They Hanged My Saintly Billy (76 page)

He
went
on
to
say
that
Lord
Campbell,
when
summing
up,
had assumed
the
prisoner
was
a
murderer,
and
then
laid
before
the
jury facts
to
prove
his
own
hypothesis.
('No,
no!' and counter-cheers.)
The
summing
up
of
Lord
Campbell
was
unfair,
because
he
did
not put
the
question
to
the
jury
whether
strychnine
had,
or
had
not,
been administered
to
the
deceased—but
whether
his
death
was
consistent with
poisoning
by
strychnine—thus
assuming
that
death
had
occurred from
strychnine,
which
was
not
found
in
Cook's
body.
He
himself believed
that
if
Palmer
were
executed,
he
would
be
executed
to satisfy
an
unproved
scientific
hypothesis.
('No,
no!' and uproar.)

Mr
R.
Hart,
who
seconded
the
resolution,
contended
that
if
capital
punishment
must
take
place,
it
should
take
place
only
in
cases admitting
no
doubt
of
guilt.
If
a
man
has
been
haled
to
the
scaffold and
hanged,
and
if
proof
of
innocence
be
afterwards
established,
what compensation
for
the
wrong
does
this
bring
his
relatives,
and
what alleviation
for
the
remorse
of
those
who
hanged
him?
(Cheers.)
They
were
not
there
to
consider
whether
Palmer
was
a
gambler,
a black-leg,
or
a
forger.
The
question
was:
had
the
crime
or
poisoning been
legally
proved
against
him?
('No,
no!' and uproar.)
He
could hardly
do
Lord
Campbell
the
injustice
of
supposing
that
he
was
a willing
accessory
to
legal
murder.
Yet
the
evidence
was
wholly
circumstantial,
not
only
as
to
Palmer's
guilt,
but
as
to
the
fact
of
any crime
having
been
committed;
for
though
the
doctors
had
contradicted
one
another,
and
advanced
opposite
theories
throughout the
trial,
most
of
them
held
that
Cook
died
a
natural
death.
The whole
operation
of
the
old
English
law
observed
on
trials
for
murder had,
in
this
case,
met
with
a
reversal:
first,
when,
before
proceeding to
prove
a
murder,
they
proceeded
to
prove
a
murderer;
and
second, when,
instead
of
inferring
the
crim
inal
from
the
crime,
they
inferred the
crime
from
the
criminal.

The
motion,
which
the
Rev.
Mr
Thomas
also
supported,
was
put and
carried
by
a
considerable
majority.

Mr
H.
Harris,
a
surgeon,
then
moved
the
appointment
of
a
deputation,
consisting
of
the
chairman
and
several
other
Gentlemen
on
the platform,
to
wait
upon
Sir
George
Grey,
the
Secretary
of
the
Home Department,
and
lay
the
resolution
on
his
table.

An
amendment
moved
by
Mr
Bridd,
and
seconded
by
the
Rev. Mr
Pope,
to
the
effect
that
the
verdict
of
the
jury
was
perfectl
y
correct according
to
the
evidence
given
at
the
trial,
was
lost
on
a
show
of hands,
and
the
original
motion
reaffirmed
by
a
large
majority. The
Meeting
then
dispersed.

'Honest
John
Smith',
Dr
Palmer's
solicitor,
had
meanwhile pressed
for
a
further
post-mortem
examination
of
Cook's
mangled remains,
and
their
analysis
by
chemists
who
claimed
that,
in
cases of
strychnine
poisoning,
they
could
detect
the
ten-thousandth
part of
a
grain.
He
was
supported
in
his
demand
by
Professor
J.
E.
D. Rodgers,
Lecturer
in
Chymistry
at
the
St
George's
School
of Medicine.
Professor
Rodgers
wrote
to
The Times:

To
the
Editor: Sir,

I
cannot
conceive
an
opinion
more
dangerous
to
promulgate
than that
a
fatal
dose
of
poison
can
be
so
nicely
adjusted
as
to
escape
detection
after
death.
Yet
such
has
been
the
tendency
of
many
letters
published
in
the
Press
for
some
time
past.
It
was
with
feelings
of
deep regret
that
I
noticed
in
your
edition
of
today
a
communication
from a
former
colleague
of
mine,
Mr
Ancell,
who,
I
am
sure,
would
never have
sent
it,
had
he
been
aware
of
the
nature
and
results
of
numerous experiments
lately
made
by
myself
independently,
and
in
conjunction
with
Mr
Girdwood,
Assistant-Surgeon,
Grenadier
Guards.
I
have asserted,
and
do
still
assert,
that
strychnia
cannot
evade
discovery
if proper
processes
be
employed
for
its
separation.

In
this
view
I
am
supported
by
the
highest
chemical
authorities
of the
day;
and
now
request
a
space
in
your
valuable
columns
to
give the
world
a
process
which
will
form
the
conclusion
of
my
letter.
It has
enabled
myself
and
Mr
Girdwood
to
detect
that
fearful
poison in
the
blood,
liver,
tissues,
and
stomachs
of
animals
poisoned
by
doses such
as
those
Professor
Taylor
administered
in
experiments
mentioned
at
the
late
trial.
It
has
even
enabled
us
to
separate
the
strychnia from
the
tissues
and
organs
of
a
dog
after
its
body
had
been
interred twelve
months.
The
results
of
these
experiments,
though
not
a
description
of
the
process
employed,
were
forwarded
by
myself
and Mr
Girdwood
for
the
scrutiny
of
Sir
George
Grey.
We
hold
that
if John
Parsons
Cook
was
poisoned
by
strychnia,
no
matter
how
small the
fatal
dose,
its
presence
could
even
now
be
clearly
demonstrated should
the
victim
s
tissues
be
subjected
to
the
same
analytic
process: for
of
all
known
poisons,
there
is
not
one
more
readily
detected. The
process
is
as
follows: