G. Lathom Browne

TRIALS FOR POISONING BY ARSENIC.

Notwithstanding the difficulties thrown in the way of the purchase of arsenic by the “Sale of Arsenic Regulation Act” of 1852, the cases of poisoning by the use of this drug have been so numerous, that it has been difficult to select examples without greatly extending the bulk of this volume. I have, therefore, limited the full reports in this chapter to two, namely:—(1). The case of Miss Madeline Smith for the imputed murder of her lover, Pierre Emile L’Angelier in Glasgow, tried before the “Lords of the Justiciary,” the chief criminal court of Scotland, in Edinburgh, on the 30th of June, 1857, a case full of interest and doubt, the mystery of which will probably never be disclosed; and (2) that of Ann Merritt for the murder of her husband, tried at the Old Bailey, March 8th, 1850, on the verdict in which arose a notable difference of opinion between leading medical and other experts, and the chief medical witness, as to the possibility of fixing, with any definiteness, the time at which the arsenic found in the body had been administered; resulting in the eventual commutation of the capital sentence by Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary. This was the case referred to by the Attorney-General in his cross-examination of Dr. Letheby in Palmer’s trial. For the trial of Madeline Smith I have relied on the Report reprinted with additions and corrections from “The Scotsman,” by far the most accurate that I have read. To my copy is an Appendix of the whole of the letters, including those suppressed in Court, published in New York at the Astor Press. Happily it is not necessary to dwell on their disgusting details.

TRIAL OF MADELINE SMITH.

Before the Lord Justice Clerk (the Hon. John Hope), Lord Ivory, and Lord Handyside, at Edinburgh, 30th June and following days, 1857.

For the Prosecution: The Lord Advocate (Jas. Moncrieffe), The Solicitor-General (E. F. Maitland), and Mr. Donald Mackenzie.

For the Defence: The Dean of Faculty, Mr. John Inglis (now Lord Justice General), Mr. G. Young (now Lord Young), and Mr. H. Moncrieff.

By the indictment the Prisoner was charged with administering or causing to be administered to Emile L’Angelier,[102] arsenic or some other poison, in coffee, cocoa, or some other food or drink, on the 19th or 20th of February, and on the 22nd or 23rd of February last, with intent to murder, and on the 22nd or 23rd of March, whereby he died on the day last named, and was thus murdered by the Prisoner. To which the Prisoner pleaded “Not Guilty.”

THE HISTORY OF THE CASE.

Pierre Emile L’Angelier, a Frenchman by birth, had been employed in Scotland since the year 1843, when he was with a firm of nurserymen at Dundee. How long he stayed with them was not proved, but according to his own statement he was one of the National Guard in the Revolution in Paris in 1848. He was always a poor man, and in 1851, when again in Scotland, was in such straits that he was living at a tavern in Edinburgh on the charity of its proprietor. When there he was at times in very low spirits, crying at night, and speaking of committing suicide, getting out of bed and walking about the room weeping, and on one occasion on the point apparently of throwing himself out of the window of his room had he not been prevented by his companion. Some love affairs—one with an English lady, another with a lady in Fife—were the causes he assigned for his melancholy and depression. In a letter, probably of this date, he wrote, “I never was so unhappy in my life. I wish I had the courage to blow my brains out.” In 1852 he was in the employ of another nurseryman at Dundee, still harping on his disappointment in love, complaining bitterly of the last lady’s intended marriage with another—gloomy, moody, dull, and threatening to stab himself. Vain of his person, he was always talking of his success with ladies, and of what he should do if he was again jilted. On one occasion, when speaking of the use of arsenic for improving the coats of horses, and asked if he was not afraid of poisoning them, he said, “Oh, no: so far from doing that, he had taken it himself, without any bad effects.” From this employment he went to that of Messrs. Huggins and Co., of Glasgow, where he was looked upon as a steady, industrious clerk, “a well-behaved, well-principled, religious man.” Whilst with this firm he pressed a young friend to introduce him to Miss Smith; and thus sprang up the attachment which led to the catastrophe.

Miss Madeline Smith, to whom L’Angelier was introduced towards the end of 1854, was the daughter of an architect of position in Glasgow, and had lately returned from an English boarding-school. She was attractive in person, and just of the age to fall violently in love with such a plausible, goodlooking man as L’Angelier. As her parents naturally had little liking for a merchant’s clerk as their daughter’s husband, the love affair that arose at once after the introduction was carried on clandestinely by a voluminous correspondence, in which more than 200 letters passed from her to the deceased in the brief period of their attachment, and such stolen interviews in or out of her father’s house as could be arranged with the connivance of one of his servants. According to the theory of the prosecution, L’Angelier was an accomplished and deliberate seducer, who at last gained his purpose on the 6th of May, from which date Miss Smith’s letters to her lover speak plainly of matters of which even married persons would be reticent, and are couched in language suitable only to married persons. She was clearly in L’Angelier’s power, who wished to marry her, and made more than one arrangement for an elopement. Towards the end of 1856, however, her affection for him began to cool, and with reason. She had accepted the attentions of a Mr. Minnoch, with the full consent of her parents, and shortly after actually fixed the day for her marriage with him. The danger of her situation pressed upon her. L’Angelier, when he knew of this, was not the man to sit tamely under such a slight, or to let another person marry one of whom he knew so much to her discredit. She wrote him to return her letters, begged and prayed him to do so, and let the engagement drop, to which she never could get the sanction of her parents. He refused. He had heard a rumour of the Minnoch engagement, and he threatened to send the letters to her father. Still it was not revenge that he wanted; he wanted his wife. Her letters at this time give the most painful proofs of the state of mind into which she had fallen. “On her bended knees,” she wrote, begging “him not to expose her, for her mother’s sake,” and “the dread of her father’s anger.” “As you hope for mercy at the judgment day, do not inform on me; do not make me a public shame. There is no one I love. My love was all given to you. My heart is empty, cold. I am unloved. I am despised. I told you I had ceased to love. It is true.” Such was her letter, presumably of the 11th of February, 1857. At this time she was engaged to Minnoch, and the day of the marriage, if not actually fixed, had been talked about. She begged for an interview. In the postscript to this sad letter, she added: “I will take you within the door; the area gate will be open. I shall see you from my window, twelve o’clock. I will wait till one o’clock.” The exact date of this letter could not be proved, as it had been delivered and not posted. It was dated only Tuesday evening, twelve o’clock; and however ingenious was the argument of the Lord Advocate, it failed to satisfy the court that it produced an interview on the 11th which led to another on the 19th—the day on which, according to the Crown, she first administered the poison to her lover, from which arose the first of his illnesses, as described by Mrs. Jenkins, his landlady.

Previously to the trial, the following explanation of the connection with L’Angelier had been given by the prisoner, in her examination before the Sheriff Substitute of Lanarkshire on the 31st of March, “when,” he said, “she answered his questions without hesitation, and with great appearance of frankness and candour.”

DECLARATION OF THE PRISONER.

“I am a native of Glasgow, 21 years of age, and reside with my father at No. 7, Blythswood Square, Glasgow. For about two years I have been acquainted with P. Emile L’Angelier, who was in the employment of Huggins & Co., in Bothwell Street, and resided at 10, Franklin Place. He recently paid his addresses to me, and I have met him on a variety of occasions. I heard of his death on the afternoon of the 23rd of March from my mother. I had not seen him for about three weeks before his death, and the last time I saw him was on a night about half-past ten o’clock. On that occasion he tapped at my window, which is on the ground floor and fronts Main Street. I talked to him from the window, which is stanchioned outside, and I did not go out to him, nor did he come into me. This occasion, which, as already said, was the last, was about three weeks before his death, and was the last time I saw him. He was in the habit of writing notes to me, and I was in the habit of replying to them. The last note I wrote was on the Friday before his death, the 20th of March. (Identifies note and envelope.) In consequence of that note I expected him to visit me on Saturday the 21st, at my bedroom window, in the same way as before, but he did not come and sent no notice. There was no tapping at my window on the Saturday night, nor on the Sunday following. I went to bed on the Saturday night about eleven, and remained in bed until the usual time of getting up next morning, being eight or nine o’clock. In the course of my meetings with him, he and I had arranged to get married, and at one time we had proposed September last as the time and subsequently the present month of March. It was proposed we should reside in furnished lodgings, but we had not made any definite arrangement as to time or otherwise. He was very unwell, and had gone to the Bridge of Allan for his health, and he complained of sickness; but I have no idea what was the cause of it. I remember giving him some cocoa from my window one night, some time ago, but I cannot specify the time particularly. He took the cup in his hand and barely tasted it, and I gave him no bread with it. I was taking some cocoa myself at the time, and had prepared it myself. (Identifies note No. 2, which she wrote and sent to post.) As I had attributed his illness to want of food, I proposed, as stated in the note, to give him a loaf of bread, but I said that merely in a joke, and in point of fact I never gave him any bread.

I have bought arsenic on various occasions. The last I bought was a sixpenny-worth, in Currie’s, the apothecary’s shop in Sauchiehall Street. Prior to that I had bought other two quantities of arsenic for which I paid sixpence each—one of these in Currie’s, and the other in Murdoch’s, the apothecary’s shop in Sauchiehall Street. I used it all as a cosmetic, and applied it to my face, neck, and arms, diluted with water. The arsenic I got at Currie’s on Wednesday, 18th March, and used it all on one occasion, having put it all in the basin where I was to wash myself. I had been advised to this use of arsenic by a young lady of the name of Giubilei, the daughter of an actress, whom I had met at school at Clapton near London.[103] I had also seen it recommended in the newspapers. I did not wish any of my father’s family to know that I was using arsenic, and therefore never mentioned it to anyone, and I do not suppose that they or any of the servants noticed it in the basin. When I bought the arsenic at Murdoch’s, I am not sure whether I was asked or not what it was for; but I think I said for a gardener, to kill rats or destroy vermin about flowers, and I only said this because I did not wish them to know that I was going to use it as a cosmetic. I do not remember whether I was asked as to the use I was going to make of the arsenic on the other two occasions. I likely made the same statement about it as I had done at Murdoch’s; and on all three occasions, as required in the shops, I signed my name to a book in which the sales are entered. On the first occasion I was accompanied by Mary, a daughter of Dr. Buchanan, of Dumbarton. For several years past Mr. Minnoch, of the firm of W. Houldsworth & Co., has been coming a good deal about my father’s house; and about a month ago he made a proposal of marriage to me, and I gave him my hand in token of acceptance, but no time for the marriage has been fixed;[104] and my object in writing the note, No. 1, before mentioned, was to have a meeting with Mr. L’Angelier to tell him I was engaged to Mr. Minnoch.[105] (Identifies two notes and an envelope bearing the Glasgow post-mark of 23rd January, as written and sent by her to L’Angelier.) On the occasion that I gave L’Angelier the cocoa, I think that I used it must have been known to the servants and members of my father’s family, as the package containing the cocoa was lying on the mantelpiece in my room, but no one of the family used it, as they did not like it. The water that I used I got hot from the servants. On the night of the 18th, when I used the arsenic last, I was going to a dinner party at Mr. Minnoch’s house. I never administered, or caused to be administered, to Mr. L’Angelier arsenic or anything injurious. And this I declare to be truth.”

With this brief introduction, let us proceed to the details of his various illnesses, due, as the prosecution inferred, to arsenical poisoning.

THE SYMPTOMS.

