. You are aware that in the months of February (the last week of February) and March a very frightful case of strychnia poisoning occurred at Leeds. It was a case in which a person, having constant access to the bedside of the patient, was supposed to have administered repeated small doses of strychnia so as not at once to strike her down, but gradually to destroy her; and that after having kept her in a state of irritation for a lengthened period, he at last consummated the work and killed her. That was the case. It appeared in all the newspapers. The nurse who attended the patient and the medical gentlemen spoke of symptoms which she exhibited from the 24th or 25th February to the 1st of March, and they described it in this way—She had “prickings” and “twitchings” in the legs, coming on without any violent paroxysms or spasms, and was alarmed at the thought even of being touched by anybody in the intervals of the spasms which occurred from time to time. Now, let me call your attention to the evidence before you of Elizabeth Mills. She says, “He said, ‘I cannot lie down’; his body and neck were moving and jerking; he would throw himself up, jumping and jerking all over his body all the time; he asked me to rub his hands; I noticed him to ‘twitch’ while I was rubbing his hands.” (The learned serjeant read a portion of the evidence.) Now, I submit to you that some of these expressions, particularly the twitching, are very remarkable; and it may well have been that, this case coming before the public and exciting no little degree of attention, although not to the same extent as this Rugeley case, persons who had been in the habit of going to see her and conversing with her may have been asking her questions about this case, of which she admitted she had heard, “Did you observe in Cook any such symptoms as these?” her attention being called to them in such a way as to induce her to alter the statement made by her at the inquest. You cannot, indeed, account, as I submit to you, for so remarkable a difference between the first and second statements, without supposing something of that kind. Now, is it improbable that that did take place? From the time she left the Talbot Arms till she came here she seems to have been a person of very remarkable importance. She went to Dolly’s, and Mr. Stevens visited her six or seven times. Why did he visit here? What for? Mr. Stevens is unquestionably—and if under proper self-restraint, no one can blame him for it—very indignant at what he fears to have been the foul play of Palmer with Cook. He is not in the same condition of life as Elizabeth Mills. Why should he have gone to visit her six or seven times, conversing with her in a private room? She says, “He only came to see whether I liked the place; he called to inquire after my health.” Gardner also, his attorney, saw her once, but only asked her how she was, and they talked about other things. She said she gave the last authentic account of her evidence to a man she did not know—whom she had never seen before; and when I found out, after much questioning, that Mr. Stevens was with him, and asked her why she had not told me so, her answer was, “Because you never asked me.” That raised a laugh, and she enjoyed her triumph. All this looks like having been tutored. I put it to you that you cannot, with any degree of satisfaction, rely on the evidence of the young woman; and you will learn that the confusion and the variety of the symptoms she has put together, taking them partly from her depositions and partly from this new version, have made the case which she described not only not a case of tetanus, but not of any known disease.