Dr Palmer, while in the dock, wrote a facetious note to his Counsel:
I wish there was two and a half grains of strychnia in old Campbell's acidulated draught—solely because I think he acts unfairly.
The Lord Chief Justice summed up in a sense which left the jury no choice but to find a verdict or Guilty'; yet Serjeant Shee courageously ventured on a final protest:
Serjeant shee. The question which your Lordship has submitted to the jury is whether Cook's symptoms were consistent with death by strychnia. I beg leave . ..
the lord chief justice (in a tone of vexation). That is not the question which I have submitted to the jury; it is a question! I have told them that unless they consider the symptoms consistent with death by strychnia they ought to acquit the prisoner.
Serjeant shee. It is my duty not to be deterred by any expression of displeasure; I stand before a much higher tribunal than even your Lordships', and must therefore submit what I believe to be the proper question. I submit to your Lordships that the question whether Cook's symptoms are consistent with death by strychnia is a wrong question, unless followed by the phrase:'. . . and inconsistent with death from other and natural causes.' I submit that the question should be whether the medical evidence has established, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Cook died by strychnia. It is my duty to make this submission, as it is your Lordships', if I am wrong, to overrule it.
mr baron alderson. It is done already. You did so in your speech.
the lord chief justice (addressing the jury). Gentlemen, I did not submit to you that the question upon which alone your verdict should turn is whether the symptoms of Cook were those of strychnia. I said that this is a most material question, and I desired you to consider it. I said: if you think that he died from natural disease—and not from poisoning by strychnia—you should acquit the prisoner. Then I went on to say that if you believed that the symptoms were consistent with death from strychnia, you should consider the other evidence given in the case to sec whether strychnia had been administered to Cook and, if so, whether it had been administered by the prisoner at the bar. These are the questions which I now again put to you. You must not find a verdict of 'guilty' unless you believe that strychnia was administered to the deceased by the prisoner at the bar; but, if you do believe that, it is your duty towards God and man to find the prisoner guilty.
At the conclusion of this address the jury retired from the Court, at eighteen minutes past two o'clock. They filed back into their box at twenty-five minutes to four, after an absence of one hour and seventeen minutes. The prisoner, who had meanwhile been removed, was simultaneously placed in the dock.
A buzz of excitement which ran round the Court on the reappearance of the jury was instantly hushed by the Clerk of the Arraigns' question: 'Gentlemen of the Jury, are you all unanimous in your verdict?'
The Foreman replied with a downright: 'We are.'
Whereupon the Clerk of the Arraigns asked: 'How say you, gentlemen: Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty, or not guilty?'
The Foreman rose and announced in distinct and firm tones: 'We find the prisoner guilty.'
Dr Palmer, who exhibited some slight pallor and the least possible shade of anxiety upon the return of the jury to the box, almost instantly won back his self-possession and his demeanour of comparative indifference. He maintained his perfect calm; and when sentence was being passed, he looked an interested, although utterly unmoved, spectator. We may truly say that during the whole of this protracted trial his nerve and calmness have never for a moment forsaken him.
The Clerk of the Arraigns then turned to him with: 'Prisoner at the bar, you stand convicted of murder; what have you to say why the Court should not give you judgement to die according to the law?' This question is of a formal nature; and the prisoner neither made, nor was expected to make, any answer.
Thereupon the Judges assumed the black cap, and Lord Chief Justice Campbell pronounced sentence in the following terms:
'William Palmer, after a long and impartial trial you have been convicted of the crime of wilful murder. In that verdict my two learned brothers, who have so anxiously watched this trial, and myself, entirely concur. The case is attended with such circumstances of aggravation that I will not dare to touch upon them. Whether this be the first and only offence of the sort which you have committed is certainly known only to God and your own conscience. It is seldom that such a familiarity with the means of death can be achieved without long experience; but for this offence, of which you have been found guilty, your life is forfeited. You must prepare to die; and I trust that, as you can expect no mercy in this world, you will, by a repentance of your crimes, seek to obtain mercy from Almighty God. The Act of Parliament under which, at your own request, you have been brought here for trial, allows us to direct that the sentence shall be executed either within the jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court, or in the county where the offence was committed. We think that the sentence ought to be executed in the county of Stafford, and we hope that this terrible example will deter others from committing such atrocious crimes: for it will be seen that, whatever art, or caution, or experience may accomplish, yet such an offence will surely be found out and punished.
'However destructive poison may be, it is ordained by Providence, for the safety of its creatures, that there are means of detecting and punishing those who administer it. I again implore you to repent, and to prepare for the awful change which awaits you. I will not seek to harrow up your feelings by enumerating the circumstances of this foul murder; but content myself now by passing upon you the sentence of the law.