Mrs. Jenkins, at whose house L’Angelier came to lodge in the July of 1856, and continued there till his death, spoke of her lodger as of civil habits, but wont to stay out at night, for which purpose he had the use of a latch-key. His health was usually good; but about the middle of February, 1857, he had a severe attack of illness, and another on the 23rd, of which she gave the following account:—

“One night he wished a pass key, as he thought he would be late out. I went to bed and did not hear him come in. I knocked at his door about eight the next morning and got no answer. I knocked again, and he said, ‘Come in, if you please.’ I went in. He said, ‘I have been very unwell; look what I have vomited.’ I said I thought it was bile. It was a greenish substance. There was a great deal of it. It was thick stuff, like gruel. I said, ‘Why did you not call me?’ He said that while on the road coming home, he was seized with a violent pain in his bowels and stomach, and when he was taking off his clothes, thought he should have died on the carpet, and no human eye would have seen him. ‘I was not able,’ he said, ‘to ring the bell.’ He asked me to make a little tea, and said he would not go out. I emptied what he had vomited, and advised him to go to a doctor, and he said he would. He took a little breakfast and then went to sleep for an hour, when I went back to him, and he said he was better, and would go out. Mr. Thuau, who lodges in my house, saw him. He went out between ten and eleven—his place of business is two streets off. He returned about three in the afternoon, said he had been to a doctor and brought a bottle of medicine with him. He took the medicine and complained about feeling very thirsty.

“His illness made a great change in his appearance. He looked yellow and dull, and before that his complexion was fresh. He became dark under the eyes, and the red of his cheeks seemed to be more broken. He complained of being very cold after he came in. He lay down on the sofa, and I laid a railway-rug over him. I did nothing for his feet. He never was the same after his illness. When asked how he felt, he was accustomed to say, ‘I never feel well.’ On a Monday morning, about four o’clock, he called me. He was vomiting. It was the same kind of stuff as before in colour and otherwise. There was not quite so much of it. He complained on this occasion likewise of pain in the bowels and stomach, and of thirst and cold. I did not know he was out the night before. He did not say anything about it. I put more blankets on him, jars of hot water to his feet, and made him some tea. I gave him also a great many drinks—toast and water, lemon and water, and such like—because he was thirsty. I called again about six in the morning. He did not rise until the forenoon. Dr. Thomson came to attend, fetched by Thuau, and left a prescription for powders, of which he took one or two. He said they were not doing him the good he expected; ‘the doctor always said he was getting better, but he did not feel well;’ ‘he did not feel getting better.’ He was eight days away from business at that time. Some time after he went to Edinburgh, and returned to Glasgow on the 17th of March, and stayed till the 19th, when he went away, as he said, to the Bridge of Allan.

“He went away about 10 A.M., and said he would not be home before Wednesday night or Thursday morning next week. A letter came for him on the 19th like those that used to come, and I gave it to Thuau. I don’t remember any coming on Friday, but one more, like a lady’s writing, on Saturday, which I also gave to Thuau. (Identifies envelope as like that of letter received on Saturday, but not another which was shown her.) L’Angelier was much disappointed at not getting a letter before he left, and said, ‘If I get a letter, perhaps I shall be home to-night.’

“I next saw L’Angelier on Sunday night, about eight. He said the letter sent had brought him home. I told him it had come on Saturday afternoon. He did not say where he had come from. I understood he had been at the Bridge of Allan. He looked much better, and said he was so. He went out about 9 P.M., and asked for a latch-key, as he might be late. I was to call him early. It was about half-past two next morning when I next saw him; he did not use the latch-key, but rang the bell violently. When I opened the door, he was standing with his arms on his stomach. He said, ‘I am very bad. I am going to have another vomiting of that bile.’ The first time I saw the vomitings, I said it was bile. He said he was never troubled with bile. He said he never thought he should have got home, he was so bad on the road. He did not say how he had been bad. The first thing he took was a little water. I filled up the tumbler, and he tried to vomit. He wished a little tea. I went into the room (with it?), and before he was half undressed he was vomiting severely. It was the same kind of matter as I had seen before. There was a light. The vomiting was attended with great pain. I asked him whether he had taken anything to disagree with his stomach. He said he had taken nothing since he was at the Bridge of Allan. He was chill and cold, and wished a jar of hot water to his feet, and another to his stomach. I got these for him, and two blankets and mats. He got a little easier. About four o’clock he was worse, and on my proposing to go for a doctor said he was a little better, and I need not. About five he was worse again, and his bowels became bad. He had been vomiting only up to this time. I went for Dr. Steven, who could not come so early, but told me to give him twenty-five drops of laudanum, and put a mustard blister on his stomach, and if he did not get better he would come. At L’Angelier’s request, I went again, and the doctor came, who immediately ordered him mustard. I said to him, ‘Look at what he has vomited.’ He said, ‘Take it away, it is making him faint.’ I got the mustard, and the doctor put it on, and I think gave him a little morphia. I said to L’Angelier, ‘This is the worst attack you have had.’ The doctor stayed about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. I took him into the dining-room, and asked him what was wrong; he asked me if he was a person that tippled. I said, ‘No,’ and that this was the second time this had occurred, and asked what was the reason. The doctor said this was matter for explanation. The first time I went back, L’Angelier asked what the doctor had said. I said he thought he would get over it, and L’Angelier replied, ‘I am far worse than he thinks.’ About nine, when I drew the curtains, he looked very ill, and I asked if there was no one he wished sent for. He asked to see Miss Perry, of Bamfield Street. I sent for her. He said he thought that if he could get five minutes’ sleep he should be better. These were the last words I heard him use. I went back into the room in about five minutes; he was then quite quiet, and I thought he was asleep. The doctor then returned, and I told him so. He went into the room, felt his pulse, lifted his head, and said he was dead.”

Nothing of importance with reference to the symptoms of his attacks was elicited in cross-examination. His first illness, according to the witness, was a great deal worse than the second. It was in January that he first complained of ill health. He then first complained of his tongue; then a boil came out on his neck, and shortly after another. She did not think that he ate what suited him, and especially too many vegetables, to which he said he was accustomed in France. On the morning of his death he complained about his mouth being sore. The doctor gave him some water, and he said it was choking him, or that it was going into his chest. When in bed that morning he always had his arms out on the bed clothes. She did not remember his hands being clenched. His right hand was clenched when he died. The remainder of the cross-examination related to the dress he usually wore, and the search by the officers for his papers.[106]

MEDICAL EVIDENCE.

Dr. Thomson, a physician in Glasgow, who had known L’Angelier for two years, gave the following evidence as to his health up to about the 10th of March:—

“He consulted me professionally, the first time, fully a year ago, when he had a bowel complaint, of which he got better. Next time was on the 3rd February this year for a cold and cough, and boil on his neck, for which I prescribed. The next week after I saw him, when another boil had appeared. On the 23rd of February he came to me. He was very feverish, and his tongue was furred, and had a patchy appearance, from the fur being off in various places. He complained of nausea, and had been vomiting. He was prostrate, his pulse was quick, and he had general symptoms of fever. I prescribed for him (taking his complaint to be bilious derangement) an aperient draught. He had been ill, I think, for a day or two, but he had been taken worse the night before he called on me—during the night of the 22nd and the morning of the 23rd. He was confined to the house for two or three days. I visited him on the 24th, 25th, and 26th of February, and on the 1st of March met him. The aperient draught I prescribed contained magnesia and soda. On the 24th I prescribed powders containing rhubarb, soda, chalk of camomile, and ipecacuanha. On the 24th he was much in the same state. He had vomited the draught I had given him on the 23rd, and I observed that his skin was considerably jaundiced; and from the whole symptoms I called the disease a bilious fever. On the 25th he was rather better, and had risen from his bed to the sofa, but was not dressed. On the 26th he felt considerably better and cooler, and I did not think it necessary to repeat my visits till I happened to be in the neighbourhood. It did not occur to me that these symptoms arose from the action of any irritant poison. If I had known that he had taken an irritant poison, these were the symptoms I should expect to follow. I don’t think I asked him when he was seriously taken ill. I had not seen him for some little time before, and certainly he looked very dejected and ill; his colour was rather darker and jaundiced, and round the eye the colour was rather darker than usual. I saw him again eight or ten days after the 1st of March. He called on me, but I have no note of the day; he was much the same as on the 1st of March. He said he was thinking of going into the country, but did not say where. I did not prescribe for him then. On the 26th of February, I think I told him to give up smoking. I thought it was injurious to his stomach. I never saw him again in life.”

“On the morning of the 23rd of March, Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Thuau called on me, mentioned his death, and wished me to go and see his body, and see if I could give an opinion as to the cause of his death. They did not know that I had not seen him alive in his last illness. I went to the house. The body was laid out on a stretcher on the table. The skin had a slightly jaundiced hue. I said it was impossible to give a decided opinion, and requested Dr. Steven to be sent for, who had been in attendance. I examined the body with my hands externally, and over the region of the liver the sound was dull; and over the region of the heart the sound was natural. I saw what he had vomited, and made inquiry as to the symptoms before death. Dr. Steven, when he arrived, corroborated the statements of the landlady, as far as he was concerned. No resolution as to a post-mortem examination was come to that day, but in the afternoon I stated to Mr. Huggins and another gentleman, who called on me, that the symptoms were such as might have been produced by an irritant poison, and that it was such a case that, had it occurred in England, a coroner’s inquest would be held.”

On cross-examination, the witness said—

“At the time I attended L’Angelier, in February, there were no symptoms that I could definitely say were not due to a bilious attack, they were all the symptoms of such an attack. There was no appearance of jaundice. I have heard of that as a symptom of irritant poison. It is in Dr. Taylor’s work on poisons. The jaundice I saw was quite consistent that he was labouring under a bilious attack, and could easily be accounted for that way.”

Dr. Steven, physician of Glasgow, who was called in by Mrs. Jenkins on the 23rd of March, at the commencement of the fatal attack, carried on the case to the death of the deceased:—

“I was applied to,” said the Witness, “early in the morning of the 23rd of March last, by Mrs. Jenkins, to see her lodger, who she told me was suffering from a severe bilious attack. Being unwell myself I was unwilling to go, but advised her to give him hot water and drops of laudanum. She came to me again about seven. I went, thinking, as he was a Frenchman, he might not be understood. I found him in bed, very much depressed. His features were pinched, and his hands. He complained of coldness and pain over the region of the stomach. By pinched, I mean shrunk and cold, or inclined to become cold. He complained of general chilliness and his face and hands were cold to the touch. He was physically and mentally depressed. I spoke to him and observed nothing peculiar in his voice. I did not expect a strong voice, and it was not particularly weak. That was when I first entered the room. But his voice became weaker. He complained that his breathing was painful, but it did not seem hurried. I dissuaded him from speaking, had extra clothes put on his bed, gave him a little morphia (mustard?) to make him vomit, but he seemed to have vomited all he could. He had a weak pulse. I felt the action of the heart corresponding to it. That imported that the circulation was weaker at the extremities. The feet were not cold. Hot bottles were put to them, and also above his body for his hands. He was not urgently complaining of thirst. He seemed afraid of drinking large quantities for fear of making himself vomit. He asked particularly for cold water, and was unwilling to take whisky, which the landlady talked of giving him. He said he had been vomiting and purging. I saw a utensil filled with the matter vomited and purged. I ordered it to be removed and a clean one put in its place, that I might see what he had vomited. I did not see it. I believe it was kept for some time, but I said it might be thrown away: that was after his death. He said, ‘This is third attack I have had: the landlady says it is bile, but I never was subject to bile.’ He seemed to get worse while I was there. He several times said, ‘My poor mother,’ and how dull he felt at being so ill away from friends. I applied a mustard poultice to his stomach. I stayed I suppose half-an-hour. I called again about a quarter past eleven. The landlady met me and said he had been quite as bad as in the morning. I went into the room and found him dead. He was lying on his right side, with his back towards the light, his knees drawn a little up, one arm outside the bedclothes and the other in. They were not much—not unnaturally drawn up. He seemed in a comfortable position, as if sleeping. About mid-day I was sent for again; Dr. Thomson was there when I went in. I asked him if there was anything in his previous illness, with the symptoms I mentioned, which would account for the cause of death, but we were entirely at a loss to account for it. I declined giving a certificate unless I made an examination, and Dr. Thomson and I made one the next day. We subsequently made a second examination after the body was exhumed.”

