Chapter VIII: Poisoning by Antimony (2)

“_The symptoms exhibited by the rabbits subjected to the Battley from the prisoner’s cupboard responded in every important respect with the effects produced by this mixture, and it was impossible to detect any essential difference in them._”

The Battley’s solution used by Dr. Penny was not purchased from “Murdoch Brothers,” but he had purchased and analysed some from that house, and it was exactly similar to that which he had used. He had also been present when the same experiments as his were tried on rabbits by Dr. Maclagan, in the presence of Drs. Christison, Gamgee, and Littlejohn, with the same result as in his experiments. Dr. Penny was then examined on Dr. Maclagan’s report of his _post-mortem_ examination of Mrs. Pritchard’s body, and on the symptoms exhibited by her from the time she was taken ill in 1865 down to her death. Replying purely as a chemist, and not as a medical man, he declared them to correspond with the action of tartar emetic or tartarised antimony. He further accounted for the presence of the small portions of mercury by the administration of Dr. Paterson’s powders, _Hydrargyrum cum creta_, shortly before death. In Mrs. Taylor’s case he considered the vomitings to be the result of the antimony, which had been traced by the analyses, and repeated the conclusions, already given, to his reports on both bodies.

_Dr. Maclagan_, who was recalled, declared that the whole of the symptoms in Mrs. Pritchard’s case, from Christmas, 1864, until her death—the sickness and vomiting, muscular depression, irritation of the bowels, and cramp in the stomach—were symptoms of poisoning by antimony, and could not, as a medical man, suggest any natural disease to which they were due, that he could assign as the cause of death. He had never seen antimony when rubbed into the skin (referring to the prisoner’s statement that he had done so for a swollen gland in his wife’s neck) produce any constitutional effect. The fact of Mrs. Pritchard some years ago having taken antimony internally for inflammation of the eyelids would not account for the symptoms; and he agreed with Dr. Penny that the traces of mercury were due to the powders prescribed by Dr. Paterson. “There was nothing in the case,” he added, “to indicate to a medical man of ordinary intelligence that she was suffering from gastric fever, or any other fever”; and he adhered to the conclusions already given in his report, that she had been poisoned by minute doses of antimony in the form of tartar emetic given at intervals over a long period of time.

Dr. Maclagan attributed Mrs. Taylor’s death to something more than antimony—some powerful, depressing poison.

“The symptoms,” he said, “might be produced by aconite—being found with her head fallen on her neck, and hardly observed to breathe, her pulse almost if not absolutely imperceptible, and the dozing, torpid state in which she lay, were such as would result from aconite. Though he might know in a case that aconite had been taken, he might not be able to find it by chemical analysis: these organic poisons—all the alkaloids—are very often not found, though known to have been taken. The administration of opium might diminish the effect of antimony in causing vomiting and purging, but its depressing effect on the muscular system would still remain; and if opium, aconite, and antimony were being administered at the same time, he should anticipate symptoms such as appeared in Mrs. Taylor’s case. Taking the symptoms and the results of the _post-mortem_ examination together, the idea of apoplexy was satisfactorily excluded from his judgment; and assuming the correctness of Dr. Paterson’s description of the symptoms he saw, he should not have concluded that it was apoplexy, nor did he think any other medical man would have. He was satisfied with the presence of aconite in the Battley’s solution, without the experiments on the rabbits, which only confirmed it.”

The _cross-examination_ of this witness was directed to the question whether the symptoms in Mrs. Taylor’s case did not indicate poisoning by opium, probably arising from an overdose of Battley’s solution.

“I saw,” said the witness, “no precise indications of poisoning by opium, though I cannot say that she had not taken some. I think aconite was the leading feature in the final part of the case. The symptoms described by Dr. Paterson did not, in my mind, indicate poisoning by opium or laudanum at all. They were not inconsistent with her having taken opium, but they were not consistent with her having been poisoned by it, and with the ordinary symptoms. The symptoms of aconite predominated. If she had taken opium alone I should have expected to find the pulse full and slow, and probably the breathing laborious and stertorous. Though these were absent, I could not say that she had not taken opium, particularly if she had been accustomed to its use.” _When reminded from the judge’s notes that Dr. Paterson had described the breathing as “laborious,” he said_, “It does not make much, indeed not any, modification of my view, because the condition of the pulse showed the action of aconite on the heart. Laborious breathing is an indication of many things besides opium.” _When reminded that Dr. Paterson spoke of her being in a state of “coma_,” he admitted that that generally indicated opium and not aconite, but added that here “it was more oppression than true coma,” and assumed that Dr. Paterson did not use the word scientifically, but as many persons did to describe insensibility. “_But,” said Mr. Clark, “you pointed to the absence of ‘coma’ as indicative of poisoning by aconite._” “I spoke of her,” replied Dr. Maclagan, “being in a torpid condition, which I think was connected with the weakened state of the circulation and not from fulness of the brain. Opium, like aconite, is a vegetable poison, and is absorbed into the system: a person may be poisoned by it without any trace remaining in the stomach or the system capable of being detected by chemical analysis. All mineral poisons are more easily detected, but I am not prepared to give into the statement broadly that a person cannot be poisoned by antimony without it being capable of detection, though I cannot recollect such a case. The quantity here found in both cases was considerable. The expectation is that the chemical analysis will detect it, but there may be exceptions. The fact that Mrs. Taylor’s eyes were contracted is an indication of poisoning by opium, but it also occurs in aconite, though the cases vary a good deal in that respect, from people, as I think, having observed the symptoms at different stages; and the probability is that contraction had been produced at first, and then relaxation at the time all the muscular parts became relaxed—namely, at the time of death. Aconite is applied externally in neuralgia.”[152]

