The Sun.
London, England, 1856-05-28 00:00:00

my mattress. As for the cord I had thought of'
that before. On the Ist of February I kept
back, without their knowing, the sheets that I
ought to have sent away to the wash, and
on the Ist of March I kept back the towels
which were as wide as the sheets and a little longer,
and by cutting these into strips I was able, on the
27th of March, to make my cord, fastening it with
sailor's knots. I let it down into the ditch to try
its length, and found it even longer than neces-
sary. The 28th and 29th I passed with great fear
of discovery, being more than usually persecuted
by the attentions of the sentinel, so that I could
not attempt my escape. I therefore pretended
during those two days to be ill, and did not rise
from my bed, for fear they might chance to
examine my straw mattress. They had ceased,
in my case, to examine the bars. At half-past
nine on the evening of the 29th, at the usual visit
from the cape custode I pretended to be asleep ;
but the moment they were gone, and while they
were going the round of the other visits, and so
making some noise, I rapidly removed the iron bars
I had cut—made up two little bundles of neces-
sary clothing—fastened the cord to one of the
remaining bars—let it down all its length—.
hid the bars had removed in the straw, and
then lay still again till the second visit, at half
past one. I again pretended to be asleep, and
the instant they were gone I rose, and quite
calmly proceeded to let myself down by the
cord. When within six feet from the ground I
felt I could no longer sustain myself. I looked at
the depth below me, and let myself drop. A sort
of swoon came over me. I however moistened my
mouth with an orange I had had the precaution to
have upon me, and lay for some moments quiet, to
recover myself. I then dressed myself, and wan-
dered round and round the castle, seeking some
means to get out of the ditch, but I had so hurt my
foot in the fall that I could scarcely walk. I hoped
to escape from the ditch into the lake, but the en-
trance to the lake was barred by a grating. I then
endeavoured, with the help of two nails, to scale the
wall of the ditch, about 6 feet high, and had almost
reached the top when the foot I had hurt failed me,
and I fell to the bottom. Fortunately there had
lately been a little water in the ditch, and the soft
mud prevented the sentinels hearing the noise of
my fall. I remained there in the dread of being
retaken till 5 in the morning, when the city gates
were opened, and then some people went by. I
called to them, saying that the night before I had
been drunk and fallen into the ditch, and begged
them to help me out. Somo refused, but at last
some bolder ones helped me, and I was dragged
out with much difficulty, as Iconic' scarcely help my-
self. My hands were cut in many places. I was
very lame, and covered with the mud of the ditch
above the waist,yet in that condition I had to cross the
bridge within gun-shot of the castle. What happened
after that I must not tell. In eight days I was in
Switzerland, and able for the first time to attend to
my foot. What the Austrians would have done or
given to get me again you can imagine. Police
circular followed circular, and telegraphic despatch
followed telegraphic despatch. All letters were in-
discriminately stopped and opened at the Post-
office, and perquisitions made in every part of
Mantua, but this did not prevent the citizens from
openly rejoicing over my escape. We shall now
soon meet.
"May 20, 1856. FELICE ORSLNI."

,Spirit of the Public Journals.