The witness then described how the stomach and its contents were carefully preserved and sent to Professor Penny for analysis (see Appendix A., p. 355).

ANALYTICAL EVIDENCE.

Dr. Penny, the Professor of Chemistry in the Andersonian University, Glasgow, then read the following report of his analysis of the parts of the body handed to him by Dr. Thomson, made at the request of one of the procurators fiscal of the country.

(1.) Contents of Stomach.

“The liquid measured 8½ ounces. On being allowed to repose, it deposited a white powder, which was found on examination to possess the external characters and all the chemical properties peculiar to arsenious acid, that is, the common white arsenic of the shops. It consisted of hard, gritty, transparent, colourless crystalline particles; it was soluble in boiling water, and readily dissolved in a solution of caustic potash. It was unchanged by sulphide of ammonium, and volatised when heated on platina foil. Heated in a tube it gave a sparkling white sublimate, which, under the microscope, was found to consist of octahedral crystals. Its aqueous solution afforded, with ammonio-nitrate of silver, ammonio-sulphate of copper, sulphuretted hydrogen, and bichromate of potash, the highly characteristic results produced by arsenious acid. On heating a small portion of it in a small tube with black flux, a brilliant ring of metallic arsenic was obtained, with all its distinctive properties. Heated with dilute hydrochloric acid and a slip of copper foil, a steel-gray coating was deposited on the copper; and this coating, by further examination, was proved to be metallic arsenic.

“Another portion of the powder, on being heated with nitric acid, yielded a substance having the peculiar characters of arsenic acid. A small portion of the powder was also subjected to what is commonly known as ‘Marsh’s Proof,’ and metallic arsenic was thus obtained, with all its peculiar physical and chemical properties. These results show, unequivocally, that the said white powder was arsenious acid—that is the preparation of arsenic which is usually sold in commerce, and administered, or taken as a poison, under the name of arsenic or oxide of arsenic.

“I then examined the fluid contents of the stomach. After the usual preparatory operations, it was subjected to the following processes:—

“(1.) To a portion of the fluid Reinsch’s process was applied, and an abundant steel-like coating was obtained on copper foil. On heating the coated copper in a glass tube, the peculiar odour of arsenic was distinctly perceptible, and a white crystalline sublimate was produced, possessing the properties peculiar to arsenious acid.

“(2.) Another portion was distilled, and the distillate subjected to Marsh’s process. The gas produced by this process had an arsenical odour, burned with a bluish-white flame, and gave with nitrate of silver the characteristic reaction of arseniuretted hydrogen. On holding above the flame a slip of bibulous paper moistened with a solution of ammonio-nitrate of silver, a yellow colour was communicated to the paper. A white porcelain capsule depressed upon the flame was quickly covered with brilliant stains, which on being tested with the appropriate reagents, were found to be metallic arsenic. By a modification of Marsh’s apparatus, the gas was conducted through a heated tube, when a lustrous mirror-like deposit of arsenic in the metallic state was collected; and this deposit was afterwards converted into arsenious acid.

“(3.) Through another portion of the fluid a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen was transmitted, when a bright yellow precipitate separated, having the chemical properties of trisulphide of arsenic. It dissolved readily in ammonia; it remained unchanged in hydrochloric acid; and it gave, on being heated with black flux, a brilliant ring of metallic arsenic.

“(4.) A fourth portion, being properly acidified with hydrochloric acid was distilled, and the distillate subjected to ‘Fleitmann’s’ process. For this purpose it was boiled with zinc and a strong solution of caustic potash. Arseniuretted hydrogen was disengaged and was recognised by its odour, and its characteristic action on nitrate of silver.”

(2.) Stomach.

“I examined, in the next place, the stomach itself. It was cut into small pieces, and boiled for some time in water containing hydrochloric acid, and the solution, after being filtered, was subjected to the same processes as those applied to the contents of the stomach. The results in every case were precisely similar, and the presence of a considerable quantity of arsenic was unequivocally detected.”

(3.) Quantity of Arsenic.

“I made, in the last place, a careful determination of the quantity of arsenic contained in the stomach and its contents. A stream of sulphuretted hydrogen gas was transmitted through a known quantity of the prepared fluid from the said matters, until the whole of the arsenic was precipitated in the form of trisulphide of arsenic. This sulphide, after being carefully purified, was collected, dried, and weighed, and the weight corresponded to a quantity of arsenious acid (common white arsenic) in the entire stomach and its contents equal to 82 grains and seven-tenths of a grain, or nearly one-fifth of an ounce. The accuracy of this result was confirmed by converting the sulphide of arsenic into arseniate of ammonia and magnesia, and weighing the product. The quantity here stated is exclusive of the white powder first examined. The purity of the various materials and reagents employed in this investigation was most scrupulously ascertained.”

Conclusions.

“Having considered the results of this investigation, I am clearly of opinion that they are conclusive in showing (1), That the matters subjected to examination and analysis contained arsenic, and (2), That the quantity of arsenic found was considerably more than sufficient to destroy life.

“All this is true, on soul and conscience.

“Frederick Penny,

“Professor of Chemistry.”

April 6, 1857.

Examination resumed.—“It is not easy to give a precise answer to the question ‘How much arsenic would destroy life?’ Cases are on record in which life was destroyed by two and four grains; four or six grains are generally sufficient to destroy life, and the amount I determined as existing in the stomach was 82 grains. On the 31st of March I attended the exhumation of M. L’Angelier’s body. I saw the coffin opened, and the portions of the body removed, which were carefully preserved, in jars of which I never lost sight, and I analysed the contents, and prepared the following

Report.

“On Tuesday, 31st March last, I was present at a post-mortem examination of the body of P. E. L’Angelier, made by Drs. Corbet, Thomson, and Steven, in a vault in the Ramshorn Church, Glasgow.

“At my request, portions of the following organs were removed from the body, and properly preserved for chemical analysis and examination: (1.) Small intestine and contents; (2.) Large intestine; (3.) Liver; (4.) Heart; (5.) Lung; (6.) Brain. These articles were taken direct to the Laboratory of the Andersonian Institution, and were there delivered to me by the parties named. I have since made a careful analysis and chemical examination of all the said matters, with the following results:—

(1.) Small Intestine and Contents.

“The portion of the small intestine contained a turbid and reddish-coloured fluid, measuring four ounces. On standing for several hours in a glass vessel, this liquid deposited numerous and well-defined octahedral crystals, which, being subjected to the usual chemical processes for the detection of arsenic, were found to be arsenious acid. Arsenic was also detected in the small intestine.

(2.) Large Intestine.

“This organ yielded arsenic, but in less proportion than in the small intestine.

(3.) Liver, Brain, and Heart.

“Arsenic was separated from the liver, brain, and heart, but in much less proportion than from the small and large intestines.

(4.) Lung.

“The lung gave only a slight indication of the presence of arsenic.

Conclusions.

“(1.) That the body of the deceased contained arsenic.

“(2.) That the arsenic must have been taken by or administered to him while living.”

The witness then spoke of the examinations he had made into the arsenic sold by the two chemists, Murdoch and Currie, at whose shops the prisoner had stated she had purchased it, for the purposes of a cosmetic. In that sold at Murdoch’s, 91·1 per cent. was pure white arsenic, and in that from Currie’s, 94·4 per cent., and the remainder inorganic matter; in Murdoch’s carbonaceous, in Currie’s indigo and carbonaceous matter. The quantity of indigo in this arsenic was extremely small, and capable of being removed by peculiar and dexterous manipulation, so that the arsenic would appear white to the unassisted eye. If of this an amount sufficient to cause death had been given, and prior to death great vomiting had taken place, the witness would not expect to find any portion of the indigo: the quantity was so small, that it would not colour wine of any sort. In the case of Murdoch’s arsenic, however, as it was mixed with carbonaceous particles, if that had been given and settled down from the contents of the stomach as in this case, he should have expected to find such particles—not, however, if it had been given a month before. Of the twelve bottles and two packages of medicines, and the cake of chocolate found at L’Angelier’s lodging, and submitted to him for analysis, none, except a weak solution of aconite were poisonous, and that was so weak, that had the whole two ounces in the phial been swallowed, it would not have destroyed life. Of the use of prussic acid or arsenic as a cosmetic he had never heard, and believed that both would be dangerous, and the latter might produce constitutional symptoms of poisoning. He had heard of its use as a depilatory, but then mixed with other matters, as lime, and it was not arsenious acid, but usually the yellow sulphide, that was used for this purpose.

On cross-examination by the Dean of Faculty, the witness said:—

“In the entire stomach and its contents there was arsenic equal to 82, 7-10th grains, exclusive of the white powder first examined, which, after being dried, weighed 5, 2-10th grains, and was arsenious acid. I did not determine the quantity of arsenic in the liver, heart, or brain, and can give no notion of the quantity that might be in those organs. In the small intestine it must have been considerable, because when its contents were allowed to repose arsenious acid crystallised out of that liquid and deposited abundantly on the sides of the vessel,—which indicated that the liquid had as much arsenic as it could hold in solution at that temperature. I can’t give any idea of the quantity in the small intestine. It was decidedly appreciable. It would be a mere matter of guess, and I should not like to guess in so serious a matter. If the deceased, when attacked by symptoms of arsenical poisoning, vomited often, and in large quantities, it would depend on the mode of administration whether a quantity would be carried off. If given in solid food, and in a solid state, a large portion of the arsenic would be ejected from the stomach if all the food were vomited; but if the arsenic were stirred up with the liquid, and thereby thrown into a state of mechanical suspension, I should not expect that so considerable a portion would be ejected by vomiting. By solid food I mean bread and the like. In the case of the arsenic being taken in a fluid, I could not say what proportion might be ejected. I should not be surprised to find that as much had been ejected as retained. Judging from what I found in the body, the dose must have been of a very unusual size. There are cases on record in which large quantities of arsenic have been found in the stomach and intestines—larger than in the present. I think there is a case where two drachms—120 grains—were found. In the cases I refer to the arsenic was taken voluntarily, with the intention to commit suicide. It would be very difficult to give a large dose in a liquid. By a large dose you exclude many vehicles in which arsenic might be administered. Nothing which I found indicated the time when the arsenic must have been taken. The ordinary period between the administration of the poison and the symptoms being manifested is eight to ten hours in the cases on record: that is the extreme time. There are some cases in which they show themselves in half an hour. We have cases in which death resulted in a few hours, and cases in which death has been delayed two days. As to the arsenic bought at Currie’s shop, the greater part of the colouring matter might be removed. If you were to throw water on the arsenic, and agitate the two together, and after the arsenic has subsided you throw off the liquor, a portion of the colouring matter is thrown off, and if you keep the vessel shaken in a particular way you may coax the greater part of the colouring matter away. Murdoch’s arsenic was coloured with carbonaceous matter—it had the colour of coal soot. I cannot tell from examination whether the arsenic found was given in one dose or in several. It would be very dangerous to use arsenic externally in any way. There are cases in which it has been rubbed on the whole skin, and the symptoms of poisoning produced—vomiting, pain, but not death. My impression is, from general reading, that it produces eruption on the sound skin.[107] If cold water were used, I should not like to wash in it. I cannot give any other answer.”

To the Lord Justice Clerk.—“There are cases in which inflammation of the intestines has been produced by the external application of arsenic.”

To the Dean.—“Arsenic is an irritant poison; it is absorbed into the blood, I presume, with great rapidity, and through the blood it reaches all the organs in which we find it.”