_Dr. Littlejohn_, who was next called, concurred in the opinion that there was nothing to indicate gastric fever in Mrs. Pritchard’s case, and that her death was due to the continuous administration of small doses of antimony from the commencement of her illness to the day of her death, and that the result of the chemical analysis was such as he should, on that supposition, have expected. On the cause of Mrs. Taylor’s death he was not so certain.

“It seemed to me,” said the witness, “that she might have died from a dose of antimony administered shortly before death, or else from some sedative narcotic poison. I have no difficulty in saying that she died of poison, but only as to the particular poison which killed her. I am inclined to believe that the symptoms in her case were mixed to some extent, like the symptoms of narcotic poison, and to some extent like the symptoms of antimony. There was nothing to show that she died of apoplexy, and the _post-mortem_ examination did not indicate any such. In the failure of circulation and great depression and spasms, and the state of insensibility, I recognise the action of antimony; in the later stages of antimonial poisoning we have generally great insensibility. The hot taste in the mouth and burning sensation in the throat after taking the bit of cheese suggest a large dose of antimony, and also suggest a strong dose of narcotic poison—they suggest many things besides cheese. That it caused violent sickness in the case of one of the servants for some hours is quite consistent with antimonial poisoning. In large quantities it would produce a burning sensation in the throat. I have tried it in large quantities, and the secondary sensation is always in the throat, and it did produce a burning sensation. That the egg flip gave the same effect in the case of the servant points to the use of antimony or some substance resembling it. Various other emetics might produce these effects. Egg flip is a convenient medium for administering antimony, as it readily dissolves in it, and sufficient antimony could be dusted on loaf sugar to produce sickness. Sugar is very porous, and antimony, being a white powder, could be dusted over it, and a large quantity absorbed in it—sufficient, not to kill, but to keep up the illness.”

In cross-examination, the witness adhered to his opinion as to the suitableness of egg flip when the hot water had been poured on it, as a medium for antimony, and to the possibility of a sufficient quantity to produce sickness being conveyed into the cup on two pieces of loaf sugar. Though he had not made any special experiments to support this opinion, he considered himself, from his special acquaintance with tartar emetic, entitled to answer in the way he had done. He did not consider opium as a sedative but as a narcotic, and, in his opinion, aconite was a sedative narcotic. There was nothing impossible for Mrs. Taylor to take opium, and for that to contribute to the symptoms.

_Dr. Paterson_, who was re-called, was quite confirmed in his previous opinion of the cause of Mrs. Pritchard’s death from the evidence he had heard. Mrs. Taylor’s death, he thought, had been caused by opium, but there might have been some other narcotic combined to him unknown, and he thought that aconite and opium combined would contribute to the effect and hurry the termination; but he never in his practice had seen any person poisoned by such a combination. He had not the slightest suspicion of antimony, and the narcotic effect was such when he saw Mrs. Taylor that he did not believe that he could recognise the effect of antimony. The narcotic effect would overpower the other, and laudanum would interfere with the usual effect of antimony. What he called stertorous breathing was rather oppressed breathing—snoring and stertorous breathing were the same thing. “By coma,” he added, “I meant insensibility—it means that, especially insensibility under opium; and my impression was that it was opium alone, or some of its preparations: it might be morphia.” Now that he had heard of the discovery of antimony in the body, he believed the death to be due to a combination of antimony and opium, a smaller dose of the latter being likely to have a greater effect, in consequence of the condition of the body produced by the former. If the opium contained upwards of five per cent. of aconite, the effect, he considered, would be much more rapid and more likely to be fatal.

On the conclusion of the medical testimony witnesses were called to prove that at two banks in Glasgow, where Dr. Pritchard had accounts, these were overdrawn on the 20th of March—that he borrowed to the extent of £255 on his life policy, the last advance being as late as the 13th of May—that his mother-in-law had advanced him £500 towards the purchase of his house, and that under her will he would be entitled, in the event of the previous death of his wife, to the interest on two-thirds of her property for the benefit of his children until they attained twenty-one years, and then “for his own use as he might consider proper.” Letters of Mrs. Taylor and Dr. Pritchard were identified, in one of the latter being an entry under February 7th, “Dr. J. M. C. here; on February 8th Dr. J. M. C. left”—namely, Dr. Cowan.

