The Press.
London, England, 1857-07-11 00:00:00

.THE PRESS,

Our intimacy has not been criminal, as I am your wife
before God. lam now a wife, a wife in every sense of the
word, and it is my duty to conduct myself as such.
In another letter she says :
Emile, my own beloved husband, yon have just left me.
Oh, sweet darling, my heart and soul beats at this moment
with love for you, my sweet one. My nightdress was on
when you saw me. I wish to God you had been in the
same attire.
Upon the face of these letters there can be no
doubt that a criminal intercourse took place,
and that at one period Miss Smith was most
warmly attached to L'Angelier. After the first
burst of passionate love a reaction set in, she
oocled, perceived that Mr. Minnock's offer would be
far more advantageous to her in a worldly sense,
and finally desired to break off her engagement
with L'Angelier. This L'Angelier refusedto accede
to. He would bear of nothing of the kind She was,
de facto, his wife, and she should marry no other
man. In his jealousy he would not restore her letters,
and threatened to show them to her father. This
threat alarms her. She appeals to his honour, she
implores and beseeches him not to expose her—" to
keep her secret from the world." The last letter
she ever wrote to L'Angelier was with the view
of having an interview for the purpose of entreating
him to give her back her letters. These letters
closed the case for the prosecution, and the defence
was commenced on Monday.
The first witnesses called deposed to the tendency
L'Angelier had to commit saicide. Baker, a waiter
at the Rainbow Tavern, Edinburgh, said :
I took him for a quiet sort of person, but he was very
easily excited. Be was at times subject to low spirits.
Latterly he told me, on more than one occasion, he was
tired of his existence, and he sometimes spoke of suicide.

On one occasion he got up in the night, and opened
the window :
I got up and asked him what he was doing, and he said
if I had not disturbed him he would have thrown himself
out.
Baker and tho deceased ware in the habit of taking
morning walks together :
We occasionally walked to Lcith pier. He one morning
told me he had a good mind to throw himself over, as he
was quite tired of his exiitence. I have heard him read
of newspaper cases of suicide, and he would say this
person had done what he should do if he had the same
courage.
Cross.exarnined by the Loan ADVOCATE : L'Angelier
was a Jersey man, and I had met him there some time
about 1846.
Re-examined and shown No. 1, first inventory for pri-
soner: That is a letter from him to me, written in Dun-
dee. (In that letter he says, after saying he had just
landed in Dundee and had got a situation in which he was
working for board and lodging only, and with almost no
salary :—" I never was so unhappy in my life. I wish I
had courage to blow my brains out.")
Two other witnesses, Laird and Pringle, declared
that upon one occasion, when L'Angelie: had been
disappointed in a previous love affair, he had ex-
hibited great excitement :
He told me it was reported the lady was to be married
to another, but that he scarcely believed it, as he did not
think she could take another, because (as I understood
him to say) she was pledged to him. He told me who
she was. I believe she was in the middle station of life.
After this I saw the lady's marriage in the newspapers. I
said what I could to soothe him ; but he said he was truly
miserable, and he wished he was out of the world, or
something to that effect. He was in a very melancholy
state after this. He was gloomy and moody, and never
spoke to any one. I had frequent conversations with him.
William Pringle, nephew to the last witness, and
for some time his apprentice, deposed
I slept with the deceased, and had frequent (immerse-
!ions with him. I told him I had heard of a marriage
being in the newspapers—that such a lady had been
married. He seemed much agitated, and he ran once or
twice behind the counter, and then he took hold of the
counter•knife and held it as if to stab himself. I ate pped
forward, and be put it down again. I don't remember
what he said. He was particularly melancholy after this,
and I felt a little afraid be might do himself some mis-
chief.
Smith, an upholsterer in Dundee, thought him " a
very excitable sort of character; he was often in
very high spirits and often in very low." He referred
to the Flintshire lady having broken off the match,
and said that he frequently "felt inclined to destroy
himself ":

He sometimes spoke about drowning himself, and said
that he could never be happy again. I have a faint re-
membrance that he said he had once gone to the Dean-
bridge, in Edinburgh, to throw himself over, because this
lady hail jilted him. Ile did not say what had hindered
him. Self-destruction was a very frequent subject of
conversation with him.
William Ogilvie, of the Dundee Bank, made a
most important statement. Talking once of travel-
ling in France, L'Angelier mentioned that the horses
were very much knocked up with some long journeys,
and that he had given thorn arsenic to recruit
them
He told me he had given it in order to enable them to
accomplish the journey better. Ise said it M*4o them

longwinded, and thus he was enabled to accomplish a
feat. I asked, was he not afraid of poisoning the horses ?
And in reply to that he said, "So far from that, I have
taken it myself." I told him I should not like to follow
the same example, but he used some expression to the
effect that there was no danger. He said another effect
of it was that it improved the complexion. I inferred
that he took it himself for that purpose, but he did not
say so in so many words. He also said lie sometimes
complained of pain in his back and had difficulty in
breathing, and that he had taken it, and it had a good
effect in relieving

