Part 20
Gentlemen, there are other facts to be adverted to before I sit down to which it is necessary your attention should be drawn. There was a great stir at the hotel at Rugeley after Mr. Jones had returned from London with Mr. Stevens, the executor. Mr. Stevens arrives at the inn with Mr. Jones, has been in conversation all the way down with Mr. Jones, and has heard from Mr. Jones all that Mr. Jones knows, and does not appear to have had anything communicated to him by Mr. Jones which could justify any suspicion on his part. Mr. Jones, when they arrive at Rugeley, introduces him to Palmer, and Palmer at once takes him up to the room of the dead man, and uncovers the body down to the thighs, and Mr. Stevens looks at the corpse and sees there are no convulsions about the body except the clenching of the hands. He sees there is no emaciation, no signs as he thinks of illness, and, wondering within himself, says, “How can you have died?” or something to that effect; “How grievous a thing it is that your young life should have passed away!” I think he said he did not look as if he were dead. After seeing the corpse they went down to dinner, and he asked Palmer to dine with him, and Jones, and Mr. Bradford, the husband of Mr. Cook’s sister. He has not been called; he could have told us if there was anything suspicious in the conduct of Palmer, anything that could justify such conduct on the part of Mr. Stevens. They have their dinner, and when their dinner is over, see what takes place. It is important you should know it, because I think you will see from the way it occurred that the conduct of Palmer was the conduct of a man certainly apprehensive of any sort of vexatious inquiry which might involve him in pecuniary troubles, and was therefore anxious to conciliate Mr. Stevens, still comporting himself like one who could firmly and freely maintain his equality with Mr. Stevens unabashed, with a clear brow and the appearance of an innocent man. (The learned serjeant read a portion of the dialogue which took place between Mr. Stevens and Palmer.) He said, “with a spasmodic convulsion of the throat,” which was perfectly apparent; he could not see his face, but there was a spasmodic convulsion of his throat. Who could believe such a testimony of guilt as that? He expects that Palmer is to be bound to look after everything of every kind that was in the hotel belonging to Cook, and because he could not find a trumpery book, which anybody might have taken away, thinking and probably having heard it was of very little use, which could not be of the slightest service in any way to Palmer for any purpose whatever, or to anybody, simply on that account, he is to indulge in this vexatious proceeding. The last time the book was seen was on the Monday. The last person who saw it was Elizabeth Mills, on the Monday, and on that day there were several people there with Cook--Saunders the trainer, and the jockeys; after his death the two servant-maids and the housekeeper, the three undertaker’s men, the two women who laid Cook out, and some other persons; the barber who shaved him might have taken the book, and having taken it could not return it; for here again is the effect of dishonesty as well as falsehood. Once done, you cannot repair it; without admitting it you cannot set it right again. I throw imputation on nobody; I simply say, that as many people had access to the room, it is not fair, it is not right under the circumstances when a man is charged in such a case of momentous importance without any assignable reason for his purloining the betting book, to fix it on him without any proof that he ever had it in his hands, when nothing like a proper search was made for it until some time after Cook’s death. I asked whether the drawers were not full of linen and clothes, the answer was that they were. It was not seen immediately after the death, nor was there any search made for it, nor was it set aside and taken care of in the room, so that it could not have been removed by Palmer with a guilty intention of purloining it. Let us go on for a moment with this dialogue--(the learned serjeant then read a passage from the dialogue as detailed in the evidence)--and at last, after goading and irritating the man for all this time, though Palmer was willing to make explanations and provoke inquiries into anything or circumstance which if inquired into would at once have led to a discussion of matters in a fair and gentleman-like manner, Stevens snubs him by asking him whether he intends to be at the post-mortem; and at last, when he says, “It is a matter of indifference to me,” goads the poor man into saying, “So it is to me.” That is the only word of irritation that Palmer--who kept his ground during the whole time and stood up to this man--that is the only word of irritation that he used. Mr. Stevens speaks to him in a very warm manner, yet Palmer manifests the composure of a gentleman, of a man of feeling and consideration to the father--as he called himself--but the stepfather of the young man, and that is to be turned into evidence of guilt.
There is another story made against him, that he was found searching in the pockets of Mr. Cook shortly after his death--it is the most absurd suggestion on their own showing. The facts were these. Mr. Jones, I think, told the servants to tell Palmer to come into the room. I think that was it--to tell Palmer to go into the room; and then I think Mr. Jones told another servant to follow him into the room. Elizabeth Mills is the witness to that. She says, “I went in, and I saw him looking about seeing if there was anything in one of the coats, and he also looked under the bolster of the bed, just as a gentleman might be looking for a watch; and he went on doing so after I got into the room.” It was quite clear she suspected nothing, and I submit it is not fair that any suspicion should attach to him on the subject.