To the Lord Advocate.—“In administering large doses of arsenic many vehicles are excluded. Cocoa or chocolate is a vehicle in which a large dose might be given. There is a great difference between giving rise to suspicion and actual detection. I have found by actual experiment, that when 30 to 40 grains of arsenic are put into a cup of warm chocolate, a large portion of the arsenic settles down in the bottom of the cup, and I think a person drinking such poisonous chocolate would suspect something when the gritty particles came into his mouth; but when the same and even a larger quantity were boiled with the chocolate, instead of being stirred or mixed, none of it settles down.[108] I could not separate the soot from Murdoch’s arsenic, but a very large quantity of it might be separated. Supposing a person subjected to repeated doses of arsenic, I have no evidence on which to form an opinion whether the last dose would be more rapidly fatal.”

To the Dean.—“In the case of chocolate being boiled with arsenic in it, a larger portion dissolves and does not subside. That is what I find by actual experiment. Coffee or tea could not be made the vehicle of so large a dose of arsenic.”

To the Lord Justice Clerk.—“The period in which the arsenic produces its effect varies in different individuals, and according to the mode of administration. Pain in the stomach is one of the first symptoms, and vomiting usually accompanies the pain, but it may be very severe before the vomiting actually begins. Ten, fifteen, or twenty grains might be given in coffee.”

Professor Penny, subsequently (on the fourth day), gave the following account of experiments made by him with arsenic purchased from Murdoch’s and Currie’s shops:—

“Some of the arsenic I purchased from Murdoch’s, which was mixed with soot, I gave to a dog, and I had no difficulty in detecting the soot in the stomach of that dog after death. I administered arsenic, coloured by myself with indigo, to another dog, and had no difficulty in detecting the indigo in that case by chemical tests. To another dog I administered arsenic purchased at Currie’s, which it will be remembered was mixed with indigo. After death I detected black particles in the stomach of that dog, but I could not undertake to identify the arsenic found with the arsenic given: I mean I found carbonaceous particles, but that I could not undertake to say that these particles were of themselves sufficient to identify any of the particular poison administered. But as I administered it myself, it must have been the same—at least, I know of no other source. I could detect no arsenic in the brains of the dogs. I found solid arsenic in the stomach, as well as in the texture of the stomach.”

By the Court.—“Is it the fact that there is less arsenic found in the brains of animals than of human beings?”

Witness.—“I am not aware. In the one case I detected blue colouring matter of indigo, in the other carbonaceous particles.”[109]

By the Dean.—“Did you make yourself acquainted with the nature of the colouring matter of Currie’s arsenic before administering it to the dog?”

Witness.—“I did.”

The Dean.—“Did the black particles you found correspond to the constituents of the colouring matter?”

Witness.—“They have a close resemblance to them, both in physical appearance and in chemical properties.”

The Dean.—“Were they not in physical appearance and chemical properties, identical?”

Witness.—“They were.”

Professor Christison, to whom, on the 11th of May, Dr. Penny had delivered similar portions of the body to those on which he had experimented, together with portions of the deposits from the stomach and intestines, made a chemical analysis of the white powder, and the fluids obtained from the stomach, and the small intestine, and of a portion of the liver. As from these he obtained unequivocal proofs of the presence of arsenic, he did not, at that time, proceed further. Subsequently, however, on the 28th of May, he analysed a portion of the great intestine, and was satisfied of the presence of arsenic; and in a portion of the brain he found “traces of arsenic, but not satisfactory evidence, which might be owing to the small quantity of material he had to analyse.”

Of the samples of Murdoch’s and Currie’s arsenic, which Dr. Penny had delivered to him, “The former,” he said, “contained the due proportion of soot; the latter was not coloured with the indigo prescribed by the Act—was not of a bluish, but greyish black colour, imperfectly mixed, and easily removeable by washing with cold water, which cannot easily be done with good indigo. The proportion was a thirty-sixth, and not a thirty-second, as the Act directs.”[110]

The cross-examination of this witness was first directed to the probability of the colouring matter in the arsenic being detected in the portions of the body analysed.

“My attention,” said Professor Christison, “was not directed to colouring matter in arsenic. I got only one article in which it might have been found—the small intestine. The others had been subjected to a previous analysis. I was not asked to attend to the colouring matter. I did not see it, and did not search for it. Supposing soot or indigo to have been given with the arsenic, I think it might have been found in the intestines by careful examination. I can’t say it would have been found: many circumstances go to the possibility of its being found. Many component parts of soot are insoluble: it might have been removed by frequent vomiting. It is very difficult to remove soot from arsenic entirely. Indigo would have been found more easily from the peculiarity of its colour, and the chemical ingredients are so precise. Currie’s arsenic is not coloured with true indigo; it is waste indigo, or what has been used by the dyer. I don’t know how it is prepared. I did not analyse the colouring matter of Currie’s arsenic. I ascertained it was not the indigo directed by the Act to be used, and I ascertained the quantity. I separated the colouring matter from the arsenic, and subjected it to the action of sulphuric acid. Charcoal (more properly—carbon) is one of the constituents of good indigo, and necessarily of waste. The chief constituent of soot is charcoal also.”

The remainder of his cross-examination was directed to the amount of arsenic found in the stomach, and the symptoms of, and the period at which the effects are exhibited.

On the fifth day Professor Christison was recalled, and gave the following evidence as to the use of arsenic as a cosmetic, its taste, and its supposed presence naturally in the bodies of human beings.

Robert Telfer Corbett, physician in Glasgow, and senior surgeon in the infirmary, who had assisted at the post-mortem examination and joined in the report, was called on the fourth day, and gave the following evidence.

“So far as he could judge without analysis the deceased had died from the effect of poison. The morbid appearances presented were of two kinds—one showing the result of recent action, the other of action at a period antecedent to it. The last of these appearances consisted of several ulcers, each about the ¹/_16th of an inch in diameter, with elevated edge, on the upper part of the duodenum. They might have been characteristic of the effect of irritant poison at the distance of a month, but it is impossible to fix any date. I think they were such as irritant poison, administered a month before, would have produced. They were of longer standing than immediately antecedent to death. In the duodenum and intestines the body had in colour and otherwise the appearances characteristic of arsenical poisoning. Inflammation and ulceration are the effect of inflammation; jaundice, I mean the yellow tinge of the skin, is an occasional, but not a necessary symptom of death by arsenic, but not a common one. Extreme thirst is one of the symptoms, and shows itself very early. It is not characteristic of British cholera in its earlier stages. The exact time a dose of arsenic takes to exhibit its symptoms is from a half to one hour—that is the average time. Longer periods have been known but are very unusual. They depend more on the mode in which the poison is given, and the state of the stomach, than on the quantity administered. If a person had been the subject of repeated doses, the irritability of the stomach would make it more likely to operate quickly. I have read of cases of murder where large quantities of arsenic have been found in the stomach. I can refer to cases in which details were not given, but the quantity was said to be large.”

The cross-examination of this witness was mainly directed to his assertion that the yellowness of the skin seen in jaundice, and, as he added, of the conjunctiva of the eye also, was a known symptom in arsenical poison, but he admitted that the statement in Dr. Taylor’s book was his only authority: he only “knew it to be a secondary symptom from arsenical poisoning in his routine.” He admitted also that the ulcers on the duodenum might arise from some enteric fever, and that any cause of inflammation might produce them.

On re-examination by the Lord Advocate, he repeated that from his reading and study he knew jaundice to be an occasional symptom of arsenical poisoning. To a question whether “in a person during life who immediately after taking food had been seized with severe pain and intense thirst, he should think, because he had a yellow colour, that might not be the effect of arsenical poisoning?” he replied “that might or might not be,” and “that the appearance of jaundice would not sway him materially one way or the other.” This witness, though he had made many post-mortem examinations, had only once before done so in a case of arsenical poisoning. With this witness the medical evidence for the prosecution was closed.

It will be convenient, as in Palmer’s case, to give in this place the evidence of the medical witnesses, called, at a subsequent period, for the defence.

MEDICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE DEFENCE.

Two physicians were called for the prisoner, with the object of proving (1), that arsenic could be used without danger as a cosmetic; (2), that the symptoms in L’Angelier’s last illness were consistent with the suggestion that he died of some form of cholera.

Dr. James A. Lawrie, a physician of Glasgow, many years in practice, who was first called, said—

“He had taken a quarter or half-an-ounce of arsenic, bought at Currie’s, and washed his hands freely with it, and on the previous Saturday had tried the same experiment with a half-an-ounce on his face, but washed his face afterwards with cold water. The effect was the same as using a ball of soap with sand—it softened the skin. He filled the basin with the usual quantity of water, and mixed the arsenic with it. It was a practice he should have no fear of repeating, and would not hesitate in using, if he had a case that required it, such as vermin on the skin. In consequence of the insolubility of arsenic, he did not think that increasing the quantity of arsenic would make any difference in the effect.”

On the second point this witness said:—

“I treated one case of poisoning by arsenic. Some years ago during the prevalence of cholera, I was asked to see a gentleman about seven or eight in the evening, and the account was that he had been ill since three or four in the morning. I found him labouring under premonitory symptoms of cholera, and I prescribed for him. I returned about ten, and found the symptoms very much aggravated, and the vomiting and purging still continued. His voice was not affected, and the vomiting was not the same as in cholera. It was a reddish yellowish matter, and I requested it to be set aside. I thought it was not a case of cholera, and asked him what he had taken. He said only his ordinary food, wine, &c., but nothing else. The symptoms went on still further, and I called a consultation of other medical men. He still said he had taken nothing. I was satisfied from the aggravation of the symptoms that something else was the matter, and at last he died about three in the morning. I next day learnt that he had purchased half-an-ounce of arsenic the day of his death. I had the vomit and contents of stomach analysed, and discovered arsenic in great quantities. Extreme thirst, as far as I know, is an early symptom in poisoning by arsenic—but not equally so in cholera, it belongs to a later stage in cholera.”

Dr. Douglas Maclagan, of Edinburgh, who had had some experience in arsenical poisonings, and devoted much of his time to chemistry, had the same opinion as Dr. Lawrie of the innocuousness of arsenic as a cosmetic (mainly from its insolubility).

EVIDENCE OF THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF POISON.

On the first charge, that of administering poison on the 19th or 20th of February, it was urged on the jury that there was no reliable evidence that the lovers had met on either of these days, that Madeline Smith had at that time poison in her possession, or that the illness which L’Angelier was supposed to have had at that time showed arsenical symptoms. On the 17th of February L’Angelier told Miss Perry, the confidante of their loves, that he expected to meet Madeline on the 19th, and, from some other circumstances—what they were is not stated—when on the 2nd of March he told her how ill he had been, falling on the floor of his room, she said that “she knew that he referred to the 19th of February.” Mrs. Jenkins, however, could not fix the date of this attack: it might have been eight or ten days before the second illness (February 23), and, like his illness in January, she believed it to be due to bile, the symptoms being something the same as her own but more violent, on both occasions accompanied by a good deal of purging and vomiting. From Dr. Thomson’s evidence, however, it appears that his first illness in that year, which Dr. Thomson places on the 3rd of February, was due to a cold, with cough and boils, for which he prescribed. The only attempt that Miss Smith made to purchase poison before that date was that of sending the page boy to Dr. Yeaman’s to buy some prussic acid, which the doctor refused to sell to her. The Lord Advocate admitted that he could not prove that she had arsenic in her possession before that illness. “It would not do,” said the Lord Justice Clerk in his charge, “to infer, from her having arsenic afterwards, that she had it also on the first occasion.”[113]