This witness also thought ho could recall L'Angelier
once showing him " something white in a paper, and
said it was arsenic." He had seen him several
times take poppy seeds in large quantities :
I expressed on one of these occasions my surprise, as I
understood they were poisonous ; and he said, so far from
that he could take them in large quantities, and that they
were better than filberts or nuts. He said he had taken.

these poppy seeds in great quantities, till he had become '
quite giddy. He said he had done so when he was at
Dickson's, in Edinburgh.

David Hill, a market•gardener, corroborated thA
last witness's evidence as to L'Angelier using

arsenic :

- _
recollect one day finding a small parcel in a wood
north of Dundee which 1 thought was arsenic. I brought
it to Dundee, and was to!d it was arsenic. This was

befure L'Angelier came to Dundee, but 1 toll him of the
circumstance afterwards, and he said, " Oh, that was

nothing strange, uhe used it regularly." He did not tell
mo for what purpose he used it. I have been trying to
remember, but I cannot now do so.

Alexander Millarjbelieved L'Angelier to be easily
depressed

On one occasion he said he wished he was dead. He
has spoken to me about people taking their own lives. He
said he did not consider there was any sin in a person
taking away his life to get out of the world when tired of
it, and hiving lost all happiness in it.

Mr. William Roberts, a merchant of Glasgow,
deposed to L'Angelier having dined with him ou
Christmas, 1853, and to his having been suddenly
seized with illness and leaving the room :

I sat a considerable time and wondered what kopt
him. I opened the dining•room door and heard
groaning and vomiting. I went to the closet and found
him vomiting and purging. I sent upstairs for cholera
mixture, and I think he got a good deal of it. Cholera
had been lately in town, and we got very much
frightened. He was afterwards taken home in a cab. He
appeared to get better, for he called on me next day, or
the one following, to apologise for having become ill. I
think he was fully an hour absent before t went out to
seek for him.

Letters from the prisoner to the deceased were
then put in and read. The first was a letter in an
envelope, with the postmark September 18, 1855.
It said :

Beloved Emile,—l have just received your note.
shell meet you. I do not care though I bring disgrace
upon myself. To see you I would do anything. Emile,
you shall yet be happy; you deserve it. You are young,
and you, who ought to desire life, wishing to end it. Oh,
for the sake of your once•loved Mini, desire to live and
succeed in life. Every one must meet with disappoint.
ments. I have suffered from disappointment. I long to
see you, sweet Emile.
The next letter bore the postmark Oct. 10, 1855,
and was to this effect :
Beloved Emile,—Your kind letter I received this morn-
ing. Emile, you are wrong in thinking that I loved you
for your appearance. I did and do admire you, but it was
for yourself alone I love you. I can give you no other
reason, for I have got no other. If you had been a young
man of a Glasgow family I have no doubt there would be
' no objection, but because you are unknown to him (Papa)
he has objected to you. Emile, can you explain this
sentence in your note—" Before long I shell rid you and
all the world of my presence." God forbid you ever do.
My last letter was not filled with rash promises. No ;
these promises given by me in my last letter shall be
kept, and must be kept. Not a moment passes but I think
of you.

Dr. Robert Paterson made a singular statement—
viz., that in several cases of suicide by arsenic which
had come under his care not one of the patients
disclosed betore death that they bad taken poison :
I inquired of several of them if they had been taking
poison or arsenic, but they all denied it. In the case of
the recovery the young woman did not admit she had taken
it until after her recovering from the secondary effects of
the poison. In the previous part of her illness she was
sullen and morose.
Other medical evidence was called to prove the
impossibility of dissolving arsenic to any extent in
cold water ; and Miss Janet Smith, younger sister of
the prisoner, and whose appearance created intense
excitement, gave important evidence relating to the
night of the 22nd of March
I remember Sunday the 22nd of March. We went to
bed together that night about half•past ten, or afterwards.
We went downstairs together from the dining•room.
We were both undressing at the same time, and we both
got into bed nearly about the same time. We might take
about half an hour to undress. We were in no hurry that
night in undressing. My sister was in bed with me before
I was asleep, and she was undressed as usual, in her night
clothel. I clo not know which slept hrst. We fell asleep

not long after going to bed. I don't remember papa giving
my sister a necklace lately, but he gave her one about a
year ago.
Cross-examined : I have seen my sister take cocoa. She
never made it in her room, bat she kept the packet there.
We had a fire in our bedroom. We went to bed that night
the same time as usual. I remember the morning Made-
leine went away. I suppose abs came to bed that night,
but I was asleep that night before it was her time to come.
I missed her in the morning on awaking.
Re-examined: I have seen my sister take her cocoa in
the dining•room. Ido not know if she had been reoom.
mended to take it. No other body in the house took it but
her. I found my sister in bed when I awoke on the Mon.
day morning about eight o'clock.
This elosed the defence.

