Chapter V: Sheila Sings (2)

A case which has acquired even more celebrity than the last is that of Mrs. Wharton of Baltimore. The chief facts, as developed at the first trial at Annapolis, are as follows: General Ketchum, a man of over middle age and usually in good health, was very much engaged in attending to matters of business at Washington throughout the entire day of the 24th of June, 1871. The weather was very hot, yet he walked about hurriedly and steadily, getting no dinner, and returning in the evening to Mrs. Wharton's at Baltimore about 9 P.M., where he ate a very hearty meal, consisting partly of raspberries. During the night he was heard to go down stairs several times. The next day he complained of feeling unwell, but took at bed-time a glass of lemonade with brandy, and during the night had some slight vomiting and purging. In the morning he complained of sick stomach and giddiness, and at Mrs. Wharton's earnest request[16] Dr. Williams was finally sent for, and on arriving at 4 P.M. found him sitting up and vomiting, and prescribed as for a slight attack of cholera morbus. The next morning General Ketchum thought himself so much better that he discharged his physician. He was, however, very drowsy during the day, and the evidence at the trial rendered it probable that he took laudanum on this day upon his own responsibility. In the evening he was found sleeping heavily upon the lounge, and again at Mrs. Wharton's request Dr. Williams was sent for, but did not think it worth while to come. The next morning Mrs. Wharton again sent for Dr. Williams, as General Ketchum was found still lying upon the lounge in a stupor. He remained in this state until his death, which took place in a convulsion at 3 P.M. He had had during the intervening period repeated convulsions, and about one o'clock had become very uneasy, uttering incoherent cries, but did not recover true consciousness. At the examination of the body, made the following morning, the spinal cord was not looked at: the inner membranes of the brain were found congested, and the brain-substance presented throughout "those dark points of blood which indicate passive congestion." No other lesions were found, and the stomach was handed for analysis to Professor Aiken, who in due time reported that he had "satisfied himself" of the existence of at least twenty grains of tartar emetic in it.

It is highly probable that this official announcement had much influence upon the minds of Drs. Williams and Chew, with their colleagues, and it is very certain that by it and their representations was created the public belief in Baltimore that General Ketchum had been poisoned. The false analysis remained for months uncontradicted, and backed up as it was by the whole intellectual and moral force of the University of Maryland, it could scarcely happen otherwise than that public opinion should become so set and hardened that no testimony at the trial could affect it, especially as local pride and local prejudice came to its support when experts from other cities questioned the work of the Baltimore physicians.

Mrs. Wharton's servants were first accused, but after a few days she was arrested, and with her daughter--who has clung throughout to her faith in her mother's purity and goodness--was thrust into a common felon's cell, with only the grated bars between her and the lowest of men in every stage of drunkenness and delirium. After nearly two weeks her lawyers obtained her removal to one of the better rooms of the jail, but it was months before anything was said in her favor.

The trial opened on December 4, 1871, at Annapolis, and lasted nearly two months. The circumstantial evidence certainly went no farther than to render it probable that if General Ketchum died of poison it was administered by Mrs. Wharton. The State attempted to prove as a motive that Mrs. Wharton owed the deceased money. They were signally unsuccessful in this, however; so that a very intelligent member of the jury said to the writer since the trial, "Whether Mrs. Wharton did or did not poison General Ketchum, certainly the State completely failed to prove a motive." The defence admitted that Mrs. Wharton had bought tartar emetic near the time of the alleged poisoning, but proved that she was in the habit of using it externally as a counter-irritant, and that it was purchased in the most open manner, through a third party, not with the secresy that marks the steps of the poisoner.

Thus the whole case centred in a rather remarkable degree upon the expert testimony, and the very point of it all was the chemical analysis. This is not the place to follow out in detail the scientific testimony, but only to point out some peculiarities of it. Almost all the medical witnesses for the prosecution were colleagues of Professor Aiken, none of them men of eminence in toxicological science--surgeons, physiologists, obstetricians, the whole faculty, trying apparently to hide the nakedness of their colleague. Never was strong language more justifiable than that of Mr. Hagner, when he said, "It seemed that the University of Maryland was on trial, and that blood was demanded to support it."

After all, the testimony of most of these gentlemen amounted only to this: that they did not believe the death of General Ketchum could have occurred from natural causes. On the other hand, the numerous medical witnesses for the defence, unconnected by any bond of common interest, testified that natural causes, were sufficient to account for the death; many of them asserting that the case in all its symptoms and post-mortem appearances tallied precisely with the so-called fulminating form of cerebro-spinal meningitis, which was prevalent in Baltimore at the time of General Ketchum's death.[17]

The medical witnesses for the defence further called attention to the fact that the symptoms of General Ketchum's illness were wholly different from those produced by tartar emetic, and some denied that the latter could have caused the sickness. The chemical evidence for the prosecution was triumphantly refuted. It was shown that antimony did not conform in its reactions with at least one of the tests, which Professor Aiken said his precipitates did; that almost all the other reactions could be closely simulated with ordinary organic bodies; that the processes used were those universally condemned by authorities; and that carelessness was everywhere so manifest in their conduction as to entirely vitiate any results. It was also proved that Professor Aiken had simply estimated the amount of tartar emetic in General Ketchum's stomach by the _ocular comparison_ of the _bulk of precipitates, neither of which could have been pure_, and _in neither of which was the existence of antimony really proved_. To weigh a precipitate was a labor not to be thought of when nothing more important than the life of a woman was involved: _guessing_ was all that such a trifling issue demanded!

The most extraordinary event of this most extraordinary trial occurred when the chemists for the defence had completely broken down the testimony of Professor Aiken. With the knowledge, it is said, of at least one of the judges, without the presence of a representative of the defence, or even of a legal officer, the body of General Ketchum was secretly exhumed by the doctors who had shown themselves so eager for the execution of Mrs. Wharton. The viscera, which they removed, were put into the hands not of a chemist of national reputation, but of an individual who had been advanced from the position of hospital steward at Washington to that of professor of chemistry in a small local institute at Baltimore. This professor, when on the witness-stand, was singularly confused as to his weights and measures, and finally shared the ignominy of his predecessor. The defence had several chemists at Annapolis of world-wide reputation and unspotted integrity. If the prosecution really believed that General Ketchum had been poisoned, if they really did expect tartar emetic to be found, why did they not allow the presence of these gentlemen at the analysis, and thereby ensure the condemnation of Mrs. Wharton? The conviction is irresistible that they were _afraid of the truth_--that they were simply determined to procure the desired verdict at all hazards and by any means. Yet this was the procedure for the completion of which the court suspended the trial for two days, because, as Chief-Justice Miller stated from the bench, "it thought the ends of justice demanded it"! Is any further evidence needed of the strange ideas, of the perversion of truth and justice, which have grown out of the American method of using expert testimony?

Before leaving this trial I desire to quote from advanced sheets of the edition of Dr. Taylor's great work on medical jurisprudence, now passing through the press. Reviewing the trial in London with that freedom from bias which the isolation of distance produces, he says: "The trial lasted fifty-two days, and an astonishing amount of evidence was brought forward by the defence and prosecution, apparently owing to the high social position of the parties, for there is nothing, medically speaking, which might not have been settled in forty-eight hours. The general died after a short illness, but the symptoms, taken as a whole, _bore no resemblance_ to those observed in poisoning with antimony; and but for the alleged discovery after death of tartar emetic in the stomach, _no suspicion of poisoning_ would probably have arisen.... The chemical evidence," he adds, "does not conflict with the pathological evidence, for _it failed to show_ with clearness and distinctness _the presence_ and proportion of poison said to have been found. The _evidence that antimony was really there_ was not satisfactory, and that twenty grains were in the stomach wholly unproven."[18]

What would have been the course of this trial if expert testimony were established upon proper principles? Professor Aiken having shown his complete incompetency in the Schoeppe case, the analysis would have been entrusted to some skillful chemist, who by failing to discover poison would have established the innocence of Mrs. Wharton, or by bringing positive results into court have ensured conviction; or, Dr. Aiken having made the analysis, and having broken all the laws of toxicological evidence, his testimony would have been ruled out, and the case dismissed because the bungling of the State's witness had destroyed the evidences of guilt or of innocence.

In January, 1873, Mrs. Wharton was tried at Annapolis for attempting to poison Eugene Van Ness. The facts of the case are briefly as follows: Mr. Van Ness, whose relations with the Wharton family had been extremely intimate for many years, was a bank-clerk, but during the spring and early summer of 1871, besides attending to his regular duties, was employed in settling a large estate. He habitually rose early, often at 5 A.M., and generally worked until eleven o'clock at night. During this period he suffered from severe nervous headaches, and probably from other symptoms of an overworked nervous system, but on this point the testimony disagreed. His stomach is at all times so sensitive that brandy nauseates him. On the 19th of June, after taking some claret on an empty stomach at Mrs. Wharton's, he felt very badly, suffering from lightness of the head or giddiness and general wretchedness, with stiffness and numbness in the back of his neck. On the 20th he stopped at Mrs. Wharton's about 4 P.M., having eaten nothing for seven or eight hours, and took raspberries with cream, and drank claret. This claret, he stated, "had a taste like peach leaves."[19] Directly after this he had an attack similar to, but much more violent than, that of the day before. Some little time after this, whilst in a condition of profound relaxation, he took some brandy, and at once emptied his stomach by a single spasmodic effort of vomiting, with immediate relief. The weather was extremely hot during the whole time in which the various attacks here narrated took place.

On the 24th of June, Mr. Van Ness rose at 5 A.M., but was forced to return to bed by a severe headache. At 9 A.M., after dressing, he said to his wife that he would not eat at home, but would stop at Mrs. Wharton's on his way to the office, to get a cup of her "nice black tea." A piece of toast was all he ate before his return to Mrs. Wharton's from the banking-house at 4 P.M. Mrs. Wharton then offered him some lager beer, and, partly at his own suggestion, put into it something out of a bottle labeled "Gentian Bitters." He found the liquid so bitter that he took but a part of it.[20]

Shortly afterward Mr. Van Ness became partially blind, and was "seized with the same feeling of giddiness" as on the day before. After this he had convulsions, with unconsciousness, for which large doses of chloroform and chloral were given. During the attack the patient repeatedly said it was of the same character as the preceding ones, and referred the trouble to the pit of the stomach and to indigestion.