THE PRISONER’S STATEMENTS.

In accordance with the Scotch practice, two declarations were made by Dr. Pritchard before the sheriff, one on the 22nd of March, and the other on the 21st of April. The _first declaration_ was as follows:—

“I have always attended my wife in all her ailments of every kind during the whole period of our married lives, now fifteen years, and some of these illnesses were very severe; but I never saw her so ill as she was on the occasion which terminated fatally. As far as my judgment goes, her last illness was gastric fever, which commenced about the beginning of the present year. I gave my wife no medicines during her illness excepting wine, champagne, and brandy, to support her strength; and I gave her no medicines at all. I trusted to nature to right itself, with the assistance of these restoratives. During the last six weeks her power of sleeping entirely went away. In order to procure sleep I gave her, at the commencement of her sleeplessness, a small quantity of chloroform, but it entirely disagreed with her, and I discontinued it. I then called in Dr. Gairdner, professor of medicine in the university, and he visited and saw her several times; and he continued to attend her till her old medical friend, Dr. James M. Cowan, returned, and he came from Edinburgh to see her.[153] I then wrote to her mother to come and nurse her, and she arrived about the 11th of February last; and her arrival had a beneficial effect upon Mrs. Pritchard for some time, but still the sleeplessness continued; and shortly after her mother’s death, which happened on the 25th of February, she relapsed and became much worse, and very apprehensive about herself, and she suggested to me the adoption of a medicine with which her mother was very familiar—Battley’s solution of opium—but I declined to give her any without first consulting Dr. J. Paterson, who lived close by. I saw him, and consulted him, but he did not see Mrs. Pritchard on that occasion, and he did not approve of using the solution of opium. He prescribed granulated citrate of magnesia, calomel, mercury, and chalk, and I acted on his advice and administered the medicine, and it seemed to have a beneficial effect.[154] Some time after, finding her sleeplessness still continued, I, at her own suggestion, applied a solution of atropine to the external parts of the eye, and it had a little effect for some time, but the effects soon ceased. After her mother’s death, she became rapidly worse; indeed, I ascribed her decease to the agitation consequent on her mother’s death. At the time of the last event she was strongly impressed with the idea that she would herself die at the same time as her mother; in fact, she did die on a subsequent day at exactly the same hour. On the night preceding her death she was apprehensive that, unless she got sleep, she should not get through the night. I went for Dr. Paterson, who came immediately and sat for a considerable time by the bedside, and afterwards dictated a prescription, which was made up at the Glasgow Apothecary Company’s shop at Elmbank-street. It will be found in my desk at home. It was for two draughts to be given four hours after the first if it did not succeed. She got the first draught as prescribed by Dr. Paterson about ten o’clock, but she said after drinking it that it was not half strong enough, and asked if she might have some of her mother’s medicine. I refused to give it her, and said I dare not do it. I gave her a glass of port wine, and sat carefully watching for a short time. I then went down stairs and had supper, and, after being absent for some time, returned to see if she had got to sleep. I found her awake, and she wished me to give her something to make her sleep. I refused, and she then asked me to come to bed, as I must be tired with the weary nights of watching. It was then about twelve o’clock. I tried to persuade her that I should sit up to watch her till past the time when her mother had died; but to please her I got into bed, and almost immediately I fell asleep from the state of exhaustion I was in; was awoke by her pulling at my beard, and found my wife struggling to get into bed. She appeared to have got out of bed. She said, ‘Edward, I am faint.’ I assisted her into bed, and asked her how long I had been asleep, but she answered, ‘Don’t speak; look! do you see my mother?’ I said ‘No, it is only a vision; only imagination,’ and asked if she felt pain. She said she felt cold, and I need try no more skill; that I had failed this time, and that she was going to her mother. I got alarmed and rang the bell violently, and the youngest servant came. I desired her to make a mustard plaster as quickly as she could, and on that my wife turned round and said, ‘Edward, I’m in my senses; mustard plasters will do no good,’ and almost immediately she fell back in my arms and died. The servant came with the mustard plaster, and found her in that position. I did not give her any other medicine at that time except a little brandy applied to her lips.[155] During the whole course of her illness I never gave her any antimony, nor any medicine in which there was any preparation of antimony. Antimony is a poison, but it is used occasionally to subdue inflammations, and I applied it to her neck, in October last, when she was plagued with a swelling gland in the neck. I rubbed it in externally on that occasion, and I have never given her any antimony since. On that occasion I recommended change of air, and I gave her a little bottle of antimony with her for the same purpose of rubbing in behind the ear. She went to Edinburgh at that time, and she returned to Glasgow very much better, and I have never seen the bottle of antimony since she got it away with her. There was a considerable quantity of antimony in my repositories at the time of my wife’s last illness, as I used it extensively in my practice, and it was kept in a cupboard of which I had the key, but which was not always locked. I did not see any of it brought out, or lying about, during her illness. The cupboard where the antimony was is in the consulting-room on the ground flat, and she was so weak on the day of her death—Saturday—and on the Friday preceding, that I do not think she had strength to have gone to the cupboard herself. My wife took the antimony internally on one occasion when she had a tendency to inflammation of the eyelids. This was years ago, and I never knew her to use it internally, except on this occasion. I never administered antimony to her internally on any occasion, nor any other substance calculated to injure or destroy life.”