'Which is: that you be taken from hence to the gaol of Newgate, and be thence removed to the gaol of the county of Stafford —the county in which the offence for which you stand convicted was committed—that you be taken thence to the place of execution, and there hanged by the neck until you be dead, and that your body be afterwards buried within the precincts of the prison; and may the Lord of Heaven have mercy on your soul!
'Amen.'
Dr Palmer's notorious comment on the verdict—the sporting phrase: 'It was the riding that did it,' which he wrote on another scrap of paper and tossed to his solicitor—has been read as an unwilling tribute to the Attorney-General's masterly conduct of the Prosecution. But we have it from his solicitor, John Smith, that it referred solely to the Lord Chief Justice's discreditable jockeyship on the Bench.
Chapter XXIII
A CHANGE IN PUBLIC OPINION
BACK in his cell at Newgate Gaol, Dr Palmer complained to the Under-Sheriff that he had not received anything like a fair trial. The Under-Sheriff replied: 'You can have no reason for complaint, my man. Why, the Attorney-General laid his cards face upwards on the table, saying that, since so much prejudice had been excited in this case, all the evidence against you would first be communicated to Counsel for the Defence, not sprung upon him.'
'I saw in that only the hypocrisy of a Scot,' Dr Palmer retorted. 'There were several cards missing from the pack, including the high trumps.'
'Moreover,' went on the Under-Sheriff, 'no less than three Judges agreed with the jury's finding.'
'Well, Sir, but that don't satisfy me,' said the Doctor. He then stated that Lord Chief Justice Campbell had failed to consult his fellow-Judges before announcing their unanimous agreement with the verdict; and that it should properly have fallen to Mr Justice Cresswell, as junior Judge, to pass sentence.
Later, Dr Palmer admitted: 'Despite old Campbell's unfair speech at the close of it, I had hoped to get off; but when the jury returned to Court and I saw the cocked-up nose of that perky little Foreman, I knew it was a gooser with me.'
He appeared greatly mortified when given a grey suit of convict clothes and curtly told to change into them. Having done so, he was handcuffed and fettered. 'You are bound for Stafford tonight,' said the Under-Sheriff.
A Black Maria stood waiting in the courtyard, where the crowd had gathered thick for a sight of the prisoner;
but Mr Weatherhead, the Governor of Newgate Gaol, smuggled him out by cab to Euston Square station. Though met there with angry and derisive shouts, he was safely assisted to the eight o'clock train and thrust into the middle compartment of a first-class carriage; the blinds being at once drawn. He had pleaded to travel by the Great Western Railway, over a less direct route, on the ground that if he went by the London & North Western, he would be recognized all along the line. This favour was denied him.
When he arrived, rather fagged, at Stafford station late that night—only to be greeted with prolonged boos and catcalls— Mr Wollaston, Superintendent of the Stafford Police, took one of his arms, and Mr Weatherhead the other. The police having dispersed the crowd, Dr Palmer picked his way carefully through the puddles, saying: 'Dear me, it’s very wet! Have you had much rain down here?'
'We have,' Mr Wollaston answered shortly.
No further word was spoken for some time, but after about five minutes Dr Palmer signed and said: 'I've had a wearying trial of it: twelve long days!' Then he stumbled in the dark and cried: 'Bother these chains! I wish they were off. I can't walk properly.'
The Doctor's brothers, George and Thomas, had leave to visit his cell a day or two later. When they begged him to declare whether he were guilty or not guilty, he forcibly replied: 'I have nothing to say, and nothing shall I say!'
Within half a week of returning to Stafford he overcame his fatigue, and was allowed several more visits from them; also from the Rev. Mr Atkinson, the Vicar of Rugeley, who had baptized, confirmed, married, and never ceased to feel affection for, him; from Mr Wright, the philanthropist of Manchester; and from the Rev. Mr Sneyd of Ripstone. All diese urged on him the necessity of confessing, but he kept a polite silence. Serjeant Shee sent Dr Palmer a Bible, carrying a sympathetic note on the flyleaf; and he passed much of his time reading this, and other religious books, lent him by the Prison Chaplain, the Rev. H. J. Goodacre. At his request, old Mrs Palmer spared herself the pain of a farewell, and took sole charge of little William, his son.
For a day or two, he was generally assumed to be guilty beyond dispute, and the crowds at Newgate would have cheerfully torn him to pieces, had the Police permitted them. Yet among medical men in Edinburgh, London, and Dublin, the prevalent view now seems to be: 'Hang Palmer for the insurance offices, or for the Jockey Club, or for the greater glory of the Attorney-General. Hang him as a rogue, if you will, but it must be on circumstantial evidence alone, not on the medical evidence; because that has broken down, horse, foot, and guns!'