The next morning (Sunday), about an hour after waking, he took some tea and toast, and in ten minutes was seized with nausea, followed by heartburn and retching, which lasted all day. On Monday morning some beef tea--two-thirds of a cupful--was given him, and in less than an hour as much more, which induced nausea with heartburn. In the evening he was roused, and more beef tea offered him, which he refused because the last dose had made him sick, and he was afraid this would have the same effect. He was, however, prevailed on to take it. After this he fell asleep, but in a short time woke up with violent nausea, burning at the pit of the stomach, and finally vomiting. Not until this occurred did he discover anything wrong with the beef tea: as he vomited it he found it had an acrid metallic taste.[21]

The circumstantial evidence in the case did not amount to any more than, or indeed as much as, in the previous trial. It was distinctly admitted that no motive could be found, Mr. Van Ness testifying that the relations between himself and Mrs. Wharton were most friendly; that he held four thousand dollars of her government bonds, for which she had not even a receipt; that she depended upon him for the completion of her pecuniary arrangements for a contemplated trip to Europe; or, in other words, that she had nothing to gain and much to lose by his death, and that there was no conceivable emotional motive, such as hate, revenge or envy.[22]

No attempt was made to prove that Mrs. Wharton had at any time in her possession strychnia, the poison alleged to have been used by her. As on the previous trial, the case centred upon the expert testimony, but there was no direct chemical evidence, neither the food, the matters vomited nor the bodily secretions having been examined. Some sediment found in a tumbler of punch was asserted by Dr. Aiken to consist largely of tartar emetic. This tumbler was not connected with Mrs. Wharton, except by being found at her house in a position where, in the language of one of the State's witnesses, "hundreds of persons" had access to it. It was carried about in the pocket of a lady inimical to Mrs. Wharton, and into at least one drug-store, before it reached Professor Aiken, whose analysis was as faulty as before. Any tartar emetic present in the sediment might have been procured in a pure form by the simple process of dialysis. The only apparatus necessary for this would have been a glass vessel divided into two compartments by a piece of hog's bladder stretched across it. These chambers having been partially filled with distilled water, and the sediment of the tumbler put into one of them, the tartar emetic would have left the other ingredients and passed into the second compartment. By taking the water out of this and evaporating it, the poison would have been obtained in a pure crystalline state, and might have been brought into court. But Dr. Aiken thought it sufficient for him to "satisfy himself:" as he stated on the witness-stand, he did not consider it his business whether other people were or were not satisfied. Consequently, the court was only favored with a memorized report of the color tests used by him, exactly as in the previous trial. One of the reactions which he said he obtained antimony does not conform to.

Drs. Williams and Chew unhesitatingly stated on the witness-stand that they recognized poisoning as early as the Saturday of Mr. Van Ness's illness.[23] Yet they gave no antidote. They employed on Monday and Tuesday a treatment which, although well adapted to a case of natural disease presenting such symptoms, would in a case of poisoning have materially increased the risk to life. They did not save the matters vomited: they did not save the secretions, which would certainly have contained antimony if Mr. Van Ness had been poisoned as alleged. According to their testimony, Mr. Van Ness received six doses of poison on as many different days, four of the doses administered under their eyes; yet they gave no warning to the unfortunate victim or to his friends. If the theory they upheld be correct, that Mrs. Wharton poisoned both General Ketchum and Mr. Van Ness, the extraordinary spectacle was presented of one man lying dead in the house from the effect of poison, of another receiving day after day the fatal dose with the knowledge of the attending physician, yet no antidote given, no warning word put forth, no saving of the evidences of guilt! It would seem as though silence at a trial would best become gentlemen with such a record, yet they were the only experts who asserted that strychnia was the sole possible cause for the attack of the 24th of June, and tartar emetic of the subsequent attacks.

The experts for the defence asserted that the convulsion of Saturday could not have been caused by strychnia or other known poison; that although the symptoms of the later attacks resembled those of tartar emetic poisoning, they were not identical with those usually produced by that drug; and that it was exceedingly improbable that these attacks were due to the poison named, because obvious natural causes for them existed.[24]

The impropriety and total insufficiency of our methods of criminal prosecutions were very strongly shown by this trial. One member of the jury could barely write his name, and not more than one or two of them were in the lowest sense of the term educated; no record of the testimony was kept by the court, and none, except in the very beginning, by the jury, who must therefore have been guided chiefly by impressions, lawyers' speeches or newspaper records; the feeling amongst the populace, with whom the jurymen freely mingled, was so bitter that one of the experts was barred out of his lodgings at ten o'clock at night, openly because he was for the defence of Mrs. Wharton; the newspaper which circulated most largely in the place misrepresented the testimony, and devoted its columns to scurrilous attacks upon the integrity and professional ability of the medical witnesses for the defence. Yet under these influences, mazed and confused by the subtleties and partial statements of the lawyers, these twelve honest but ignorant men were called upon to decide between physicians offering precisely opposite opinions. It is well when this so-called administration of justice ends as a monstrous farce and not as a tragedy.