On the second charge, that of administering poison on the 22nd or 23rd of February, the following evidence was offered. On the 21st of February Miss Smith openly purchased an ounce and a half of arsenic of the chemist Murdoch, ostensibly for the purpose—a false one, as the evidence proved—of killing rats at her father’s country house. It was mixed with soot, of which she some days afterwards spoke to the chemist, saying she thought arsenic was white. If, therefore, the lovers met on the 22nd, or 23rd, she had poison in her possession. Whether L’Angelier went out on the night of the 22nd, his landlady could not say:[114] she did not hear him come in, but, when she went into his room early the next morning, she found him suffering from his second attack of illness for which Dr. Thomson attended him, and from which he recovered in about eight days. That the symptoms were those of arsenical poisoning was hardly to be doubted, and though Dr. Thomson at the time attributed them to billious derangement, he said, that, “had he known that L’Angelier had taken an irritant poison, those were the symptoms he should expect to follow.” The evidence that the lovers had met on the night of the 22nd, or morning of the 23rd, rested on a letter, which not only did not bear any date or day of the week, but the post-mark on which was so obliterated that the post-office official could not fix any date, though he thought he could see the “M” of March on the stamp, which counsel on both sides agreed in considering an error. In that letter Miss Smith wrote: “I am so sorry to hear you are ill. I hope to God you will soon be better—— you did look bad on Sunday night and Monday morning. I think you got sick with walking home so late, and the long want of food; so, next time we meet, I shall make you eat a loaf of bread before you go.” This letter the Lord Advocate assumed to be written on Wednesday, the 25th of February, and to refer to the meeting on the night of the 22nd and morning of the 23rd. To Miss Perry, on the 9th of March, L’Angelier spoke of having had a cup of coffee and chocolate from Miss Smith, which Miss Perry understood to refer to two occasions, and added, “I can’t think why I was so unwell after getting that coffee and chocolate from her.” “It ought not to be forgotten,” said the Lord Justice Clerk, “that the contents of the stomach on these two illnesses had not been examined, and therefore it was merely an inference that they were caused by arsenic—an inference drawn from the fact that on the 22nd of March he died from that poison.” With reference to the purchase of arsenic, the learned Judge added: “He attached little importance to the statements of the druggists as to what was said by the prisoner about rats; without stating some such objects she would not have got it at all; and it was not to be supposed, if she had wanted it as a cosmetic, that she would tell the druggist. Did she see the deceased on the Sunday night, before the arsenic was administered? Mrs. Jenkins did not see him go out of the house that night, and he asked the jury to consider whether there was, on the whole, apart from the correspondence, evidence that they had met together that night? If there was no proof that the administration took place on the 22nd of February, then there was great force in the observation that the foundation of the case for the prosecution had been shaken.”

On the third charge—that of poisoning on the 22nd or 23rd of March, the following facts were proved. On his return to work, after his second illness, L’Angelier was so altered in health, his complexion wan, with a dark, hectic spot on each cheek, that leave of absence was given to him, for the first time since he had been in this employ. Miss Smith had advised him to take rest and change, and L’Angelier had apparently told her that he should go to the Bridge of Allan. On the third of March, however, Miss Smith writes that her family are going to the same place, and the next day suggests that he should go to the South of England. On the 5th of March he writes her a painfully earnest letter on the reports about her intended marriage with Mr. Minnoch, concluding: “Mind, I insist on having an explicit answer to the question you evaded in my last.” Next day the prisoner purchases another sixpenny-worth of arsenic, not again of Murdoch, but of Currie, and this time the excuse is that the house in Blythswood Square is so overrun with rats, that it is to be shut up and the servants sent away till the vermin is eradicated. This again was pure invention on her part. The family went to the Bridge of Allan, whence on Tuesday, the 10th of March, the prisoner wrote to L’Angelier that they would be home again in Glasgow on the next Monday or Tuesday, when she would write to arrange an interview, adding, “I long to see you, to kiss and embrace you, my only sweet love.” Before this the Minnoch marriage had been arranged, and the day talked about, if not definitively fixed. Again on the 13th she wrote him: “I think we shall be home on Tuesday, so I shall let you know, my own beloved sweet pet, when we shall have a dear, sweet interview; when I may be pressed to your heart, and kissed by you, my own sweet love. A fond, tender embrace; a kiss, sweet love! I hope you will enjoy your visit here.” It had been previously arranged between them that L’Angelier should not come to the Bridge of Allan until her family had left.

During this visit of the Smiths to the Bridge of Allan, L’Angelier was taking his leave of absence. On the 6th of March he left for Edinburgh, and returned to Glasgow on the 17th, and, finding no letter for him, stayed at home all the next day waiting for it. On the 19th he left for the Bridge of Allan, where he was to stay for a week, his friend Thuau undertaking to forward his letters. On the 19th, after he had left, a letter came, and Thuau forwarded it that night, and it reached Stirling at nine the next morning. That letter was not to be found. In his tourist’s bag, however, the envelope of it was discovered, and, from a letter which he wrote to Miss Perry on the 20th, in which he said, “I should have come to see some one last night, but the letter was too late,” it may be fairly assumed that it contained the wished for appointment for the Thursday night. On the 18th the prisoner bought her third packet of arsenic at Currie’s. Several dead rats, she said, had been found, and it was feared some large ones still remained. This time she had a female companion with her, and, as she had to Murdoch expressed her surprise at the arsenic she had previously purchased not being white, she again used the same expression at Currie’s. This arsenic was coloured with indigo. On the 21st the last of the long series of letters reached L’Angelier’s lodgings, and was forwarded at once by Thuau. “Why, my beloved, did you not come to me?” she wrote. “Oh, my beloved, are you ill? Come to me. Sweet one, I waited and waited for you, but you came not. I shall wait again to-morrow night—same hour and arrangement.” That letter, which was found in his pocket, was received by him after nine on Sunday morning. He left the Bridge of Allan shortly after evening service began, and was at his lodgings by eight o’clock that evening. To accomplish this L’Angelier had walked to Stirling, taken the train from there to Coatbridge, where a Mr. Ross found him, and, after some refreshment at the station, walked with him to Glasgow, apparently quite well, and walking briskly.[115] When he arrived at his lodgings he appeared greatly improved in health since he left on the previous Thursday, was in high spirits, and said that the letter had brought him back. He left his lodgings about nine o’clock, is seen soon after sauntering in the direction of Blythswood Square, but not near the Smiths’ house, as it was the hour there for family prayers. To wile away the time he calls on a Mr. M’Alister, who is not at home, and from that time till he came back to his lodgings, after midnight, all trace of him is lost. At two o’clock the next morning the door-bell rang violently; his landlady went down, and found L’Angelier at the door, standing with his arms across his stomach. He was suffering from his fatal illness, already too bad to be able to use his pass key. How that attack progressed, and what its symptoms were, and what was the result of the post-mortem and analytical examinations, has already been reported.

“Here,” said the learned Judge, “the proof stops. And, supposing you are quite satisfied that the letter brought him to Glasgow,[116] are you in a condition to say, with satisfaction to your own consciences, that, as an inevitable and just result of that, you can find it proved that they met that night?[117] That is the point in the case. That you may have the strongest moral suspicion that they met—that you may believe that he was able, after all their clandestine correspondence, to obtain the means of an interview, especially as she complained of his not coming on the Thursday, said she would wait again to-morrow night, same hour and place, and talked of wishing to clasp him to her bosom—that you may suppose it likely that, although he failed to keep his appointment on Saturday, she would be waiting on Sunday, which was by no means an uncommon evening for their appointment—all that may be very true, and probably you will think so; but remember you are trying this case upon evidence that must be satisfactory, complete, and distinct.

“A jury may safely infer certain facts from the correspondence. They may even safely infer that meetings took place, when they find these meetings either mutually appointed or arranged for by the parties. But it is for you to say here whether it has been proved that L’Angelier was in the house that night. If you can hold that that link in the chain is supplied by just and satisfactory inference—remember, I say just and satisfactory—and it is for you to say whether the inference is just and satisfactory in order to complete the proof. If you really feel that in your own minds, you may have the strongest suspicion that he saw her; for really no one need hesitate to say that, as a matter of moral opinion, the whole probabilities of the case are in favour of it. But if that is all the amount that you can derive from it, the link still remains awanting—the catastrophe and the alleged cause of it are not found together. And therefore you must be satisfied that you can here stand and rely upon the firm foundation, I say, of a just and sound, and perhaps I may add, inevitable inference. That a jury is entitled often to draw such an inference there is no doubt; and it is just because you belong to that class of men to whom the Lord Advocate referred, namely, men of common sense, capable of exercising your judgment upon a matter which is laid before you to consider, it is on that very account that you are to put to yourselves the question, ‘Is this a satisfactory and a just inference?’ If you find it so, I cannot tell you that you are not at liberty to act upon it, because most of those matters occurring in life must depend upon circumstantial evidence, and upon the inference a jury may feel bound to draw. But it is an inference of a very serious character—it is an inference upon which the death of this party by the hand of the prisoner must depend.”[118]

CONDUCT AND STATEMENTS OF THE PRISONER AFTER L’ANGELIER’S DEATH.

In her declaration Miss Smith stated that she heard of L’Angelier’s death on the afternoon of Monday, the 23rd. On the Wednesday evening she was out at a party, and at eight o’clock the next morning she had left the house. In consequence Mr. Minnoch, and a brother of the prisoner, thinking apparently that she had gone to her father’s country house, took the rail to Greenock, and the steamer thence to Row, on board which they found her a little after two in the afternoon. She said she was going to Rowaleyn, and they went on with her, and from thence brought her to Glasgow in a carriage. “When we met her on the steamboat,” said Mr. Minnoch, “I asked her why she had left her house and her friends in such distress at her absence. She made no reply. I requested her not to do so among so many people. I renewed my inquiry afterwards at Rowaleyn. She said she felt distressed that her parents should be so much annoyed at what she had done.” The suggestion on the part of the prosecution was, that from conscious guilt she was fleeing from justice—on the part of the prisoner, that she was fleeing from the shame of an exposure of her love passages with L’Angelier. “But,” said the learned judge, “my opinion is, that having made a statement already about getting arsenic for the gardener to kill rats, and knowing that if it had been discovered that he got no arsenic for such a purpose, unpleasant consequences might follow, she wished to see him, in order to make an arrangement by which that statement might be borne out. The steamer in which she went only sailed from Helensburgh to Gairloch and back, and therefore escape by it was nearly impossible; and, in point of fact, he did not believe she had any intention of attempting it.”

Previously, however, to this unexplained flight from home, she had been visited by the French consul, a mutual friend of the lovers, to whose searching questions in the presence of her mother she gave most decided answers. As this witness’s evidence was greatly relied on by counsel for the prisoner, it is reported in full.

M. Auguste Vauvert de Meau, the French Consul at Glasgow, who had known L’Angelier for three years, was acquainted with the prisoner’s family, and aware from L’Angelier’s own statements of the correspondence between the lovers, gave the following evidence:—

“I remember L’Angelier coming to my office a few weeks before his death and speaking about Miss Smith. I said she was to be married to some gentleman, and when I mentioned the public rumour, he said it was not true, but, if it was, he had documents in his possession that would be sufficient to forbid the banns. I did not see her after that time. I thought that, having been received by Mr. Smith in his house, I was not at liberty to speak to him; but after L’Angelier’s death I thought it was my duty to mention the fact of the correspondence having been carried on between them, in order that he might take steps to exonerate his daughter in case of anything coming out. In the evening of the death of L’Angelier, I called on Mr. Smith and told him that L’Angelier had in his possession a great number of letters from his daughter, and that it was high time to let him know this, that they might not fall into the hands of strangers, numbers of people might go to his lodgings and read them. I went to Mr. Huggins’s office (L’Angelier’s employer). He was not in, but I saw two gentlemen, and told them what I had been told to ask (to get back the letters); but they said that they could not give them up without Mr. Huggins’s consent, and I then asked them to keep the letters sealed up till they were disposed of. I think this was on the Tuesday after L’Angelier’s death. Shortly after I saw Mr. Smith. In consequence of rumours I went to his house and saw Miss Smith in the presence of her mother. I apprised her of the death of L’Angelier. She asked me if it was of my own will that I came to tell her; I told her it was not so, but at the special request of her father. I asked her if she had seen L’Angelier on the Sunday night; she told me that she did not see him. I asked her to put me in a position to contradict the statements which were being made as to her relation with L’Angelier, and asked her again if she did not see him on Sunday evening or Sunday night, and she told me she did not. I observed to her that L’Angelier had come from the Bridge of Allan to Glasgow on a special appointment with her, by a letter written to him. She told me she was not aware that he was at the Bridge of Allan before he came to Glasgow, and that she did not give him an appointment for Sunday evening, as she wrote him on Friday evening giving him an appointment for Saturday: she had expected him on the Saturday, but he did not come, and she had not seen him on Sunday. I put the question to her five or six times in different ways. I told her that my conviction was that she must have seen him on Sunday, that he had come on purpose to Glasgow on a special invitation by her to see her; and I did not think it likely, admitting that he had committed suicide, that he had done so without knowing why she had asked him to come to Glasgow.”

