Our personal opinion is that, had it not been for one or two definitely known cases of strychnia poisoning in the human subject, the prosecution would have failed, in spite of all the experiments on animals from which analogies as to Cook’s symptoms were attempted to be drawn. There had been no trial for poisoning by strychnia before Palmer’s. But it happened that while the Palmer case was pending Dr. Dove, of Leeds, was accused of poisoning his wife by strychnia, and the symptoms of poison were more certainly ascertained. Yet Dr. Nunneley, of Leeds, who made a report on this case, was called for the defence, not for the prosecution.
In this preliminary sketch I shall not attempt to convey any idea of the chemical and medical evidence by a formal summary. It would be impossible, as Sir James Stephen remarks, to treat satisfactorily such an extensive, so technical, and so contradictory a body of testimony, and only such a general statement will be made of the circumstances as will enable the reader the easier to follow the case of the prosecution.
In the English procedure counsel’s speech for the prosecution begins the proceedings. In the Scottish the evidence is led at once. The trial is treated in this respect as if it were a Scottish trial on account of its extreme bulk, as it extended over twelve days. Neither in the Scottish series, which are already published, nor in the English series, now beginning, is there a trial of equal length; nor do I know any other murder trial so long, with the exception of that conducted by Browning in “The Ring and the Book.” In this trial, as in every English trial, the opening speech was intended to inform the jury merely of the facts and prepare their minds for the evidence, and lucidity of statement, at the most, is the only forensic effect aimed at. I accordingly omit the Attorney-General’s speech _qua_ speech, and found this preliminary statement on it. The point of interest as regards forensic oratory is reached with the speech of Serjeant Shee, the leading counsel for the defence. He analyses the evidence led for the prosecution, challenges its cogency, outlines the case in reply which will be an answer to every point made, appeals eloquently and pathetically for the prisoner, and, we may add incidentally, asserts his absolute belief in his client’s innocence, thus bringing on himself the presiding judge’s reproof for transgression of the rules of advocacy. The culmination is attained in the reply of the Attorney-General. Nothing, unless it is of the most temporary interest, is omitted in these two speeches, and every reference and argument in them will be intelligible in the light of the examinations and cross-examinations as given, which, not less than the speeches, are classic examples of the forensic art.