In the _second declaration_, made on the 21st day of April, 1865, he confirmed the correctness of the former one when read to him, denied the charges as laid in the indictment, and elected to make the following voluntary statement with reference to Mrs. Taylor’s death:—

“I never administered poison to her. I did, and I do believe, that she died from paralysis and apoplexy. I have no further statements to make, and by the advice of my agent will make none, with the exception that I am entirely innocent of the charge preferred against me.”

Being asked by the Procurator Fiscal whether he ever administered or caused to be administered to the said Jane Cowan or Taylor tartarised antimony, declares:—

“My agent recommended me to say nothing, and I decline to answer the question, and, as I act under my agent’s advice, it is unnecessary to put any further questions.”

EVIDENCE FOR THE DEFENCE.

With this evidence the prosecution was closed late on the third day, and on the next the defence was opened by calling witnesses on the Prisoner’s behalf.

_Dr. Michael Taylor_, Mrs. Pritchard’s brother, had seen her on the 28th of February, a few days after his mother’s death, when she objected to Dr. Gairdner again visiting her, and to following her brother’s advice to have a nurse, as she did not like strangers about her. He also identified as her writing two letters from Edinburgh to her husband at the time of her visit to her parents in November, in which she spoke of the slowness of her recovery and her inability to go out, except two or three times.

_Mr. Simpson_, a partner in Duncan & Co., Chemists, in Edinburgh, remembered Dr. Pritchard, some four years ago, purchasing Battley’s solution at their shop, and that shortly afterwards other purchases of this compound were frequently made in his name by one Thomson, whom he recognised, down to the beginning of 1865. _Fairgrieve_, another chemist in Edinburgh, spoke to repeated purchases of this compound by or for Mrs. Taylor for several years before her death, once in a 5-oz. bottle, but generally in bottles of 2 oz.[156]

Two other witnesses proved that they consulted Dr. Pritchard for affections of the ear, and that to the first he gave a bottle labelled “poison—2 drops in each ear every night,” and to the other a tonic of glycerine and strychnia; the object being to account for the numerous poisons found in the cupboard in his consulting room.[157] _Dr. McHattie_ proved that there were not the necessary drugs in the cupboard to enable the Prisoner to make up Dr. Paterson’s prescription,[158] and afterwards his eldest son certified that his father and mother lived happily together, and his daughter, who lived chiefly with her grandparents, that they were fond of each other. The evidence for the defence then was closed.

THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL’S SPEECH.

In addressing the jury on the evidence, the counsel for the prosecution drew their especial attention to (1) the fact—not contested and not contestable—that though none of the medicines prescribed by the medical attendants on both of the ladies had contained any preparation of antimony, antimony was found in their bodies—in that of Mrs. Pritchard in such proportions as could only be accounted for by a long continuous administration of that drug—in Mrs. Taylor’s sufficient to so reduce her system as to increase the operation of any narcotic poison; (2) that the notion of this having been taken by accident was excluded even by the prisoner’s own statement, and that the idea of suicide was entirely at variance with the characters of the sufferers, and in the case of the wife with the fact that suicides do not choose “a long, lingering, and painful death;” (3) that the prisoner had in his possession the means of administering poison as well as the opportunities; (4) that in the three cases in which symptoms of antimonial poisoning were felt by those who tasted the cheese, the egg flip, and the tapioca, the prisoner had the opportunities of dealing with these articles of food before they were sent to his wife; (5) that in the remnant of one of them—the tapioca—antimony to a large extent was found; (6) that in a bottle of Battley’s solution found in the pocket of Mrs. Taylor after her death aconite in deadly proportions was detected; and (7) that there was a pecuniary motive, paltry as it might be represented to be, to induce the prisoner to commit both these murders.[159] Who, then, he said, put the antimony into the food? who put that and the aconite into the Battley’s solution?