The conduct of the Wharton-Van Ness trial would have been far different if the expert testimony had been what it ought to have been. If the excretions of Mr. Van Ness had been put in the hands of a properly-qualified chemist, by finding the metal antimony or by proving its absence he would at once have settled the case. As it is, there is no proper evidence of the guilt of Mrs. Wharton. The probabilities are in favor of her innocence, because the symptoms were certainly widely divergent from those induced by poison, if not, as I believe, absolutely incompatible with poisoning. The medical gentlemen who attended Mr. Van Ness, by destroying all the evidence, have made a just conviction and an absolute proving of innocence equally impossible.

If it were necessary, further illustrations of the deficiencies of our criminal processes could be detailed. Some little time since, upon the chemical evidence of Professor Aiken, a poor colored woman was hung in Anne Arundel county, Maryland. She died protesting her innocence, and the general impression appears to be now that she did not commit the crime. A prominent member of the Maryland Bar told me recently of a case tried in that State, in which the accused, as he stated, certainly did kill the deceased with arsenic, yet in which, by showing the insufficiency of Professor Aiken's analysis of the stomach, he obtained the acquittal of the prisoner.

It cannot be stated too strongly that the trouble is not in the science of toxicology, nor in the real students of it. So far as mineral poisons are concerned, any qualified expert will determine the question of poisoning with the unwavering step of a mathematical demonstration.

The legal recognition of the true character and position of the expert, and of certain principles of medical jurisprudence, would probably improve the present status, but it is doubtful whether some other method of reform may not be more available. Professor Henry Hartshorne, at the last meeting of the American Medical Association, suggested that the court should appoint in poisoning cases a commission to collect the scientific testimony and make report on the same. This seems at first sight practicable, but suppose the court had appointed, as is not at all improbable they would have done, Professors Aiken and Chew and Dr. Williams as the commission in Mrs. Wharton's case? The result would certainly have been an unjust conviction.

In Spain and some other countries of Europe the custom is to refer the case to the local medical society. If the opinion afterward given is unanimous, the court is bound by it; if any member object to the opinion, the case is referred to the medical society of the province; if the disagreement continue, the matter is brought before the chief society of the capital. Evidently, this plan would not work well here. In Prussia it was formerly, and may still be, the custom for an expert holding a fixed appointment under the government to investigate the case, and to send his report to the Royal Medical College of Prussia. A standing committee of this body, after investigating the matter, sent the original report, with their comments, to the ministry, by whom it was referred to a permanent commission of experts. The report of the latter body, with all the other papers, was finally sent to the criminal court. This method seems complicated, but it resulted in giving to Prussia the best corps of experts the world has ever seen, as well as the most eminent individual medical jurists.

It is not, however, the object of the present paper to urge any especial method of reform, but to call attention to the need of it, and to show that the present evils do not grow out of the imperfections of medical jurisprudence, but out of the methods of our criminal procedures. Certainly, the matter needs investigation, and it is hardly possible but that some practicable means of relief could be devised by the deliberations of a mixed commission of lawyers and medical jurists of eminence.

H.C. WOOD, JR., M.D.

[Footnote 13: The utter absurdity of Dr. Williams's assertion is shown by the fact that on the first and second trials of Mrs. Wharton he affirmed that the violent convulsions, the extreme muscular rigidity, the retentive stomach, seen in the last day of General Ketchum's life were due to tartar emetic, and that to tartar emetic were due the excessive vomiting, the motionless prostration and muscular relaxation of Mr. Van Ness on the Sunday and Monday of his illness. Tartar emetic the sole possible cause of precisely opposite symptoms!]

[Footnote 14: The parsimony of many legal authorities is an indication of their want of appreciation of the differences in men. Not rarely medical experts are forced to sue a borough or county for compensation, even when the fee has been agreed on beforehand. In Huntingdon county, Pennsylvania, some time ago a woman was arrested on the charge of poisoning her mother-in-law, and the stomach of the deceased was sent to Professor Reese of this city for analysis. Warned by previous experience, he refused to make the analysis without a written agreement as to the fees. Nearly three months were spent by the authorities in vainly trying to get him to do it without such arrangement, and finally the stomach was returned unopened. During the whole of this time the poor woman, very probably innocent, was lying in prison with the dreadful charge hanging over her.]

[Footnote 15: A very forcible illustration occurs to me from my own experience. I was once summoned to see a woman in the Philadelphia Hospital to whom an assistant nurse of bad character had been seen to administer laudanum. At the time of my arrival she was apparently suffering from the advanced stages of opium poisoning. I spent about five hours in trying to restore her. The nurse protested that she had given only the medicinal dose ordered by the doctor, but was not believed. After death we found thrombosis of the brain--a rare affection, leaving such minute traces behind it that a careless examination will always fail to detect them. This was one of the affections which, as I had stated on the witness-stand some months before the occurrence just narrated, might have caused the death of Miss Stennecke with symptoms resembling those of opium poisoning.]

[Footnote 16: According to the testimony in both the cases of alleged poisoning by Mrs. Wharton, professional advice was called in at her request.]

[Footnote 17: I think the general opinion of the profession has endorsed the position of the defence. It is very probable that General Ketchum did die of the disease named, but there are other affections of which he I may have died; and certainly there were no sufficient grounds for asserting that the facts of his case were inconsistent with natural disease. The truth is, disease is often so hidden, its manifestations so obscure, its stamp upon the tissues so faint, that rarely is a physician justified in asserting from the symptoms and a _partial_ negative post mortem, such as was performed on General Ketchum, that any given death could not have been due to a natural cause. Numerous cases of death from natural causes have occurred in which science has been apparently baffled. I have myself seen at least one sudden death in which a careful post mortem failed entirely to detect the cause.]