[Sidenote: Serjeant Shee]
One other circumstance there is on which reliance has been placed; and although it has been said great reliance is not intended to be placed upon it, I cannot tell what effect it will produce on your minds. I am sure that when those who have promoted this prosecution first undertook it they intended to rely, as proof of damning guilt, on the manuscript extracts about strychnia in these medical books. I think it will be within your experience that in youth and early manhood the best protection that a man can have for his honour and integrity is the company and society of a wife whom he loves. If you find a man in early youth attached to a virtuous young woman, whom he loves with a sincere and heartfelt attachment, depend upon it he is of a gentle nature, and little prone to deeds of violence. They have put in these books to show that Palmer had a knowledge of strychnia poison, and they are the books which he used when a student attending lectures in London, as must have been known to his deceased wife. I find, in what I am in a condition to prove to be her own handwriting, proof positive that this was his student’s book, and that he then and long after loved that young woman in the way in which it is God’s will, under the sanction of His holy ordinance, young men should love their wives. His marriage was a marriage of affection; he loved her for herself and for her person; he loved her as ardently as he now loves her first-born, his only surviving child, a boy of seven years old, who waits with trembling anxiety for a sentence which will restore him to his father’s arms, or drive that father to an ignominious death upon the scaffold. He loved her with a pure, generous affection. There is proof positive in this letter, copied in her handwriting into his notebook, that such a man was William Palmer when only a few years younger than he is now--
“My dearest Annie,--I snatch a moment to write to your dear, dear little self. I need scarcely say the principal inducement I have to work is the desire of getting my studies finished, so as to be able to press your dear little form in my arms. With best, best love, believe me, dearest Annie, your own William.”
Now, this is not the sort of letter that is generally read in Courts of justice. It was no part of my instructions to read it to you, but that book was put in to prove that this man was a wicked, heartless, savage desperado, and I show you from it what he was when that letter was written--what his deceased wife knew him to be when she copied it--a young man who loved a young woman for her own sake--loved her with a pure and virtuous affection, such an affection as would in almost all natures be a sure antidote against guilt.
Such, gentlemen, is the man whom it is my duty to defend. Upon the evidence which is before you I cannot believe him guilty. Do not suppose for a moment that he is abandoned in this dreadful strait by his family and friends. An aged mother, who may have disapproved of some parts of his conduct, expects in an agony of grief your verdict. A dear sister can scarcely sustain herself under the suspense which presses upon her. A gallant and devoted brother stands by him to defend him, sparing neither time nor labour to save him from an awful doom. I call upon you to expand your minds to a capacity for estimating the high duty that you have to perform. You have to stem the torrent of prejudice; you have to vindicate the honour and character of your country; you have with firmness and courage to do your duty, and find a verdict for the Crown, if you believe that guilt is proved; but if you have a doubt upon the point, depend upon it the time will come when the innocence of this man will be made apparent, and when you will deeply regret any want of due and calm consideration of the case which it will be my duty to lay before you.
The Court then adjourned.
Eighth Day, 22nd May, 1856.
The Court met at ten o’clock.
Evidence for the Defence.
[Sidenote: T. Nunneley]
Mr. THOMAS NUNNELEY, examined by Mr. GROVE--I am a Fellow of the College of Surgeons, Professor of Surgery at the Leeds School of Medicine, and a member of several foreign and English scientific societies. I have been in practice between twenty and thirty years. I have seen cases of both traumatic and idiopathic tetanus. One of the four cases of idiopathic tetanus I have seen did not commence with the symptoms of lockjaw, nor did lockjaw occur sufficiently to prevent swallowing during the whole period of illness. I have been present during the evidence given here as to the symptoms of Mr. Cook. I had previously read the portions of the depositions as to the scientific and medical part of the case. Judging from the symptoms as described, and confining myself to the evidence as to the scientific part of the case, my opinion is that Mr. Cook died from some convulsive disease. I found that upon the difference of the symptoms described in the deposition and on the evidence before the Court.
LORD CAMPBELL--This is not satisfactory; we cannot ask witnesses what faith they give to the evidence of the witnesses as contrasted with the depositions. This witness’s opinion ought to be founded on the _viva voce_ evidence of the witnesses given during the trial.
Examination resumed--The previous state of health of Mr. Cook had some effect on my judgment.
State your own grounds in your own way for that opinion?--If I take the evidence which has occurred in Court--
By LORD CAMPBELL--The evidence of the symptoms of John Parsons Cook as stated by the witnesses?--Not merely the symptoms, but the general state of health.
But we have nothing to do with that. The witness should give his opinion on the symptoms described, and then state what influences the other facts may have had on his mind.