On Wednesday the Lord Advocate proceeded to
address the jury for the prosecution. His lordship,
in a speech of some length, put together the different
disjointed statements given in evidence, with the
view of showing that while it was incontestable thst
L'Angelier did die of arsenic, there was as little
doubt that the poison was administered by Miss
Smith. Tracing the whole history of Miss Smith's
connection with L'Angelier, from the end of 1854 or
beginning of 1855, the Lord Advocate, quoting freely
from her letters, brought down the story to January,
1857, when, cooling towards L'Angelier, she had ac-
cepted Mr. Minnock. About four days afterwards
she wrote to L'Angelier to return her letters.
L'Angelier's refusal to restore the letters drove her
distracted. She wrote to him the most passionate
appeals entreating not to be exposed. L'Angelier
threatened to show the letters to her father, and
insisted upon an explanation. At length, upon the
13th of February, she appointed an interview. Upon
the 11th she sent the page for prussic acid, which he
did not get. The interview occurred, and the quarrel
was made up. L'Angelier at this time was ignorant
of the engagement with Mr. Minnock. From this
day to his death the tone of her letters, the Lord
Advocate argued, was quite changed. It was no
longer despairing, it was as warm and affec-
tionate as of old, though at the very moment
sbe was receiving the congratulations of her
friends upon her approaching marriage with Mr.
Minnock. On the 19th of February she fixed,
and no doubt held, a sceoud interview with
L'Angelier. In the middle of that night L'Angelier
was seized with violent sickness. It passed off, and
he remered. On the 21st February Miss Smith
purchased sixpennyworth of arsenic on the plea of
poisoning rats. On the 22nd L'Angelier saw her
again, and on the night of the 22nd and the morning
of the 23rd he was again seized with the very symp-
toms that he had bad before—the identical symp-
toms,in a somewhat milder form—namely, the green
vomiting again, the purging again, pains again, the
thirst again—everything, in short, one might expect
in a case of arsenical poisoning. Upon the 25th of
February Miss Smith wrote to him :

You looked bad on Sunday night and Monday morning.
I think you got sick with walking home so late, and the
long want of food, so the next time we meet I shall make
you eat a loaf of bread before you go. I am longing to
meet again, sweet love. My head aches so, and I am
looking so bad that I cannot sit up as I used to do; but I
am taking some stuff to bring back the colour.
On the 3rd of March, L'Angelier, after this second
attack, proposes to go to the Bridge of Allan for the
recovery of his health. Miss Smith, in reply, pro-
poses that he should go to the Isle of Wight. L'An-
gelier refuses on the sth by letter, and on that day
Miss Smith buys a second ounce of arsenic. Some
days elapse. L'Angelier goes to the Bridge of Allan,
and the last letter she ever wrote to him, appointing
an interview on the 19th, was sent after him the
same day. On the 18th sha had made another pur-
chase of arsenic. L'Angelier got her letter too late
to keep the appointment for the 21st; but on the
evening of the 22nd he is seen in the neighbourhood
of Miss Smith, and nothing more is seen or known
of what be did between half-past nine on that even-
ing and four o'clock the next morning, when he was
found dying on his own door•step, and with every
symptom of poisoning by arsenic.

The court, at the conolusion of this address,
adjourned.

On the eighth day the DEAN of FACULTY made an
able speech in defence of Miss Smith, contending
that it was not proved that she and L'Angelier met
on the 19th of February, and particularly that it was
not proved she possessed arsenic until the 21st of
February, though all the druggists' shops in Glasgow
had been searched, and her purchases had been
openly and frankly made. The Crown must there-
fore choose between the horns of this dilemma :
If L'Angelier was then ill from arsenic, some other
hand than the prisoner's must have administered it;
if be was not., the whole foundation of the case was
shaken. After maintaining that the evidence dis-
proved their having met on the 22nd of February,
the second occasion on which she was charged with
attempting to poison, he referred to the absence of
all proof whatever that they had met the night
before the death of L'Angelier. Tho appointment
pro Ade for Saturday, not Sunday. Hiss Smith