[Footnote 18: Since writing the present paper I have been shown a private letter of Judge Pierce, written last April in regard to the first trial of Mrs. Wharton. After considerable solicitation the judge has allowed the publication of an extract from it, which I insert here as the words of one of our most eminent criminal jurists, He says: "I had made up my mind, when Dr. Williams's first testimony was concluded, that the case would fail. When Professor Aiken's examination was concluded it was beyond recovery. All efforts to secure a conviction after that were a waste of time and money. The case could have been safely for the defendant given to the jury on the testimony of the prosecution alone. If I had been sitting as a judge in the case, I would have instructed the jury at the close of the case for the State, if there had been no other testimony, that the evidence would not warrant a conviction. And I would have set aside the verdict if the jury had found the defendant guilty. I do not know the lady who was so wantonly charged with this crime, and I do not know of any case in the annals of criminal jurisprudence which, from the evidence submitted in the case, had so baseless a foundation for so grave a charge."]

[Footnote 19: It is proper to state that Miss Wharton, in his presence, partook of the same claret, but perceived nothing peculiar either in its taste, as she told him at the time, or in its effects upon her afterward. According to Miss Wharton's testimony, Mrs. Wharton actually drank the claret left in the glass of Mr. Van Ness directly after he left the room.]

[Footnote 20: This bottle was found in the house after the arrest of Mrs. Wharton, with compound tincture of gentian in it.

I have outlined the circumstances as Mr. Van Ness told them. A peculiarity of this trial was the direct contradiction of witnesses. Mr. Van Ness for a long time refused to entertain the idea that Mrs. Wharton had poisoned him. Whilst he was being persuaded into this belief he sent for Mrs. Neilson, a prominent lady of Baltimore, with whom both he and Mrs. Wharton were very intimate, and dismissing his wife from the room had a private conversation with her. During this, according to Mrs. Neilson's testimony, he stated that Mrs. Wharton could not have poisoned him on the Saturday, because they had exchanged glasses when he complained of the bitterness of the one into which she had put the gentian. On the stand Mr. Van Ness flatly denied ever having said anything of the sort. In a point of such vital importance it is impossible to account for the contradiction by "failure of memory."

Miss Neilson also contradicted Mr. Van Ness, and the act was in this case especially impressive from the manner in which it was done. Miss Neilson being on the stand, a dispute arose as to whether Mr. Van Ness had or had not previously made a sufficient denial for contradiction. To settle this, Miss Neilson left the stand: Mr. Van Ness went up and took the oath. Then the question was put, "Did you say so and so?" He answered, "I certainly did not." Miss Neilson returning to the stand immediately after this, the question was put to her. The court-room was in the deepest silence while in a low but audible voice she replied, "He did say it." The testimony of these ladies was in no degree shaken by a severe cross-examination.]

[Footnote 21: An essential symptom of tartar emetic poisoning is purging as well as vomiting. Dr. Williams of course knows this. It is a singular circumstance that whilst Mr. Van Ness stated that his bowels were scarcely affected at all, Dr. Williams testified that there was frequent purging. No remedies calculated to arrest purging were employed by Dr. Williams, however, during the illness of Mr. Van Ness.]

[Footnote 22: Mrs. Wharton's trip to Europe had been arranged and her passage engaged months before the occurrence of these events. If the theory of the State of Maryland, that she poisoned General Ketchum, be true, by poisoning Mr. Van Ness she placed herself in the position of the criminal who voluntarily and without motive destroys his means of escape. Either she was insane, or the asserted crimes were not committed.]

[Footnote 23: It is well worthy of mention in this connection that Mr. I.G. Moale of Baltimore testified that he went for Dr. Chew on Sunday morning, on account of the sick stomach of Mr. Van Ness, and that Dr. Chew told him that the vomiting was the almost necessary result of the remedies used the day before--a truth which, previous to Mr. Moale's appearance in Annapolis, the experts for the defence had insisted upon. H. Clay Dallam also testified that Dr. Williams had told him on Saturday that the indisposition of Mr. Van Ness the day before had been a nervous attack from overwork. This opinion also was in absolute agreement with the opinion expressed by the experts for the defence.]

[Footnote 24: The detailed reasons for this opinion will be given in a medical journal at the proper time. It is allowable here to state, however, that not one of the symptoms laid down by authorities as characteristic of strychnia poisoning was present in the attack of the 24th of June, and that not one of the symptoms which characterizes the natural convulsion was absent. Further, there is a connection between the various portions of Mr. Van Ness's illness which is inconsistent with the theory advanced by the prosecution. Mr. Van Ness stated very positively that the attacks of the 19th, 20th and 24th of June commenced in the same way, with the same symptoms. Yet, according to the theory alluded to, they were the result of poisons which act in precisely opposite methods. On the other hand, the very simple natural explanation of the illness of Mr. Van Ness which was offered by the defence at the trial accounts for the unity and the diversity of the attacks, the basis of which, according to it, was over-susceptibility of the nervous system and of the stomach, produced by overwork and heat.]