By Mr. SERJEANT SHEE--Do you remember the accounts that were given of what was said or supposed to be syphilitic sores?
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL--But there was no such thing said.
Mr. BARON ALDERSON--Supposing a person had syphilitic sores, what would you say then? That is the proper way of putting it.
LORD CAMPBELL--We must take it that medical men are not to be substituted for the jury.
[Sidenote: T. Nunneley]
Mr. JUSTICE CRESWELL--If I were to suggest a mode of meeting the thing it would be this--let the gentleman describe what he assumes to be the state of the deceased’s health at the time, then the Attorney-General may say he is not justified in assuming.
Examination resumed--Will you do that having heard the evidence?--I assume him to have been a man of very delicate constitution; that for a long period he felt himself to be ill, for which he had been under medical treatment; that he had suffered from syphilis; had disease of the lungs; had an old-standing disease of the throat; led an irregular life; was subject to mental excitement and depression; that after death traces were found in his body which show this to have been the case; there was found an unusual appearance within the stomach; the throat was in an unnatural condition; the back of the tongue showed similar indications; the lungs were in an emphysematous condition, that is, the air cells dilated; in the lining of the aorta or large artery of the body there was an unnatural deposit; and there was a very unusual appearance in the membranes of the spinal marrow. These are the indications which are unnatural in the post-mortem examination. I should also state it is described by one of the witnesses that there was a loss of substance of the penis. The symptoms on the root of the tongue and the throat I ascribe to syphilitic inflammation of the throat. From these symptoms I have described I should infer that his health had not been good for long, and that his constitution was delicate. It was also stated that his father and mother had died young, and that the brother and sister were both delicate. That being the state of health of Mr. Cook, he would be liable to nervous irritation. Excitement or depression might bring it on. Exposure to wet and cold would have a greater effect than on a healthy person. It is a condition of the constitution when a convulsive disease is more likely to supervene.
What would you infer from the fact, supposing it to have occurred, that three days before death he suddenly woke up in the middle of the night in a state described as madness, for two or three minutes? I understand that he had three attacks on succeeding nights, each occurring about the same hour. Would you draw any inference from that circumstance?--Yes, that they were of a convulsive character, in the absence of other causes to account for it. Convulsive effects are extremely variable in their forms and degrees of violence. It is not possible to give a definite name to every convulsive attack. There are some forms of violent convulsions, such as hysteria, in which the patient retains his consciousness. It is stated that there are forms of convulsions, epileptic in their character, in which the patient retains his consciousness.
By LORD CAMPBELL--Have you met with any?--No, not during a fit.
[Sidenote: T. Nunneley]
But it is during a state of fit we are inquiring?--I have not.
Examination resumed--I know by my reading as a medical man that that does occur sometimes. The degree of consciousness in epilepsy varies very much; in some attacks the consciousness is altogether lost. Convulsive attacks are sometimes accompanied by violent spasms and with rigidity of portions of the body. Convulsions arising from a convulsive disease, either from infancy or from other causes, but not exactly tetanus, sometimes assume something of the complexion of tetanic affection. Such convulsions might arise from any cause--worms in children, affections of the brain in adults, hysteria, administration of chloroform to some persons. Indigestible food will sometimes produce convulsions in adults. I agree with Dr. Copland, whose book was referred to yesterday, that these convulsions sometimes end immediately in death. Asphyxia is frequently the cause of death when a man dies in one of these convulsions. I have seen convulsions of the character I have described recurring at various intervals, sometimes in hours, in other cases days. The time also varies very much when a patient, suffering from a violent paroxysm of such convulsions, becomes easier; it may be hours or minutes. When death takes place in the paroxysm of such convulsions it sometimes happens in post-mortem examinations that there is no trace of organic disease in the body.
Have you known at all or frequently in persons, not further advanced in years than the age of twenty-eight, granules between the dura mater and the arachnoid?--They are not common to any age that I am aware of.
Do you know whether granules have been part of the symptoms of tetaniform convulsions?--I have seen three preparations in St. Thomas’s Hospital museum where granules are found in the membranes of the spinal cord, in which patients are said to have died of tetanus. In order to ascertain with satisfaction the nature and probable extent of the injury of such granules the spinal cord should be examined immediately after death. Not the most remote medical judgment could be formed if the examination was made two or three months after death. If an examination of the spinal cord is made so long after death, if there had been a large tumour or some similar change, it might have been discovered; but neither softening nor induration of the minute structure of the cord could be detected. The minute nervous structures change within two hours after death.