“Who, then,” continued the _Solicitor-General_, “was the murderer? For there was a murder—a deliberate, cold-blooded, cruel murder—committed in that house. Who was it? We know the inmates. There were the two students of medicine. I suppose you may lay them aside as having nothing to do with it. Suspicion does not attach to them, neither had they the opportunity. The servants change in the course of the enacting of this dreadful tragedy—all but one. Catherine Lattimer was there until the 13th of February. The poisoning went on after she left—the deaths both occurred after she left. She was not the poisoner, nor was there a breath of suspicion about her. Mary Patterson comes on the 16th of February. The poisoning, indeed, goes on after she comes; but it had commenced long before—weeks before. We, therefore, lay her aside. There was Mary McLeod, a girl under seventeen, the only remaining grown person in the house during the whole course of the administration to which I need refer. I need not take any notice of the children, who were the only other inmates of the house. See, then, to what we have come. There was a murderer in the house—a murderer practising the dreadful art of slow poisoning from the end of December till past the middle of March. The only two grown persons, except the boarders, who were in the house during that time—the only two who had access to the patients—were the prisoner at the bar and Mary McLeod. This is narrowing the case to a very short question. I have excluded every other idea from the case, by fair, legitimate, convincing argument, upon evidence that is not open to dispute. I have excluded the notion of natural death. I have established the fact of death by poison. I have excluded the idea of death by accident, by suicide, by the administration medicinally. You are shut up, therefore, to murderous administration.... I find that the only two who had access to these miserable victims, and had any opportunity to perpetrate the murders with which they are charged, were the prisoner and this one girl. Now, pray, consider, with respect to the wife, upon the question whether or no the prisoner is not the man clearly proved by irresistible evidence to be so, what was the nature of the murder? _It was a murder in which you almost detect a doctor’s finger._ It is gradual poisoning—poisoning so as not to kill but to weaken; leaving off for a day, and then resuming again—one day better, two days worse. During the whole time the patient exhibited the symptoms of vomiting and purging, the result of the action of antimony. You have that going on for a long time under the very eye of a medical man, the husband of the victim, who was in close attendance upon her. Do you think anybody else—do you think a girl of seventeen could have done that deed? She knew nothing about antimony.[160] If she did not do it, the prisoner must have done it. And what is his case? His case respecting his own wife, who was thus demonstrably being poisoned by inches under his very eye during this long period—what is his case? “I thought it was gastric fever,” he says. Gastric fever! Nobody could have thought it was gastric fever. Nothing like gastric fever in it. Nothing like anything except what it was—slow, cruel poisoning, which brought, in the course of two or three months, this poor woman to the grave, with such an amount of poison in her body.”

Referring, then, to the false statements made by the prisoner in the case of Mrs. Taylor—that she had tumbled off her chair in his consulting room in a fit, and been carried up to bed, when it was proved that she had walked up to her bedroom from his consulting room—had during the evening called to one of the servants to go out and get sausages for supper—had had no tumble or fit, and that the doctor himself knew nothing about her attack till the bell rang violently three times—that hot water had been taken up by the servant to make her vomit—the strange statement to Dr. Paterson before the bottle of “Battley” was found in Mrs. Taylor’s pocket, that she had purchased half-a-pound of it a few days before—the false certificate of her death, “paralysis for twelve hours and apoplexy for one hour,” when there was no paralysis except the paralytic affection caused by the aconite, and that was not before she went upstairs at nine o’clock in the evening, only four hours before her death: then referring to the tapioca purchased entirely for Mrs. Taylor’s use, into which antimony was put by some one; the Solicitor-General said:—

“Keep in view that the method of poisoning alleged against the prisoner here is not the giving a dose that would kill, but the introducing it into the food in such quantities that the taking would not kill, but produce sickness merely—the intention being to produce and continue the sickness for months, the fatal termination then supervening. A poisoner in this way practises the dreadful art successfully, and could not be very apprehensive of even himself or any one else taking the food accidentally, as it would only make them sick. He knows that to produce death it will be necessary to continue it for a long time. Into this tapioca antimony is introduced—sufficient to produce sickness in anybody taking it, but not death. But Mrs. Pritchard does not get this tapioca. It is taken by Mrs. Taylor, and she is seized immediately by symptoms of poisoning by antimony. She is sick in the same way—I think she expressed it—as her daughter was; because the effects were the same. That tapioca was not put away, as it might be required again; and if Mrs. Pritchard had wanted tapioca again, she would have got that, and the poisoning would have been carried on by its means. If anybody else got it, it would be a misfortune, but not much more. And who could have introduced it but the master of the house, who was an adept in such a mode of poisoning.—I do not know how many, if more than one, partook of poisoned food; but some food had been poisoned. I take that for granted, and that it had been taken by one of the boarders, Connell, I think. But that is not presented as part of the case. He was one day more or less sick. The prisoner does not seem to have been alarmed about it—he does not seem to have been alarmed even when he himself was sick upon some occasion in February. He knew very well there was no occasion for alarm, for sickness was the end of it; that it would require a long sickness in order to produce anything like a fatal result.”

Briefly, then, reviewing the points he had made, the Solicitor-General concluded his exhaustive address.

THE DEFENCE.