The Lord Justice Clerk.—“Did you know of this letter yourself?”

Witness.—“I heard there was such a letter. I said to her that the best advice that a friend could give to her under the circumstances was to tell the truth about it, because the case was a very grave one, and would lead to an inquiry on the part of the authorities, and that if she did not say the truth in these circumstances, perhaps it would be ascertained by a servant, or a policeman, or somebody passing the house who had seen L’Angelier, that he had been in the house, and this would cause a strong suspicion as to the motive that had led her to conceal the truth. Miss Smith then got up from her chair and said, ‘I swear to you, Mr. Meau, that I have not seen L’Angelier not on that Sunday only, but not for three weeks or six weeks,’ I am not sure which.”

The Lord Justice Clerk.—“And the mother was present?”

Witness.—“Yes. I repeated this question five or six times, but her answer was always the same. I asked her with regard to the letter inviting L’Angelier to come and see her, how it was that, being engaged to another gentleman, she could have carried on a clandestine correspondence with a former sweetheart? she said it was to get back her letters.”

The Lord Advocate.—“Did you ask her whether she was in the habit of meeting L’Angelier?”

Witness.—“Yes. I asked her if it was true that L’Angelier was in the habit of having appointments with her in her house; and she told me that he had never entered that house, meaning the Blythswood Square house, as I understood.[119] I asked her how, then, she had her appointments to meet him? She told me that he used to come to a street at the corner of the house (main street), that he had a signal by knocking with his stick, and that she used to talk to him.”

The Lord Advocate.—“Did she speak about her former correspondence with him at all?”

Witness.—“I asked her if it was true she had signed letters in his name, and she said she had done so.”

The Lord Justice Clerk.—“Do you mean that she added his name to hers?”

Witness.—“I meant whether she signed her letters with L’Angelier’s name, and she said ‘Yes.’ I did not ask her why.”

Cross-examined by Mr. Young.—“I went to live at Helensburgh in 1845. M. L’Angelier visited me, and once he came on a Saturday to my lodgings there, and on Sunday we went on the Luss Road. I went up to my room, and L’Angelier not coming in for his dinner, I called for him out of temper. I then found that he was ill, and was vomiting down the staircase. He once complained to me of being bilious. This was a year ago. He complained of once having the cholera. Last year he came to my office and told me he had had a violent attack of cholera, but I don’t know whether that was a year or two years ago. I think it was a journey he was to have made that led him to speak of having had the cholera. I don’t recollect whether he was unwell at that time. I know that when he came to my house he always had a bottle of laudanum in his bag, but I don’t know if he used it. I once heard him speak of arsenic; it must have been in the winter of 1854. It was on a Sunday. I don’t recollect how the conversation arose, but it lasted half an hour. Its purport was how much arsenic a person could take without its injuring him. He maintained that it was possible to do it, by taking small quantities. I don’t know what led to the conversation, and should be afraid to make any statement as to the purpose for which it was to be taken. L’Angelier stated to me he had once been jilted by an English lady, a rich person, and that on account of the deception he was almost mad for a fortnight, and ran about, getting food from a farmer in the country. He was easily excited: when he had any cause of grief he was affected very much.”

By the Lord Justice Clerk.—“After my marriage I had little intercourse with L’Angelier. I thought that he might be led to take some harsh steps with Miss Smith, and as I had some young ladies in my house, I did not think it was proper to have the same intercourse with him as when I was a bachelor.”

The Lord Advocate.—“What do you mean by ‘harsh steps?’”

Witness.—“I was afraid of an elopement. By ‘harsh’ I mean ‘rash.’ This was after L’Angelier had given me his full confidence as to what he would do if her father did not consent to the marriage.”

The Lord Justice Clerk.—“ Did you understand that Miss Smith had engaged herself to him?”

Witness.—“I understood so from what he said.”

The Lord Justice Clerk.—“When you used the expression ‘you thought it right to go to Mr. Smith about the letters, in order that he might take steps to vindicate his daughter’s honour, or prevent it from being disparaged,’ did you relate to him her engagement and apparent breach of it? Had you in view that the letters might contain an engagement which she was breaking, or that she had made a clandestine engagement?”

Witness.—“I thought that these letters were love letters, and that it would be much better that they should be in Mr. Smith’s hands than in those of strangers.”

The Lord Advocate.—“ What were L’Angelier’s usual character and habits?”

The Lord Justice Clerk.—“Was he a steady fellow?”

Witness.—“My opinion of L’Angelier’s character at the moment of his death was, that he was a most regular young man in his conduct, religious, and in fact most exemplary in all his conduct. The only objection which I heard made to him was that he was vain and a boaster—boasting of grand persons that he knew. For example, when he spoke of Miss Smith, he would say, I shall forbid Madeline to do such a thing, or such another thing—to dance with such a one or such another.”

The Lord Justice Cleric.—“Did he boast of any success with females?”

Witness.—“Never.”

The Lord Justice Clerk.—“Did he seem jealous of Miss Smith paying attention to others?”

Witness.—“No; of others paying attention to her.”

The Lord Justice Clerk.—“It was not on account of any levity in his character that you discouraged him visiting you after your marriage?”

Witness.—“No. I thought his society might be fit for a bachelor, but not for a married man.”

The Lord Justice Clerk.—“Do you understand the word ‘levity’?”

Witness.—“Yes; lightness, irregularity. There had been a long cessation of intercourse between us before his death. The photograph (shown him) is a good likeness; he was between 28 and 30 years of age. I think I got accidentally acquainted with him in a house in Glasgow.”

At the close of the case for the prosecution the Lord Advocate proposed to put in certain entries in a pocket book of L’Angelier’s to support the first and second counts of the indictment, which, after argument, was refused by the Court. (See Appendix C., p. 359.)

THE DEFENCE.

In accordance with practice of the Scotch Courts the counsel for the prisoner had the last word; and good use did the Dean of Faculty make of his privilege. The Lord Advocate’s policy had been to depict the character of the prisoner in the vilest colours—as the seducer, rather than the seduced, or, at any rate, for a long period the willing accomplice in all his acts. The Dean dealt not less hardly with the character of L’Angelier.

“We find him,” he said, “according to the confession of all those who observed him narrowly, vain, conceited, pretentious, with a great opinion of his own personal attractions, and a very silly expectation of admiration from the other sex. That he was successful to a certain extent in conciliating such admiration may be the fact; but, at all events, his own prevailing ideas seem to have been that he was calculated to be very successful in paying attention to ladies, and that he was likely to push his fortune by such means. Accordingly, once and again we find him engaged in attempts to get married to women of some station at least in society. We heard of one disappointment which he met with in England, and another we heard a great deal of connected with a lady in Fife; and the manner in which he bore his disappointments on those two occasions is perhaps the best indication and light we have to the true character of the man. He was not a person of strong health, and it is extremely probable that this, among other things, had a depressing effect on his spirits, rendering him changeable and uncertain—now uplifted, as one of the witnesses said, and now most deeply depressed—of a mercurial temperament, as another described it, very variable and never to be depended upon. Such was the individual with whom the prisoner unfortunately became acquainted. The progress of their acquaintance is soon told. My learned friend the Lord Advocate said the correspondence must have been improper, because it was clandestine: yet the letters of the young lady at that first period breathe nothing but gentleness and propriety. The correspondence in the commencement shows that if L’Angelier had in his mind originally to corrupt and seduce the prisoner, he entered upon the attempt with considerable ingenuity and skill; for the very first letter of the series which we have contains a passage in which she says, ‘I am trying to break myself of all my bad habits: it is you I have to thank for this, which I do sincerely from my heart.’ He had been suggesting to her improvement in conduct or something else. He had thus been insinuating himself into her company. She had yielded, no doubt, too easily to the pleasures of this new acquaintance, but pleasures apparently of a most innocent kind at this period. Yet it seems to have occurred to her mind at a very early period that it was impossible to maintain this correspondence with propriety or her own welfare; for so early as April 1855 she wrote him—‘I think you will agree with me in what I intend proposing, that for the present this correspondence had better stop. I know your good feeling will not take this wrong. It was meant quite the reverse. By continuing it, harm may arise, by discontinuing, nothing can be said.’ And from then to September it did cease.”

Unfortunately the correspondence was renewed, discovered, and stopped by her father until April, 1856, when it is re-opened by a letter, of the 30th of that month, from Helensburgh, in which she writes:—“P(papa) has not been in town a night for some time; but the first night he is off I shall see you. We shall spend an hour of bliss. There shall be no risk: only C. H. (Haggart) shall know.” This letter was followed by that of the 3rd of May, inviting him on Tuesday, the 6th, to come to the garden gate, and adding, “Beloved of my soul, a fond embrace, a dear kiss till we meet! We shall have more than one, love, dearest.” Signed, “From thy ever devoted and loving wife, thine for ever, Mini.”

“Alas,” said the Dean, “the next scene is the most painful of all. In the spring of 1856, the corrupting influence of the seducer was successful, and the prisoner fell. This is recorded in a letter bearing the post-mark of the 7th of May, which you have heard read. And how corrupting that influence must have been, how vile the acts that he resorted to for accomplishing his nefarious purpose, can never be proved so well as by looking at the altered tone and language of the unhappy prisoner’s letters. She had lost not her virtue merely, but, as the Lord Advocate said, her sense of decency. Think you that without temptation, without evil teachings, a poor girl falls into such depths of degradation? No. Influence from without—most corrupting influence—can alone account for such a fact. And yet through the midst of this frightful correspondence, there breathes a spirit of devoted affection towards the man that had destroyed her—that strikes me as most remarkable.”

Then, after alluding to the precautions with which she sought to surround her interviews with L’Angelier at the Blythswood Square house; to the evident proofs that an elopement was projected, and to the strong probability that no interview took place without Haggart’s connivance, and that, therefore, the interviews at this time must be limited to the two spoken of by that witness, he urged that up to the month of February, 1857, he was entitled to say, “without a shadow of evidence to the contrary, that they were not in the habit of coming into personal contact.”

“We now,” continued the Dean, “come to a very important stage of the case. On the 28th of February Mr. Minnoch proposes, and if I understand the theory of my learned friend’s case aright, from that day the whole character of the girl’s mind and her feelings changed, and she set herself to prepare for the perpetration of what he has called one of the most foul, cool, deliberate murders that ever was committed. I will not say that such a thing is impossible, but I will venture to say it is very highly improbable. He will be a bold man to fathom the depths of human depravity, but this at least experience teaches us, that perfection even in depravity, is not rapidly attained, and it is not by such short and easy stages as the prosecutor has been able to trace in the career of Madeline Smith, that a gentle loving girl passes all at once into the savage grandeur of a Medea, or the appalling wickedness of a Borgia. Such a thing is not possible. There is a certain progress in guilt, and it is quite out of all human experience that, from the tone of the letters, there should be a sudden transition—I will not say from affection for a particular object—but to the strange desire for removing, by any means, the obstruction to her wishes and purposes that the prosecutor imputes to the prisoner. Think, in your own minds, how foul and unnatural a murder it is—the murder of one who, within a very short space, was the object of her love—an unworthy object—an unholy object; but yet while it lasted—and its endurance was not very brief—it was a deep, unselfish, absorbing, devoted passion. And the object of that passion she now conceived the purpose of murdering. Such is the theory that you are desired to believe. Now before you will believe it, will you not ask for demonstration? Will you be content with conjecture? Will you be content with suspicion, however pregnant, or will you be so unreasonable as to put it to me in this form, that the man having died of poison, the theory of the prosecution is the most probable? Oh, gentlemen, is that the manner in which a jury should treat such a case? Is that the kind of proof on which they should convict on a capital offence?”