THE SWEET WATERS.

The denizens of great cities, whose weary eyes are doomed to rest eternally on long rows of buildings, unrelieved by anything softer or fresher than brownstone or marble fronts, thirst for an occasional glimpse of Nature, so healing to jaded mind and wearied body. So universal is this sentiment that provision for gratifying it is not confined to the cities which our modern civilization has reared, nor do the capitals of Christendom alone boast of their parks and similar places of resort. In effete and uncivilized Turkey the "institution" has long been established, and still flourishes; and the "Sweet Waters of Constantinople" draw quite as well, as regards both male and female visitors, as either Fairmount, Central or Hyde Park, or even the Bois de Boulogne, to which far-famed resort of all that is wise, wicked or witty in Paris these Turkish parks most nearly assimilate.

One of the two "Valleys of the Sweet Waters" is on the European, the other on the Asiatic, side of the Bosphorus. The former is more frequented by the Greek and other Christian populations, while the latter is chiefly resorted to by the higher classes among the Turks and the veiled ladies of their hareems, and is often visited by the sultan himself.

To the Asiatic Sweet Waters you must go by boat, or rather by _caique_, a peculiar little frail cockle-shell of a conveyance, rowed by the most truculent-looking and unmitigated ruffians, Turkish or Grecian, to be found on any waters or in any land, Christian or heathen. Picturesque in costume and exceedingly ragged and dirty, with the most cut-throat expression of face possible to conceive of, when you entrust your person and purse to their tender mercies you involuntarily remember with satisfaction that you insured your life for a good round sum before leaving your native country, and that this is one of the risks it covers.

To the European Sweet Waters you may go by carriage, but if wise will go there also by caique; for even the corduroy roads of our Southern country, so famous for their dislocating qualities, can be paralleled by the so-called road over which once (and once only), for our sins, we suffered ourselves to be shaken, not driven. It is the fashion at Constantinople to visit the Asiatic Sweet Waters only on Friday (the Mussulman Sabbath), and the European Sweet Waters on Sunday; and on those days all that may be seen of Turkish ladies is on full exhibition.

If you select the Asiatic Sweet Waters for your visit, you go down to the wharf at Tophane, where the rival boatmen (caiquejees) raise as loud a din and make as fierce a fight for your person and piastres as you ever encountered on your arrival at New York in a European steamer from rival hack-drivers or hotel "touters." Pulled, pushed and shoved about in all directions as fiercely as ever was the body of Patroclus in the _Iliad_, when Greek and Trojan contended for possession of it, you are at last hustled into a caique, and deposited in the bottom on soft cushions, your back supported by the end of the boat, your face to the two boatmen. The caique is gayly ornamented and pretty to look at, but it is the crankiest and tickliest of all nautical inventions--more resembling a Canadian birch-bark canoe than any other craft you are acquainted with. Admiring the view, you partially rise up and lean your elbow on the side of the boat. A warning cry from your boatmen and a sudden dip of your frail bark, which almost upsets you head-foremost to feed the fishes of the Bosphorus, admonish you to sit quietly, and you can scarcely venture to stir again during the long row. The caique is long and very narrow, and sharp at both ends--pointed, in fact. It is boarded over at these ends to prevent shipping seas. These planks are prettily varnished, with gilded rails, which give the boat a gay look.

The men row vigorously, and the frail skiff skims along the water at a rate of speed equal to an express-train. But the rushing of the rippling waters past the boat is the chief indication of the rapidity of our progress, so smoothly do we glide along. One peculiarity of the caique is that there are no rowlocks for the oars, which are held by a loop of leather fastened on the boat.

All the senses are soothed and steeped in Elysium during this rapid transit. The eye lazily runs over the squat-looking red houses with flat roofs which line the shore, to rest on the dark cypress trees which fill the intervening spaces, with the gilded balconies of some pleasure-palace of sultan or high Turk catching the sight occasionally. Caiques similar to your own are darting about in all directions, following, passing or meeting you, until at length you reach your destination, indicated by the crowd of caiques tied up there, like cabs on a grand-opera night waiting for their customers. Those of high Turkish functionaries or foreign ambassadors are very different from yours--as different as a coach-and-four from a common cab. Many of these have twelve rowers, all in fancy uniforms--red fezzes and jackets embroidered with gold--while the larger caiques are profusely and expensively ornamented.

Stepping ashore, you see a long line of carriages drawn up in several rows, and of every conceivable variety--from the Turkish araba to the most coquettish-looking Parisian coupé--gilded and adorned in a style to make a French lorette stare with amazement at a lavishness of expenditure exceeding her own.

The fair ones to whom these carriages belong may be seen in the distance squatting down on rugs spread out beneath the trees, and sipping coffee or sherbert while listening to musicians or story-tellers. You stroll toward them as near as their attendant guardians--grim-looking black eunuchs armed to the teeth, and quite ready to use those arms with very little provocation on the persons of any "dogs of infidels" who may interfere or seem to interfere with their fair charges--will permit. You see bundles of the gayest colored silks worn by women whose veils are thin as gossamer, and generally permit a very fair view of their charms, not only of face, but of bust as well. The bold black eyes of the caged birds flash out unshrinkingly on the strangers, who inspire curiosity, and not always aversion, if the language of those eyes be interpreted according to the Western code. In fact, the women seem to take a malicious pleasure in annoying their guards by encouraging such advances as can be made by the mute language of looks and signs.