_Mr. Rutherford Clark_, in the opening of his speech, urged on the jury that the enormity of the double crime required it “to be proved by evidence strong, clear, overwhelming, that brought home to their minds and consciences, without the slightest suspicion on the testimony, the guilt of the prisoner,” and that “the motives assigned for it were not such as could ever have, in the slightest degree, actuated any human being to the commission of such hideous offences.” Whilst he could not deny that he had the opportunity of committing the crime, he contended “that it went a very short way—indeed no way at all—in even suggesting or indicating his guilt.”

“If,” he said, “you find a case where crime is committed, and where the person charged with committing it has made an opportunity for himself—has been zealous in obtaining opportunities—then opportunity is of the greatest possible importance and the strongest possible evidence; but to say that he has opportunity in this case is nothing more than to say it was likely, as indeed it was true, that the husband who was attending the sick bed of his wife, should carry to her some of her meals, and send up others with her meals. But that he should do so is, I am sure, nothing unnatural—nothing to suggest guilt. It would have been frightfully suggestive of guilt, if, instead of sending up these meals, and taking them up himself, he had always chosen some other agent to carry them up and to administer the food she was taking. If that had been the case, I should have been inclined to say that the Crown would have had a case much more strong to indicate guilt, than they have when, as it is stated here, that he was administering to the comfort of his wife while upon her death-bed.”[161]

On the point that the prisoner was in possession of the means of poisoning, “he was,” he said, “by profession a doctor, and had, no doubt, as most doctors have, considerable quantities of drugs in his possession. Whether he had more than most medical men kept in their houses was a matter of opinion, but it was absurd to suppose that he accumulated these large quantities of most powerful and destructive poisons—a minute dose of many of which would have been fatal—for the purpose of murder.”[162]

“But,” continued _Mr. Clark_, “it is not unimportant, in considering this question, and it is very important especially in considering the argument of the Solicitor-General, that these poisons were kept, not in any locked press, but, on the contrary, within the reach of the household. It is a remark I have made, that there was not one of the poisoned articles of food which ever reached the lips of Mrs. Taylor or Mrs. Pritchard without passing through other hands than the prisoner’s, and it is odd enough that, in regard to each of them, the person who administered it and who carried away the food left, is this girl, Mary McLeod. It will not do for the Solicitor-General to say, ‘I have established that one of two persons must have committed these crimes,’ and that you can trace the particular finger of the medical man in connection with them. Probability will never support a conviction. It will not do for him to say, as regards the death of Mrs. Pritchard, that it was the act either of the prisoner or Mary McLeod, and that it was not likely that a girl of under seventeen would have the skill to do it. Do you not think that he shrinks from the onus of proof when he accepts this convenient mode of getting rid of the difficulty, as he must prove that it is one of those two who did it. He must prove by evidence that it was not Mary McLeod or some one else in the house, and it was only by showing that it was not Mary McLeod, that he can bring this charge home, to the prisoner.” [Mr. Clark then noticed that the question was put to Lattimer whether she put anything into the tapioca, but that that question was not put to Mary McLeod.] “It is a singular omission in the case of the Crown, which necessarily depends upon being able to select between those two persons, whom the Solicitor-General stated were the only two who could have committed the murder, that they did not venture to put the question to exclude upon her evidence the fact that she might have been guilty. And this is all the more strong that I shall trace every article of poisoned food immediately through her hands.”[163]

Subsequently he reviewed the evidence as to each of the three poisoned articles of food.

“Let us see,” he said, “about this tapioca:—it was suggested, apparently through Mrs. Taylor, that Mrs. Pritchard would like some. Accordingly some tapioca is brought by a little boy, and it is brought in, and received by Mary McLeod. She says she placed it for some short time on the lobby table. Catherine Lattimer says Mary McLeod took it down to her, but Mary says Mrs. Taylor did. Now the suggestion of the Crown is that the prisoner put antimony in this tapioca, so nicely adjusted to the quantity bought as to produce sickness leading to death, but not so as to produce death itself. It would certainly have been of some importance to have shown that he had any opportunity of administering or putting any poison into it, but it is not proved—there is not a shadow of evidence that he had any opportunity, or to show that he was in the house at the time. He was a man accustomed to exercise an active profession, and, of course, would naturally be out at that period of the day; but at all events it is not shown that he was aware that his wife desired tapioca, or that his mother-in-law had ordered it. It is not even shown that there was the least possibility of his introducing antimony into that bag. It is prepared and carried up by Mary McLeod to her mistress, who declines to take it, and it is taken by Mrs. Taylor, who was taken ill after partaking of it.”

Again, as to the poisoned bit of cheese:—

“It is spoken to by Mary McLeod. She tells you she had taken up the tray for supper, and that on it was the cheese and other things which were placed on the table at which Dr. Taylor and the other inmates of the house are sitting; that she came out, and that, on returning again, Dr. Pritchard handed to her a piece of cheese to take to her mistress. She did not see him cut off the piece of cheese, but he handed it to her sitting at the table; and it is perfectly obvious it must have been cut off the cheese eaten by the family at supper. If he placed antimony upon it, it must have been in the presence of the persons at supper—a piece of yellow cheese which must have indicated the powder of tartarised antimony, if placed upon it.[164]—It was not asked if it were possible to put this tartarised antimony upon the cheese while sitting at supper. I leave you to judge if it were possible. It was taken up oddly enough—I cannot help noticing the coincidence—by Mary McLeod. She says she ate part of it, and that it did her no harm; but the residue was taken down into the kitchen and eaten by Patterson, and she suffered from vomiting.”