The Dean, then, took up seriatim the three charges, examining the evidence on each in detail, making on each the criticisms, already reported in the previous summary of the evidence, showing how the first charge had failed even in the opinion of the prosecutor: how doubtful, to say the least, it was that the interview on which the second charge was based had taken place, and the weakness of many of the proofs on which the charge of murder was rested. Passing, then, to the suggestion of suicide, he continued—

“I might stop here, for nothing could be more fallacious than the suggestion of the Lord Advocate, that it was necessary to explain how this man came by his death. His lordship will tell you that a defendant has no further duty than to repel the charge and stand on the defensive, and maintain that the case for the prosecution is not proved. No man probably can tell at the present moment—I believe no man on earth can tell—how L’Angelier met his death. Nor am I under the slightest obligation even to suggest to you a possible manner in which that death may have been compassed without the intervention of the prisoner. Yet it is but fair, when we are dealing with so many matters of conjecture and suspicion, that we should, for a moment, consider whether that supposition on which the charge is founded is preferable in itself, in respect to its higher probabilities, to other suppositions which may be fairly made. The character of this man, his origin, his early history, the nature of his conversation, the numerous occasions on which he spoke of suicide, naturally suggest that as one mode by which he may have departed this life. Understand me, I am not undertaking to prove that he died by his own hand—but I think there is more to be said for suicide than for the prisoner’s guilt. But I entreat you to remember that that is no necessary part of my defence. But of course I should be using you very ill—should be doing less than my duty to the prisoner—if I had not brought before you the whole of that evidence which suggests the extreme probability of that man dying by his own hand at one time or other. From the very first time at which we see him, even as a lad, in the year 1843, he talks in a manner to impress people with the notion that he had no moral principle to guide him. He speaks over and over again of suicide at Edinburgh, Dundee, and elsewhere—ay, the prisoners letters shew that he had made the same threat to her[120]—that he would put himself out of existence. And is it half as violent a supposition as the supposition of this foul murder, that upon this evening—the 22nd of March—a fit of that kind of madness which he himself described, came over him, when he met with disappointment—finding, it may be, that he could not procure access to an interview which he desired—assuming that he came to Glasgow for that purpose—assuming even that he mistook the evening of the meeting, and expected to see her on the Sunday—can anything be more probable than that, in the excited state in which he then was, he should have committed the rash act which put an end to his existence.”[121]

Again, in answer to the motive imputed by the prosecution; re-reading the letter of the 10th of February, in which on her bended knees Miss Smith besought him, “as he hoped for mercy at the judgment, not to inform on her—not to expose her;” asked him “to pardon her if he could; to pray for her as the most wretched, guilty, miserable creature on the earth;” told him “she could stand anything but her father’s hot temper;” when she wrote, “Emile, you will not cause my death. If he is to get your letters, I cannot see him any more; and my poor mother, I will never kiss her. It would be a shame to them all. Emile, will you not spare me? Hate me, despise me, but do not expose me.” The Dean said—

Passing on, then, to the incident of her sudden flight from her home, when she heard of L’Angelier’s death, the Dean repudiated the notion that she was absconding from justice. She had left Glasgow early in the morning, and at half-past three in the afternoon was found on board a steamer going from Greenock to Helensburgh. Any one going by rail could easily have overtaken her.

“If her flight means anything,” he said, “it means flying from what she could not bear—the wrath of her father, and the averted countenance of her mother. But she came back again without the slightest hesitation, and upon the Monday morning there occurred a scene as remarkable in the history of criminal jurisprudence as anything I ever heard of, by which that broken spirit was altogether changed. The moment she was met by a charge of being implicated in causing the death of L’Angelier, she at once assumed the courage of a heroine. She was bowed down, and she had fled, while the true charge of her unchastity and shame was all that was brought against her; but she stood erect and proudly conscious of her innocence when she was met with this astounding charge of murder. You heard the account that M. de Meau gave of that interview with her in her father’s house on the Monday. That was a most striking statement, and given with a truthfulness obviously that could not be surpassed. What was the import of that conversation? He advised her, as a friend, if L’Angelier was with her on that Sunday night, for God’s sake not to deny it. And why? Because, he said, it is certain to be proved. A servant, a policeman, a casual passenger, is certain to know the fact, and if you falsely deny it, what a fact that will be against you. What was the answer? In answer to five or six suggestions of M. de Meau, she said at length that she would swear that she had not seen him for three weeks. If she did not see him on the Sunday that was true.”

On the purchases of arsenic, the Dean called the attention of the jury to the improbability of her having purchased it at the time when she was urging L’Angelier not to go to the Bridge of Allan whilst she was there with her family, and to her throwing it away on the 17th of March, and then buying more on the 18th;—“throwing it away, it was said, when just coming within reach of her victim, and then buying more, with circumstances of openness and publicity inconsistent with the hypothesis of any legitimate object? Why expose herself to the necessity of a repeated purchase, when she had got enough to poison twenty or a hundred men.”

Then, citing the behaviour of Eliza Fenning, in the well-known disputed, and even now disputed case, as a parallel instance of such behaviour as the prisoner showed when taxed with the charge of murder:[124] repudiating the doctrine that juries have nothing to do with the consequences of their verdict, and that all questions of evidence must be weighed in the same scale, whether the crime be capital, or a mere case of pocket picking, and appealing to the jury not to raise their rash and imprudent hands to tear away the veil Providence has been pleased to place over this mystery, the Dean closed his most effective speech.

THE JUDGE’S CHARGE.

The most material comments of the Lord Justice Clerk have been already so fully quoted as notes to the several portions of the evidence, or to the points made by the counsel for the defence, that it will now suffice to give his concluding summary of the case.

After retiring for half an hour, the jury by a majority in each charge found the prisoner Not Guilty on the first, and a verdict of Not Proven on the second and third charges, in which findings the Lord Justice Clerk expressed his entire concurrence.

APPENDIX A., p. 307.

POST-MORTEM EXAMINATIONS.

Evidence of Dr. Hugh Thomson, M.D.

SECOND POST-MORTEM OF THE EXHUMED BODY,

April 3, 1857.

APPENDIX B., p. 319.

ON THE QUANTITY OF POISON FOUND IN THE STOMACH OF A PERSON MURDERED BY ARSENIC.

Extract from Letter from Professor Christison to the Edinburgh Medical Journal, December, 1857.

APPENDIX C., p. 342.

L’ANGELIER’S DIARY.

At the close of the fifth day, after putting in the bulk of the letters, the Lord Advocate proposed to read entries in L’Angelier’s pocket-book from the 16th of February to the 14th of March, 1857, in support of the first and second charges. They were undoubtedly in his own handwriting, and statements of what he did on those days. It was objected that the book was not regularly kept, that the corroborative evidence was not sufficient, and that two of the entries were contradicted by witnesses who had been examined. The Court took time to consider, and on the next morning delivered the following judgments.

The Lord Justice Clerk.—“The admission of hearsay evidence was an established rule in the law of Scotland, but under those restrictions and conditions, which went in many circumstances to its entire rejection. What was now proposed to be admitted was this—certain memoranda or jottings made by the deceased, in which certain things were said to be contained, which went directly to the vital part of this charge. The Dean of Faculty felt so strongly that he did not scruple to state what the purport of one of these was, in order to show the immense materiality of the point. It was certainly most important for the Court to take care that the rules of evidence were not relaxed merely because it appeared that the matter tendered was of the highest importance to the case. Before evidence could be received and allowed to go to a jury, it must be shown that such evidence was legally competent to be tendered against the prisoner. That was the rule also in civil cases. It was of vital importance in considering whether this evidence was admissible, to ascertain in what circumstances, and, if possible, from what motive, and at what periods these entries were made. Now it was a most remarkable fact that there was no entry regarding the prisoner, or the circumstances connected with her, before the 14th of February; and at that very time the purpose on her part of breaking off the engagement with him and of demanding her letters back had been communicated to the deceased; and his purpose and resolution not to give up the letters and to keep her to her engagement were avowed and made known, as it appeared from evidence prior to that date. Then he had a purpose in writing these memoranda—a purpose obviously to strengthen his hold over the prisoner, not only by refusing to give up the letters at that time and afterwards, but probably with the view to hold out that he had a diary as to their interviews and communications, so as to endeavour to effect his object of preventing the marriage, and of terrifying her into giving up her engagement with Mr. Minnoch. He (the Lord Justice Clerk) made this observation not merely with regard to the weight and credibility of these entries, but with regard to their admissibility; because in the case of hearsay evidence one could ascertain from the witnesses the time the statement was made, all the circumstances and all the apparent motives which could be collected as to the statement being made by the deceased. But when we could not know with certainty the motive with which the man made the entry, or, perhaps, as in this case, could perceive reasons why he made the entry as against her, intending to prejudice her in one way, not of course with reference to such a trial as this, but with reference to her engagement, he thought it could not be said that this came before the Court as a statement recorded by him as to indifferent matters, or as to matters in which he might have not had a strong purpose in making the statement. Further, it might be a record of a past act. He felt the force of what the Lord Advocate had said, that supposing in this book there had been an entry that this man purchased arsenic, would not that have been available in favour of the prisoner. An illustration of this point had been suggested to him by a person whose authority and experience were of the very highest. Take an action of divorce against the wife where the paramour was dead; would an entry in any diary of his that he had enjoyed the embraces of this woman on such a night in the absence of her husband be proof against the wife? He thought not. What was proposed in this case was to tender in evidence a thing altogether unprecedented, according to the research of the Bar and the Bench, of which no trace or indication occurred in any book whatever, viz., that a memorandum made by the deceased should be proof of the fact against the panel in a charge of murder. He was unable to admit such evidence; it might relax the sacred rules of evidence to an extent that the mind could hardly contemplate. One could not tell how many documents might exist and be found in the repositories of deceased persons; a man might have threatened another, he might have hatred against him, and be determined to revenge himself, and what entries might he not make in a diary for this purpose? He had a faint recollection of a case in 1808—the trial of a man Patch for murdering Page, or of Page for murdering Patch—in which some letter of the murdered man, prior to his death, was used; but he had been unable to find the case, and he had no notion if it was of the character he had alluded to. However, in the meantime, as the point was perfectly new, and as it would be a departure from what he considered to be an important principle in the administration of justice, he thought this evidence could not be received.”