Every Friday in the year the same pantomime is performed. The women go to the Sweet Waters to sit and stare at men whom they do not and never will know or speak to, and the men go to walk or waddle about and stare back at the women in the same way. This monotonous and melancholy pastime is varied by much stuffing of sweetmeats and cakes and sipping of colored beverages by the fair ones, and endless smoking by the men. There are strolling jugglers and musicians plying their trades for the amusement and paras of the public, and they are liberally patronized in the dreary dearth of amusement on these pleasure-grounds.

To the foreigner, after the sight has been seen a few times and divested of its novelty, the whole thing becomes tedious in the extreme; but we must remember that in his tastes the Turk is the very opposite of the Western man, and what would be death to us is fun to him. His idea of true enjoyment is that it should be passive, not active: his highest happiness is in "keff," a perfect repose of mind and body--an exaggeration of the Italian _dolce far niente_. This keff he enjoys at these weekly meetings, and the women in their way enjoy it too as the only public exposition of themselves they are permitted to make, and as a break in the monotony of their dreary and secluded lives.

But there is another mode of killing time there, evidently borrowed, as are the carriages, from Europe. The conveyances at intervals are driven round a circular road in two long files, going and coming, to permit people to stare at each other, just as in London, Paris or New York, minus the salutations to friends or conversation. As the poet says of the stars--

In silence all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball,

though the women, while sitting under the trees, chatter like magpies to one another. The etiquette is to recline languidly back in the carriage and speak through the eyes alone to the mounted cavaliers, who prance as near the carriages containing veiled inmates as the sable guards will permit, to the infinite amusement of Fatima and Zuleika, and boundless wrath and disgust of Hassan or Mustapha, "with his long sword, saddle, bridle, etc."

Two of these carriages are so peculiar to the place and people as to merit description. One of these, the "araba," is an heirloom from their old Tartar ancestry, and is only an exaggerated ox-cart with seats, and a scaffolding of poles around it. Over these poles there hangs a canopy of red to keep off the sun, and the seats are well-stuffed cushions, making a kind of bed of the bottom of the wagon. Into this curious conveyance are piled promiscuously the mother, children and slaves of the establishment--packed in as tightly as possible; and the contrast of costumes, faces, colors and ages between its occupants may be imagined, but cannot be described. For a genuine old-fashioned family carriage commend us to the araba.

This curious conveyance is drawn not by horses, but by white oxen, whose broad fronts are pleasingly painted between the eyes bright red with henna, the dye with which the Turkish ladies tinge their own fair hands and the soles of their feet. The oxen bear high wooden yokes covered with fringes and tassels, and their tails are often looped up with bright cords. Their pace, bearing their heavy burden of wood and flesh, is slow and stately, and the jolting of the springless wagon over the rough roads seemingly very severe. But the inmates seem used to their discomforts, and sit placidly and contentedly on their uneasy seats, apparently proud of their turn-out and the effect they are producing. These cumbrous vehicles are much affected by the elder ladies of the sultan's court, who constitute the Faubourg-Saint-Germain portion of society. True old-school Turks these, who look down with scorn on the new fashions, both in costume and carriage, stolen or adopted from the despised Franks.

Chief and most conspicuous of these latter is the small imitation brougham or coupé, termed a "teleki," and generally built at Paris regardless of cost, and resembling a Christian carriage about as nearly as the Turk resembles a European when he puts on a similar dress. The teleki is pumpkin-shaped, almost round, painted and gilded in the gayest colors, with large bunches of the brightest flowers painted on panels and on the glasses which shut it in all round. It is the most dazzling carriage the imagination of carriage-makers ever devised, and well adapted to the taste of the grown-up children it is intended for, who, clad in raiments of rose-color, pink, bright blue or scarlet, seem a fit lining for the gorgeous exterior. Unlike the French carriage, the teleki has no springs; so the exercise these fair ladies get is about equal to that of a ride on a hard-trotting horse.

Another peculiarity consists in the driver's dismounting from his box and walking gravely alongside the carriage, holding in his hands the colored silken reins to guide the well-bred horses.

On horseback alongside prance the ill-favored eunuchs, ready to swear at or smite the insolent Frank venturing too near the moon-eyed beauties in the teleki.

At these Sweet Waters the sultan has his own kiosk, a gilded monstrosity of architecture, and at its window, worn, pallid, haggard, gazing out with lacklustre and indifferent eye upon the scene below, this shadow of the Prophet might frequently be seen a few years since. It was etiquette for him to come sometimes, so he did it as a duty, not a pleasure; for the poor man had no pleasures, being the most utterly _blasé_ man in this wide world. The drawback on all his pomp and power is the condition annexed to it, that no one is worthy of his society, and he must be ever alone, in public as in private. A representative of the faith as well as of the loyalty of his people, no one can be supposed to meet or associate with him on terms approaching equality, and hence his isolation from human sympathy or society.[25]

The fountain is covered by a square roof, and all around it are marble slabs with Turkish inscriptions in gilt letters praising the virtues of the water. In that scriptural phraseology so common in the East you are notified that "These waters are as sweet as those of the well of Zemzem, of which Abraham drank, and like unto those of the rivers of Paradise to the hot and thirsty who come here to taste them." The water was really very good water, but its praises struck us as rather hyperbolical, possibly because the Frank at Constantinople generally drinks and prefers other and more potent beverages.