Again, as to the poisoned egg-flip:—

“The doctor comes and tells his servant to prepare some, a thing not unnatural to be taken by a person with a delicate stomach, and for a medical man to order. But it is said this was a plot for Dr. Pritchard to get in his drugs in this way. He supposes that he went through the dining-room and got the sugar, and then into the consulting-room, and then into the pantry, and dropped the pieces of sugar, on which he had put antimony, into the egg. Does he give any proof of this? Does he suggest anything more than suspicion? The Crown seems to have doubted whether he could on the sugar have put in so much antimony as to have produced the effects which the servant girl says she suffered. Dr. Littlejohn thought it possible, but he had never tried the experiment. A possibility at the best—a large possibility—that he could have put in the drug. Was the egg-flip capable of producing the effects which are said to have been caused by it? ‘Barely possible,’ according to Dr. Littlejohn. What is its history: does it pass through his hands? No. It was left by Patterson in the pantry, and Mary McLeod came down for it to the kitchen. She was told it was in the pantry, and she goes up to bring it down again. There, again, you have Mary McLeod intervening in the matter, notwithstanding the dilemma on which the Solicitor-General placed his case: she it is who carries it up to the bedroom, and she it is who administers it to the patient who is suffering there. There is another remarkable thing in this case. The amount of antimony introduced must have been a very powerful dose, because, taking only a teaspoonful of the egg-flip as Patterson did, she lay vomiting and suffering all night. Mrs. Pritchard took a wine-glassful, and vomited for about half an hour afterwards. Surely if a strong woman took only a teaspoonful, and a weak woman a wine-glassful, she would have been destroyed by the poison that had so powerful an effect on the former.”[165]

Again, with reference to the bottle of Battley’s solution found in Mrs. Taylor’s dress after her death, into which it was suggested that the prisoner had put the aconite and antimony discovered in it, said Mr. Clark:—

“He knew, no doubt, that she was taking it, but it is not in the least degree proved that he knew where it was, in what bottle it was, or where Mrs. Taylor kept the bottle. Mary McLeod did know, for she bought it for Mrs. Taylor. But what is the ground of suggestion that aconite had been put into that bottle before Mrs. Taylor had it? All that you have is that Drs. Maclagan and Littlejohn say there was, and that they were contradicted by the person who actually observed its effects. And what became of this bottle? It was found on her person after her death. Is it possible to suppose that he had the means of getting at the bottle before her death to introduce the poison? How could he? It was carried about her person, and there is not the slightest suggestion that he ever had access to it; and yet you are asked to act upon that suggestion, because it is said, ‘You may probably trace the administration of a medical hand.’ No: probabilities are not in this case. It is proof, and proof alone, that we can go on. What was the history of the bottle? It was found in her clothes, no doubt, when the body was being dressed by Patterson and Nabb, and even they did not know the very great quantity, perhaps, that this old lady had taken. But still more, supposing that she should take no aconite, she had taken sufficient of the mixture to account for her death. Assuming that the highest mark on the bottle, as taken by Dr. Paterson, is a correct one, it would come to be not less than 2¾ ounces that had been taken. It was shown that the bottle was put by for some time; but if it was taken away after the murder, that is of very little consequence. If he had put antimony in it, would it not have been very easy for him to have thrown the bottle aside? But instead of that, we have him expressing his surprise to these two women that she had taken such a great quantity. He takes away the bottle, and brings it back again, and there it remains until examined by Dr. Penny, who then finds that it contains some aconite and antimony. But where is the shadow of a proof that he put it there? The bottle was lying open—was not locked up in any way: it remained in the house from the death of Mrs. Taylor till after the prisoner was apprehended, more than a month afterwards. Any person in the house might have access to it, and yet all that can be suggested to prove that the prisoner put in this antimony and aconite before her death was contained in the observation of my learned friend, that you could trace, or that you could _probably_ trace here, the finger of a medical man.”[166]

The false statement in the certificate of death, Mr. Clark attributed to a desire of sparing the feelings of the husband. He did not justify the morality of the act, but, looking at the circumstances, asked the jury “if there was any degree of guilty knowledge when he asked Dr. Paterson to inform his father-in-law of the cause of death, and he was only forced to take that step by his refusal.” With Dr. Paterson’s manner in the witness-box he naturally dealt in the most severe language of reproof and censure.