[Sidenote: T. Nunneley]
I have in the course of my experience had cases of traumatic tetanus. It generally begins by an attack of the jaw. I have had under my personal observation four cases of idiopathic tetanus. One of them was my own child. In three cases the symptoms commenced with lockjaw. In the fourth case the symptoms commenced in the body; the power of swallowing easily was retained to the last. Within the last twelve months I have made a post-mortem examination of two women who have died from the poison of strychnia. In both cases it was by chemical analysis that I ascertained the deaths had been caused by strychnia. In one case the post-mortem took place forty-two hours after death, in the other case thirty hours.
(The witness produced his report to the coroner on these two cases.)
I have not seen a fatal case, but several of taking too large a dose. One, a middle-aged man, took one-sixth of a grain of strychnia, given in solution. In a very few minutes the symptoms manifested themselves by the want of power of controlling the muscles, by twitching and rigidity, with some cramp, more violent in the legs than any part of the body. He was up and walking about. It was not a severe case. In six hours the spasms entirely disappeared. They were intermittent in character, every two or three seconds at first. The other case was similar with one-twelfth of a grain.
I have experimented on upwards of sixty animals--dogs, cats, mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, frogs, and toads. After the ingestion of the poison the symptoms appear from two minutes to thirty, more generally about five or six. The symptoms in their order are--a desire to be quite still; hurried breathing; slavering at the mouth when given at the mouth; twitching of the ears; trembling of the muscles; inability to walk; convulsion of all the muscles of the body; the jaws generally being firmly closed during convulsions; these convulsions followed by a total want of power in the muscles, which, in the last attacks, were thrown into violent spasms with a galvanic-like shock running through them. Spasms come on if the animal is either touched or attempts to move. These spasms occur at various periods. The animals die at various periods up to three and a half hours. In every case before death the rigidity ceases, and the muscles are quite soft and powerless. The longest intervals between the violent convulsions in the animals to which strychnia has been administered has been about half an hour, but that is not common. After death the hearts of the animals have been invariably full on the right side, very generally the left ventricle firmly contracted, and the blood usually dark and often fluid. There is no particular appearance attached to the spine. I have attended to the evidence as to the symptoms of Mr. Cook on the Monday and Tuesday nights.
By LORD CAMPBELL--What do you assume the symptoms to have been on the Saturday night?--A state of great excitement in a less severe form; that Mr. Cook described himself to have been very ill.
[Sidenote: T. Nunneley]
Examination resumed--What else?--In a condition that he considered himself mad for two minutes, caused, he stated, through some noise in the street.
Now, adverting to the symptoms described on these three occasions here in the Court, is it your opinion that they could have been produced by the poison of strychnia?--They did not resemble what I have seen to follow it. He had more power of voluntary motion--sitting up in bed, moving his hands about, freely swallowing, and asking to be rubbed and moved, and a greater length of time occurred from the taking of the pills supposed to contain strychnia and the occurrence of the symptoms, much greater than any period that has occurred in my experience.
Does any observation occur to you on the screaming?--The screaming foreran the vomiting. I have never seen an animal vomit after taking strychnia, nor scream as an expression of voluntary exercise. Where there is so much spasm there is an inability on the part of the patient to vomit. I have a case, which is related in the 10th volume of the _Journal de Pharmacie_, in which attempts were made to give emetics without success.
With reference to the post-mortem observations of animals poisoned by strychnia, could you form any opinion on the post-mortem examination of Mr. Cook whether he had been under the influence of poison?--They differ materially in the particulars I have mentioned. The heart is stated to be empty and contracted, the state of the lungs not congested, the state of the brain not congested.
In the case of the paroxysms of the animals what has been the course of the subsiding of the paroxysm?--Gradual. I have never known a case of a severe paroxysm return, and then a long interval of complete repose for several hours. I have known it for half an hour.
I have experimented on the bodies of animals poisoned by strychnia with a view of discovering the strychnia poison from a few hours up to the forty-third day, the body being perfectly putrid in the latter case. In no one case have I failed to discover the poison.
Suppose a person to have died under the immediate effects of strychnia poison, in the first paroxysm after its administration, and his stomach to have been taken out and put into a jar on the sixth day after death, in your opinion must strychnia have been found in the body on proper chemical analysis?--If it were there.
[Sidenote: T. Nunneley]
Adverting to the statement about the stomach being put in a jar, brought up to London, and then immediately submitted to examination, in your judgment was that in an unfavourable or favourable condition for ascertaining whether the strychnia was there?--It would give a little more trouble; I do not see anything else. It is not my opinion that the analysis may be defeated or confused by the existence in the stomach of any other substance which would produce the same colours.
Supposing death to have been caused by a dose of strychnia poison sufficient, but not more than sufficient, to destroy the animal, in your judgment would it be so decomposed by the process of absorption as that you would not be able to detect it by those tests in any portion of the system?--No.