But drinking the water is the least part of the performance here, and, unlike Saratoga, "flirtation around the spring" is a thing undreamed of where the sexes, at peril of life and limb, dare not even approximate, much less exchange courtesies over the draught.

There is a narrow road which leads you away from this busy spot to the sources of the fountains of these Sweet Waters. But road-making is not one of the triumphs of Turkish skill, and this is a very dirty and dusty road, full of holes which would smash the springs of any conveyances less primitive and strong than those in use. It is hedged in by fig trees growing to a size which would astonish those who have only seen the dwarf trees of the species which we possess. Passing along this road, we reach the inner valley. Here we find fewer people, but the same astonishing variety of race and costume which makes the other so curious and characteristic. The richness of the silk and satin dresses, all of the brightest colors, which adorn the women, and the gayly-embroidered jackets of the men, make the eyes ache which gaze upon them. Almost every specimen of the Eastern races may be seen here--all taking their pleasure in the same indolent way which distinguishes Eastern enjoyment. The Circassian and Georgian women are certainly very beautiful, as far as regularity of features, bold flashing eyes and great symmetry of form can make them; but they lack expression, the highest feminine charm, and softness is alien to those bold beauties. They remind you of Jezebel, and like her they "paint their faces" before going into public. Not only do they smear their faces freely with white and red, but they also join together their eyebrows by a thick black band of _kohl_, and with the same pigment blacken the lower lids of the eyes, giving a wicked and peculiar expression to the eyes. The tips of the fingers are stained red with henna; and without these appliances no Eastern woman deems her toilette complete. Many of them would doubtless be exceedingly lovely were they to let themselves alone, but Turkish taste requires these appliances, and an unpainted woman is a rarity.

It is an Eastern saying that a woman should be a load for a camel, and in deference to this taste they fatten themselves up until they become mountains of flesh. Where obesity is considered a charm, delicacy of outline ceases to be regarded, and a woman who has not rotundity is regarded as an unfortunate being. They are decidedly the greatest collection of well-fed females to be seen in the world.

The task of the black guards who accompany these houris is anything but a sinecure, and "nods and becks and wreathed smiles" are freely bestowed on the male passers-by in spite of etiquette and eunuchs. If the scandalous chronicles of the coffee-shops and bazaars are to be relied upon, "Love laughs at locksmiths" here as well as in more civilized lands, and Danger and Opportunity wink at each other. There is far less decorum and outward reserve of manner here than in our parks, but this freedom is all confined to looks and gestures, access and converse being both forbidden.

Frequently, however, the bad-tempered guardians of the hareem commit outrages on the persons of real or supposed aggressors in this way, and from these even members of the foreign embassies have not always been exempt. The difficulty of identifying the offender in such cases enhances the impunity of these wretches, for to arrest one on the spot would be impossible in the midst of a crowd which sympathizes with the offender, instead of the sufferer, and looks upon it as a proper punishment for the insolent Giaour. A private person unconnected with an embassy has still less chance for satisfaction, but must pocket the affront, even if smitten by whip or flat of sabre, considering himself fortunate to have escaped maiming or mutilation should he incautiously give a pretext for Ethiopian or Nubian intervention.

Few persons of foreign birth and training would go more than twice to visit the Sweet Waters of Asia, whose peculiarities and amusements have been thus briefly sketched. The spectacle at the European Sweet Waters differs somewhat from the routine already described. There, although you also meet the Turks, the greater proportion of the visitors are either Greeks or native Christians of different races. You see fewer arabas and telekis, and more carriages, or rather hacks, and men galloping along on raw-boned horses in a kind of imitation "Rotten-Row" style. The men wear the European dress, often surmounted by the red fez: the women dress in an insane imitation of French fashions, and glitter with jewelry--a passion with Eastern women of all races and creeds. Frequently a woman carries her whole fortune and her husband's in these ornaments, which, in a country where the difference between _meum_ and _tuum_ is so little observed by persons in authority, is regarded as the safest mode of investment.

The European Sweet Waters are rather more dull and less interesting than the Asiatic, owing to the causes already described, nor is compensation to be found in the superior beauty of the women; for, as a general rule, the Greek men are better looking than the women; and the intercourse between the sexes is regulated on the Eastern plan to a very great extent, though there is not the same absolute prohibition, nor the same peril attendant on the attempt to open an acquaintance. In all Eastern countries, however, the position and treatment of woman are modified by the prevailing prejudice, which places her on a much lower level than the man, and deprives her of most of the cherished privileges of her more favored Western sisters. If the Turk has failed in forcing his religious faith on his Christian vassals, he has succeeded in fixing the social status of their women on much the same basis as his own.

The day selected for visiting the European Sweet Waters by the native or Greek population is either Sunday or on the festival of some one of the many saints whose names are legion in the Greek calendar. Never was there a people so fond of holidays, or who take them oftener under religious pretexts. Yet they celebrate them in anything but a pious manner. Their fasts are much fewer and not so punctiliously observed.