“I do not believe,” he said, in concluding his remarks on this witness, “he saw any symptoms of poisoning, or he would have acted as any other medical man would have acted—unselfishly, nobly, and generously in this matter. And when you see that this is inconsistent with the whole conduct of the profession to which he belongs, I ask you to disbelieve many of the statements he makes. You cannot rely on these statements, given with a bias, for he tells you what is incredible, or only credible at the loss of his own honour, which I am sure he will strive studiously to guard. He has become a partisan in this matter altogether, and forgot what is due to his position and his profession. All that can be said of Dr. Paterson is this,—that he speaks about the prisoner, of his mother-in-law, and speaks further about what he said of her falling; yet even after all, this is merely an account of a circumstance given by him some months, or, if you like, a month after the case occurred. And because the prisoner made some statements not exactly consistent with the truth as now disclosed on the evidence, are you to believe, on Dr. Paterson’s statement, and upon his statement only, that these statements were made so as to show guilty knowledge. I can quite understand that after there is proof of administration you may support that proof by evidence of falsehoods which the prisoner may tell, if you have reliable evidence to prove that they were stated. But when you have no evidence of administration of poison, then the evidence is all the other way; then I think you cannot eke out the probabilities of the case by appealing to these probabilities, or to the falsehoods depending on evidence like that here, as showing conclusively, beyond a reasonable doubt, that this prisoner was the person who committed that foul crime upon the person of his mother-in-law.”

Having thus commented on the evidence given for the prosecution on all the leading points of the case, in masterly, if not convincing arguments, in conclusion the prisoner’s counsel dwelt on the admitted terms of affection in which he lived with his wife and children—on the impossibility of believing in his commission of such a cold-blooded murder, on the evidence adduced. “The whole evidence of the Crown,” he said, “hangs upon probability, and can never justify you in believing, in the first place, that he was capable of committing the crime; and, in the second, it is hardly conceivable that anything so unnatural should be committed by such a man.”

THE JUDGE’S CHARGE.

On the fifth day, the Lord Justice Clerk summed up the evidence in this protracted trial with great minuteness, in the course of his charge reading to the jury nearly the whole of the evidence, and meeting the various objections to its relevancy offered by the prisoner’s counsel. There were three points, he said, for their consideration. (1.) Did the two ladies, or either of them, die from poison? (2.) If aye, was that poison administered for the purpose of destroying life? (3.) Was it the prisoner who administered it?

On the first point, after calling their attention in detail to the medical and analytical evidence in the case of Mrs. Pritchard, that she died from slow antimonial poisoning, he said, did not appear to have been contested by the prisoner’s counsel, and, upon the evidence, he did not think it admitted of a doubt. As the evidence showed that it was not from a large dose of antimony taken lately before death that she had died, the idea of accident or mistake was excluded. That it might have arisen from unskilful treatment by the prisoner was negatived by his assertion that he had never administered antimony to her, except once externally in October last, which could have nothing to do with the state in which the intestines were found in March. The idea of suicide by slow poisoning, even if there had been any hint of a suicidal tendency on Mrs. Pritchard’s part, was equally inadmissible: she must, if killed by antimony, have had it administered to her for that purpose. In Mrs. Taylor’s case, into the details of which he fully entered, one was almost forced to the conclusion that her death was brought about by the combined action of aconite, antimony, and opium. As to the idea of accident in her case it was inconsistent with the fact that the Battley’s solution was pure when bought. “Was it then,” he added, “by accident that these two subtle poisons, aconite and antimony, found their way into her medicine-bottle: if not by accident, did she put them there herself, or had she any knowledge of such things as to enable her, if she were willing, so to poison herself by using her own medicine? There was no appearance of that, and the character and conduct of the old lady, her natural condition both of body and mind as you heard it described by the witnesses, is such as not to suggest the idea of suicide in her case as a possibility at all. Consider, then, with reference to both deaths, whether you can arrive at the conclusion, or whether you can resist the conclusion, that the poison by the means of which they were deprived of life was wilfully given to them for the very purpose of destroying life.”

Passing then to the third question, “Was the poison of which these ladies died administered to them by the prisoner?” the Lord Justice Clerk went with great minuteness through the painful details of Mrs. Pritchard’s long and lingering illness, the symptoms which it exhibited, the prisoner’s misrepresentation of it as gastric fever, when the medical men proved that there was no fever in the case, but clear signs of antimonial poisoning, and the various acts of the prisoner during it which were put forward as showing that he had, and that he used, the opportunities his position offered, for the purpose of administering the poison. The interest of this portion of the charge, as well as of that relating to the symptoms and death of Mrs. Taylor, and the prisoner’s conduct in relation to it, depends so entirely on the judge’s method of marshalling the evidence, already reported, that it could not be satisfactorily given except verbatim. Many of the remarks of the learned judge, on these points of the evidence, have already been reported in the notes. It will therefore be sufficient to give, here, his remarks on the question of motive, and on the suggestion of the prisoner’s counsel with regard to Mary McLeod.