The Press.
London, England, 1856-05-24 00:00:00

MAy 24, 1856.

have known that as- sure as ever he sent into the
kitchen broth containing antimony the cook would take it
and be ill• Her statement is not credible, and cannot be
vlied on•
- - - -

The same additional exaggeration was noticeable in
her statement concerning the coffee ordered by
palmer, and drank by Cook, on the Saturday. Then
in her testimony as to the expression uttered by
Cook on Tuesday morning—first it was that Cook
said " the pills made him ill," then " the pills which
Palmer gave him made him ill." Again, before the
coroner, she said nothing about Palmer being in
tle bedroom on Monday night. Now it was, "he
was there between nine and ten." But the most
nportant point of all was, that in her description
of Cook's sufferings she grouped together symptoms,
so ne consistent, and others wholly inconsistent, with
death by strychnine; and after the case of Mrs. Dove,
in February last, it was remarkable that Mills, never
mentioning it previously, made use of the word
" twitchings," an expression used by a witness
before the coroner in that case. In her present evi-
dence Mills stated as follows :

Cook said, " I can't lie down; I shall be suffocated if
lie down. Oh, fetch Mr. Palmer !" The last words he
said very loud. I did not observe his legs, but there was
a sort of jumping or jerking about his head and neck and
his body. Sometimes he would throw back his head upon
the pillow, and then raise it up again. He had much diffi-
culty in breathing. The balls of his eyes projected very
much. He screamed again three or four times while I
*Ls in the room. He was moving and knocking about all
the time. He ask me to rub his hands. I did rub them,
and he thanked me. I noticed him " twitch." I gave
him toast•anil•water. His body was still jerking and
jumping. When I put the spoon to his mouth he snapped
at it and got it fast between his teeth, and seemed to bite
it very bard. In snapping at the spoon he threw forward
h s head and neck. He swallowed the toast and•water,
sid with it the pills. Palmer then handed him a draught
in a wineglass. Cook drank this. He snapped at the
glass as he had done at the spoon. He seemed as though
h 3 could not exactly control himself.

Since the coroner's inquest Mills, it was to be
r miembered, had had several interviews with
Mr. Stevens, Cooks executor, and Mr. Gardner.
Sergeant Shee then alluded to Palmer's conduct at
tie post-mortem examination, and appealed to the
circumstances of his position at Rugeley, suspected
a id without many friends, as sufficient to explain his
n iwillingness to let the Jar go away. His expression
of satisfaction to Dr. Harland was consistent with
this view. Then his asserted offer to Myatt of a 101.
wte to upset the jars, upon litlyatt's own cross-
e tamination turned out to be an offer to upset Mr.
S evens, who had behaved in a severe, scornful, not
to sty insolent, manner towards Palmer. The words
used by Palmer were "10/. to upset him," and would
it not be improbable that a medical man, who had
administered powerful doses of strychnine, should
have hoped to escape detection by upsetting a jar of
the intestines, while the liver, spleen, and tissues re
mauled behind ? The evidence of Newton, the
druggist's assistant, that Palmer purchased a
q utatity of strychnine on Monday night, was incre
d.ble. Newton swore that Palmer obtained from
him at nine o'clock on Monday night three grains of
strychnine, whereas he was prepared to prove that
Palmer could not have been there at thst
time. Palmer had that day been in Londop,
a ,d, if he were bent upon poisoning Cook, would it
nit have been safer and easier to have obtained the
a rychnine in London than in Rugeley? And lastly,
hi; writing for Jones to come over to Cook he re•
girded as an irrefragable proof of Palmer's innocence ;
for was it conceivable that, if Palmer meant to slay
Cook with poison in the dead of the night, he would
previously have insured the presence in his vic-
tim's bedroom o! a medical witness, who would know
fr en the symptoms that the man was not dying a
n aural death ? In conclusion, the learned sergeant
appealed to Palmer's early life, his love for his wife
',the prisoner here burst into tears and covered his
face with his hands), the fact that he would prove
that it was the wife who made the manuscript notes
in the medical books, and the conduct of his family,
as additional proots of his innocence, and he called
upon the jury to stem the torrent of prejudice and
to rest assured that the time would come when the
innocence of Palmer would be made fully apparent.
The speech of the learned sergeant occupied exactly
sight hours in delivery, and at its close the court
• Ijourned.