They Hanged My Saintly Billy

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 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 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.

An amendment moved by Mr Bridd, and seconded by the Rev. Mr Pope, to the effect that the verdict of the jury was perfectly 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:

The tissues are rubbed with distilled water in a mortar to a pulp, and then digested, after the addition of a little hydrochloric acid, in an evaporating basin. They are then strained, and evaporated to dryness over a water bath. The residue is digested again in a spirit filter, and once more evaporated to dryness. We next treat it with distilled water, acidulated with a few drops of hydrochloric acid, and filter it. We thereupon add excess of ammonia, and agitate in a tube with chloroform; the strychnia in an impure condition being thereby entirely separated with the chloroform.

This chloroform is to be carefully separated by a pipette, poured into a small dish and evaporated to dryness; the residue being moistened with concentrated sulphuric acid, and heated over a water bath for half an hour. We then add distilled water and excess of ammonia —again agitated with chloroform—and the strychnia will have thus been again separated by the chloroform now in a state of sufficient purity for testing. The test is made by evaporating a few drops on a piece of white porcelain, adding a drop of strong sulphuric acid and a minute crystal of bichromate of potash.

J. E. D. Rodgers, Lecturer in Chymistry, at the St George's School of Medicine

John Smith wrote from London to Sir George Grey at the Home Office, two days before the execution:

To The Right Hon. Sir G. Grey: Sir,

Notwithstanding the unabated anxiety which exists in the public mind relative to the fate of William Palmer, I have hitherto postponed addressing you on this subject. Long since his relations and friends would have rushed, in the intensity of their grief, to the Home Office; but as I have been charged with this matter of life and death, the arduous duty of making an appeal falls upon me.

Let me, then, claim your largest indulgence. I have now, when the sand of William Palmer's life has run until the eleventh hour— when only a few days stand between him and the grave, unless your clemency be exercised on his behalf—to address you as the head of that department which is recognized as the last sanctuary of injured justice. Although since the period of your administration the records of mercy adorn it more than at any other time—notwithstanding murder in its blackest form was committed, its perpetrators, under your merciful and wide dispensation, have been allowed to make atonement in exile or in solitude—still I shall not appeal to your sense of mercy.

I shall merely ask that a respite should take place in the execution of William Palmer until the serious doubts, medical and circumstantial, connected with this case, are laid at rest. No matter how popular passion may have been excited to its late state of madness against my client, your spirit of justice must examine into the obscurities that do exist. Sir, I trust you will not reverse one of the first principles of our criminal code, but allow my client the full benefit or doubt, if doubt be well founded. I therefore ground this application for my client's respite—