Yesterday, the President of the College of Surgeons, lecturing to a packed audience on the subjects of tetanus and strychnine, referred pointedly to Dr Palmers trial: 'I have heard of grand jurors and petty jurors, special jurors, and common jurors, but these were twelve most uncommon jurors—very respectable confectioners and grocers into the bargain, I have no doubt—who boldly cut the Gordian knot, and settled the most difficult problem in the world, which is the anatomy of the brain!' He added that ninety-nine parts in a hundred of the surgical evidence at the trial were irrelevant to the case, since Cook had doubtless died of no surgical disease, but of a medical one—namely, a convulsion.
Guy's Hospital is in a ferment. One of Professor Taylor's colleagues has represented the speech of the Attorney-General as one of the greatest examples of medical extravagance and folly ever proffered to the public. Another pre-eminent surgeon calls it 'a piece of cold-blooded cruelty, disgraceful to the nineteenth century'. Professor Taylor himself receives cold looks from his own associates and pupils. At King's College Hospital, where Professor Partridge lectures, the pupils are most indignant at the Attorney-General's attack on Mr Devonshire, who performed the first post-mortem, and is regarded as one of the most promising young surgeons in that institution.
A considerable change of opinion has therefore been observed among the educated public. We reprint the following from The Daily Chronicle:
A public meeting, organized neither by Dr Palmer's family, nor by the Defence, but spontaneously by a number of disinterested citizens, took place today in St Martin's Hall, Longacre, to consider the propriety of staying Wm Palmer's execution on the ground of doubtful and conflicting testimony given at the trial. Most persons present were working men, with a considerable representation of the middle classes, and here and there a few women.
When the doors opened, the hall soon filled, and hundreds who could not find standing room remained outside during the proceedings. A petition praying that the hanging might be postponed, to allow time for a medical inquiry into the facts at issue, lay in a lobby at the entrance throughout the evening, and a stream of people appended their names to it. The feeling manifested by the greater part of the audience was in favour of a respite, though a few score vociferously asserted an opposite view at all stages of the proceedings. So high, indeed, did feeling run at one time that a well-dressed, portly man named Bridd jumped upon the platform and, defying the remonstrances of the chairman, Mr P. Edwards, began addressing the meeting while another speaker held the chair. Bridd was brought to reason amid a scene of indescribable confusion only by the appearance of police constables.
Mr P. Edwards announced that he and his fellows on the platform had not the least personal sympathy with William Palmer, knew nothing of him, and had never seen or conversed either with him or with any member of his family. Nor did they feel a morbid sympathy with criminals, and if the verdict had satisfied public opinion as correctly given, he for one should never have considered arresting the progress of the law, which was always a thing to be respected. (Cheers.) But, since public opinion found much cause to doubt Palmer's guilt, and since a number of first-class medical men, such as Professor Herapath of Bristol, Dr Letheby, and others, stated that, given more time, they could throw additional light on this subject, the meeting had been convened to ask for more time. (Cheers.)
He, and those who acted with him on this occasion, demanded neither a reprieve, nor the Royal clemency; they demanded simple justice. If his listeners considered the evidence submitted at the trial to have been doubtful, he hoped that they would endeavour, with him, to procure a re-investigation of the case, so that there might afterwards be no cause for resentment at a judicial scandal. He had not met with a single man who ventured to assert that Palmer's guilt was proved. (Cheers and uproar.) Despite the show of a fair trial, most people thought that Palmer had too many counsel against him, and that Lord Campbell himself might be included in their number. (Renewed uproar.) He thought Lord Campbell to stand high above all interested and petty motives, yet all judges are fallible human beings, and he might well have erred in his direction of the trial.
Though Mr Edwards admitted that he himself believed in Palmer's guilt, belief (he insisted) was one thing and certainty another. Surely a man was not to be hanged on mere belief ?
Mr Baxter Langley now moved the resolution: 'That, there being grave doubts as to whether or not John Parsons Cook died from strychnine, and it being essential to the interests of society, the progress of science, and the safety of individual life, that such doubts should be removed, this Meeting is of opinion that the execution of William Palmer should be delayed till an opportunity has been afforded of proving whether or not strychnine can be found in all cases where it Has caused death.'
Mr Langley, too, denied that he had any sympathy with the convict Palmer, or with his pursuits. He stood there to vindicate the majesty of the law, which was dear to all Englishmen as a protective, and not as a destructive, principle; and he wished the public mind to rest satisfied, before the sentence was executed, that no link was wanting in the chain of evidence against the prisoner. He did not affirm Palmer's innocence, but he asked the Meeting for their own sakes and for the sake of the law, to give Palmer the benefit of the doubt which still hung over his guilt.
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 coun
ter-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 criminal 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.