Lord Handyside.—“The special point is, whether the entries of certain dates—two in number—are to be read and made evidence for the prosecution, as regards the first and second charges in the indictment. The whole of these entries have been written with a lead pencil. I notice this to make the observation that ink and penmanship afford to a certain degree a means of ascertaining whether entries are made de die in diem, thus having the character of entries made daily; or, on the contrary, of several entries having the appearance, by change of ink or of pen, of being made at one time, and so after recollection. Where all the entries are in pencil, there can be no security as to the time when the entries are, in point of fact, inserted, and that they are not ex post facto; or that the original entries have been expunged, and others substituted in their place—whether this be a correction of memory, or with purpose and design of another character. The party making such entries in pencil has entire power over what he has done or chooses to do.” Then alluding to the fact that no authority for such evidence could be found, which entitled the objector to the evidence to throw on the tenderer the burden of showing that it ought to be received, the learned judge continued—“I think the question one of great difficulty—at least I have found it so. Had the writer of the memorandum been living, they could not have been made evidence—of themselves they were nothing. They might have been used in the witness-box to refresh the memory, but the evidence would still be parole. What would be regarded would be the oath of the witness to the facts, time and person; and if distinct and explicit, though resting on memory alone, the law of evidence would be satisfied, irrespective of any aid by memorandums and letters, though made at the same time. It is the oath of the witness to the verity of his oral statement in the box which the law requires and regards. But if the writer has died, is this circumstance to make such memorandums thenceforward admissible as evidence by their own weight? Are they, the handwriting being proved, to be treated as written evidence? That would be a bold proposition. Death cannot change the character originally impressed on the memorandums, and convert them from inadmissible to admissible writings. They are private memorandums, seen by no eye but the writers as such, subject to no check upon the accuracy of their statements, whether arising from innocent mistakes or from prejudice or passing feeling. I do not say that they are to be supposed false and dishonest, for the idea is repugnant, from the consideration that it would be idle to falsify and invent when memorandums are intended to be kept secret by the writer. But it is quite conceivable that vanity might lead to statements being made wholly imaginary, with a view of the subsequent exhibition of the book, and were its admissibility as evidence set up by death, it might become a fearful instrument of calumny and accusation. I speak just now of private memorandums, diaries, and journals, taken in the abstract. As to other writings of a deceased person, such as letters, I do not say these may not become admissible as evidence by reason of death, though during life they could not be used. They thus become analogous to words spoken—to representations made and conversations held—by a deceased person, the proper object of hearsay evidence. It was contended that the principle on which hearsay evidence is admitted would extend to anything written by a deceased person. It is assumed to be a declaration in writing of what if spoken would have been admissible on the testimony of the person hearing it. And on the first view it would seem that the written mode is superior to the oral, from the greater certainty that no mistake is committed as to the words used. But this would be a fallacious ground to rest on, for words written would require to be taken without explanation or modification; whereas words spoken to another are subject to the further inquiry by the party addressed as to the meaning of the speaker in order to a better and more thorough understanding of the subject of communication, the object of making it, and the grounds on which the speaker’s statements rest. And all these things may be fought out in the examination of the witness who comes into court to give this hearsay evidence. The value of hearsay evidence, and the weight to be given to it, come thus to depend much on the account which the witness gives of the circumstances under which the communication was made to him, as to the seriousness of the statement and what followed upon it in the way of inquiry and reply. Now a mere writing in the way of a memorandum or entry in a book in the sole custody of the writer till his death can be subject to no such tests. Its very nature shows that it is not intended for communication. It may be an idle, purposeless piece of writing, or it may be a record of unfounded suspicions and malicious charges, treasured up by hostile and malignant feelings in a moody, spiteful mind. These views impress me strongly with the danger of admitting a private journal or diary as evidence to support a criminal charge. I think the question now before us must be decided as a general point. As such I take it up. If I were to confine myself to the special and peculiar circumstances of this case, I should see much perhaps to vindicate the court in the reception of the evidence tendered. There is to be found in the letters which have already been made evidence much to give corroboration or verification to some at least of the entries in the pocket-book. But I feel compelled to close my mind against such considerations, and to look above all to a general and, therefore, safe rule by which to be guided. I have come, therefore, to be of the opinion that the production tendered as evidence in the case in support, as I take it, of the first and second charge, ought to be rejected.”

Lord Ivory said the opinions just delivered had relieved his mind of a burden of responsibility under which he laboured, and which he was ill able to bear. He had given the most anxious, serious, and repeated consideration to this matter. He had found little or nothing in the way of authority, and no dicta so precisely bearing on the case as to be of any avail. But judging in the abstract, applying the rules as applied to other cases, endeavouring to find a principle by comparison of the different classes and categories in which evidence had been distributed and in which it had been received, he felt himself totally unable to come to a conclusion that the evidence of this document should be excluded from the jury. As his opinion could not in the least degree influence the judgment, he should be sorry to add anything that would even seem to be intended to detract from the authority of the judgment now given; least of all should he be disposed to follow such a course in a capital case, where the judgment was in favour of the prisoner. He would content himself, therefore, with simply expressing his opinion. It appeared to him that this document should have been admitted valeat quantum, and that the jury should have considered its weight, and credibility, and value.

TRIAL OF ANN MERRITT.

Before The Lord Chief Baron Pollock and Mr. Justice Cresswell, at the Central Criminal Court, March 8, 1850.

For the Prosecution: Mr. Bodkin and Mr. Clark.

For the Defence: Mr. Clarkson, by the intervention of the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex.

Ann Merritt was indicted for the murder of her husband, James, by poison, at Clapton, on the 25th of January.

Merritt, who was a turncock in the employ of the East London Waterworks, had been at work in his usual health, with the exception of a slight cold, on Wednesday, the 23rd of January. When, however, a fellow-workman called upon him about nine the next morning, he was told by the prisoner that her husband was sick in the yard, and in a minute or two afterwards Merritt came in and told his comrade that he had been drinking some broth and a cup of hot tea upon it, and expected that it had turned his stomach. They started off to work, and on the way Merritt complained of being very thirsty, and went into a public-house and had some rum-and-water before they separated for their respective jobs. He seems, however, to have soon returned home unwell, as between ten and eleven a neighbour (Mrs. Gillett), who lived next door, who had been previously called in by eight o’clock in the morning, saw the deceased in his house very ill, and the prisoner emptying some thick gruel into a basin from a saucepan, and pouring water on it. The gruel had been made from oatmeal fetched from a corn-chandler’s by the witness’s son, at the prisoner’s request, who had given as a reason for making it that her husband had returned so very thirsty. This gruel the deceased was seen eating at a quarter past eleven, and very soon after vomiting. However, at one o’clock, Merritt went out again to work with his comrade, but soon after felt so sick and ill that he asked his friend to do his work for him, and returned home. When his friend returned to Merritt’s house with his tools, between five and six in the evening, the prisoner told him to go upstairs and see “Jem,” as he was very ill, and wanted to see him. This witness went up to the deceased’s bedroom, followed by the prisoner, and found Merritt in bed complaining of being very sick, feeling cramp in his limbs; at which the deceased said, “he did not wonder, as what with the weather and the work they had to do, it was enough to kill a horse.” No more was seen of the parties until half-past nine at night, when Mrs. Gillett was again called in by the prisoner, and found the husband in bed retching violently, and complaining of a burning pain in his chest and stomach. Between ten and eleven Mr. Toulmin, the doctor, was called in, and at half-past twelve the husband died.[126]

MEDICAL AND ANALYTICAL EVIDENCE.

Mr. Toulmin, a general practitioner at Clapton, was first examined. He was called in between ten and eleven on the Thursday night, and found the deceased in bed sick, complaining greatly of pain in his stomach and cramps in his legs, his pulse very weak, and his skin below the natural temperature; he prescribed for him, and left. Subsequently he made a post-mortem examination of the body on the 28th, by the coroner’s order, with the assistance of Mr. Welch, a neighbouring surgeon, to which the prisoner at first objected. When the stomach was opened, it contained a thickish matter slightly pink, which was poured into a stoppered bottle and sent with the stomach to Dr. Letheby for analysis. On its coats there were red spots, such as are observed in persons who have died of irritant poison.

Dr. Henry Letheby, professor of chemistry at the London Hospital, to whom the stomach and its contents had been forwarded, gave the following evidence, which, in consequence of the dispute which subsequently arose on his statement as to the time at which the fatal dose was taken, is given in full:—

PURCHASE OF POISON BY THE PRISONER.

This was proved by the son of a chemist of the name of Brown, of whom the prisoner purchased two pennyworths of arsenic on the 19th of January, which, at her request, he enclosed in two separate papers, each marked “poison,” as she said that one of them was for her sister who lived some distance off. The papers had something of the appearance of those of effervescing powders.

CONDUCT AND STATEMENTS OF THE PRISONER.

Mrs. Gillett gave some remarkable evidence as to the statements and conduct of the prisoner during the night of her husband’s fatal illness and after his death.

Other statements of a most unfavourable character were improperly extracted from her by Coward, the inspector of police. As the Lord Chief Baron said, with well-deserved reproof, he had evidently prepared a proceeding, and framed certain questions, which would enable him to observe the demeanour of the prisoner when she was confronted with a witness ready in attendance, in order to give his own view of her conduct afterwards to the jury.

Of this last statement of the inspector, the Lord Chief Baron added in his charge—

To Clarke, a police constable, she said, whilst in custody, that “she supposed she should be hung—they had told so many lies about it—she bought the arsenic for her husband.” To the female searcher at the police-station she said that she did not know on what charge she was brought there; and then, when told it, added, “I know he was poisoned, but not by whom.” And when told that Mrs. Gillett was the principal witness against her, declared that she was forsworn. On the second examination at the police-court, she told the gaoler that “she wished the magistrate to know something about the case. All she had said was true, except as to not buying the poison. She had placed it in the same cupboard with her husband’s powders after taking off the papers marked ‘poison.’ If he had taken it, it must have been by mistake, and she threw the remainder of the poison and all his powders into the fire. She intended to have taken it herself if he went on as he had done.”

THE PRISONER’S STATEMENT.

“I have nothing to say except that I never intended my husband to take the poison. When I bought it I intended to take it myself, if he had come home as he had done several times before. I could not live with him had he gone on so. I thought no more of it till the Sunday, when I thought he might have taken it instead of the soda, and then I burnt it. What I said about hanging was this—‘If I am to be hanged this moment I am innocent of anything to my husband.’ I have nothing more to say.”

Mr. Clarkson, for the defence, after alluding to the difficulties under which he laboured in consequence of the prisoner not having made any preparations for her defence, and the brief having only been handed to him as the case was opened, attacked the evidence of Coward in language which the Lord Chief Baron entirely adopted, and asked the jury to dismiss it from their consideration. He also characterised the declarations of the prisoner as told by witnesses clearly unfavourable to her. “With regard to the testimony of Dr. Letheby, if they relied on it, it would be necessary,” he said, “to come to the conclusion that the prisoner had continued administering poison to the deceased during the whole of the day—as it was proved that he was ill as early as eight in the morning. But he asked the jury if her conduct would justify such a conclusion. Her story might be true, and if the deceased took the poison through her culpable negligence in putting it in the cupboard with his soda powders, the offence would not be murder, but manslaughter.”

The strong remarks of the Lord Chief Baron on the conduct and evidence of Coward have already been given, and as the remainder of his charge consisted only of an analysis of the evidence, and its application to the different points of the case, it is needless to report it. As was characteristic of this kind judge, every point that could be made in favour of the prisoner was brought clearly out in his able charge. After a brief deliberation, a verdict of guilty, coupled with a recommendation to mercy on account of her previously good character, was returned, and sentence of death was pronounced by the learned judge.

A medical man of large experience, who was present during the trial, was so astonished at the statement of Dr. Letheby as to the time when the arsenic had been administered, that he communicated with the sheriffs, who brought the case before Sir George Grey, by whom it was referred to Sir Benjamin Brodie, Dr. Billing, Dr. Leeson, and other medical men of repute. These, it was understood, agreed that the time of administration could not be fixed. On this, at the urgent request of Dr. Pereira, Dr. Letheby wrote to the Home Secretary that it was his duty to admit that it was within the range of possibility—nay, even probable—that the arsenic might have been taken, as the woman asserted, early in the morning of her husband’s death, and in consequence the capital sentence was commuted for one of penal servitude for life. This case was used by Mr. Bright in his speech in the House of Commons in favour of the abolition of capital punishments, as a strong example of their danger.

How much more satisfactory would it have been could a court of appeal have reheard such a case instead of its being left to the Home Secretary’s judgment of evidence known only to himself.[130]