THE TRIAL OF PALMER.
(From the Morning Post of this day.)
That remarkable trial has now come to a close
by which, for the 13 last days, so much of human
ability has been employed—on which so much of
justice and fairness has been shown to the wretched
man accused, and at last convicted, of the deepest
of crimes against society. There cannot be a sha-
dow of reason for the morbid cry that Palmer was
sacrificed to a panic or to a prejudice. Everything
that could be done in order that his trial might be
a fair one was done. The place where he was tried
was removed from Stafford to London, because it
was said that popular feeling ran so high in the
former place as to make a just verdict difficult, if
not impossible. The time was adjourned until the
minds of men should have had time to cool. He
had the ablest counsel to defend, the best judges
to try, him—a jury as free from all suspicion of
prejudice as could be obtained. The case against
the prisoner was stated by the Attorney-General
in one of the clearest, the most calm, and, at the
same time, in one of the strongest speeches that we
ever hoard. It was a speech which addressed itself
to the reason of the jury. It left their passions
untouched. No worn-out clap-trap of sentimen-
talism was used to rouse their feelings. It dealt
with evidence and with facts ; and it put these so
logically—in so broad and clear a light—before
those who had to judge them, as to leave a hard
task indeed for the defence. There can be no
doubt that that defence was conducted with the
utmost skill, with the greatest ingenuity, with the
strongest attempt at success of which the case ad-
mitted. It failed, as the most eloquent defence
must have failed, before the facts of the case, though
the question had been tried at 50 different times
by 50 distinct juries.
We have carefully abstained, while the issue was
doubtful, from a word that might affect it—we have
refrained from the shadow of a comment on the
conduct of the prisoner on any circumstance, trivial
or momentous, that might influence opinions on the
subject so momentous to him if he were innocent,
so momentous to society and to justice if he were
guilty. We may now fairly and openly, with all
the evidence before us, express our concurrence in
the verdict of the jury ; we may congratulate them
on having done their painful duty well and fear-
lessly. In all cases of poisoning there comes the
main difficulty that much of the evidence must be
circumstantial. The weapon which the murderer
used is not nigh at hand. That bloody witness
cannot be traced to his possession. He is not driven
to ghastly expedients to get rid of the body of his
victim. He has no clothes stained with the proofs
of his crime which testify against him. There is
nothing to convict him but the strong chain of cir-
cumstances ably linked together—the character,
the motive, the opportunity for the deed—the evi-
dence that he used that opportunity—the testi-
mony of events before and after the death. In
Palmer's case all these combined so strongly as to
leave no possible escape from the facts even to the
utmost ingenuity. The only point on which the
defence could set up the shadow of a case was on
the fact that strychnine was not found in the body,
or the inference thence drawn that the deceased
did not die from poison at all—that he died solely
from convulsions, produced by natural causes.
Medical evidence was, as usual, produced in abun-
dance on this side of the question. It had the
natural effect of opinions pushed so far as to be-
come absurd. No jury could believe that a man in
perfect health should suddenly become the victim
of symptoms such as could not be proved to have
occurred except from strychnine ; unless he had
taken strychnine no jury could believe, in the face
of the opinions given to them, in the existence of
those symptoms from any other cause, when the
strongest witnesses for the defence could only bring
forward something like them in constitutions
strangely and singularly reduced.
No set of men could in fact come to any conclu-
sion, from the facts before them, but that Cook
died from strychnine—that poison was traced to the
possession of Palmer. In two cases he was proved to
have bought it immediately before the remarkable
death of the deceased. No attempt was made by
the defence to account for this purchase, or to state
what he did with the poison. The motive for the
use of it, of which ho has been convicted after the
most patient and careful investigation, was unhap-
pily but too apparent even for the ingenuity of Ser-
geant Shee to conceal or distort. There was the
amplest opportunity for the commission of the
crime. There was the most extraordinary coinci-
dence between the death of Cook and the presence
of Palmer. There was proof of his having broken
the law in one serious particular, at least under the
pressure of circumstances. Of what other crimes
he has been guilty rests between him and his God.
Human justice has done its pert in the long and
patient investigation which has just been brought
to a satisfactory close. The law has shown its su-
periority over the most deliberate and the best de-
vised appliance of the resources of crime. It is, to
our thinking, a very happy thing that this is so.
Had Palmer not been convicted, public opinion
would still have found a verdict of guilty against
him. It would have shaken the confidence of the
world in the power of justice—it would have given
strength to the bad man—it would have increased
the temptation to the most diabolical of crimes—it
would have stood as the record of the success of
villany the most deliberate and atrocious, assuming
the shape most terrible to man—it would have been
the triumph of a crime which the boldest of us may
well shrink from for its smooth, secret, and silent
course. Justice was fairly matched against murder,
and has fairly won its stern victory. In this coun-
try we do not bring the whole power of the
law to bear against the defenceless prisoner. We
give him every opportunity to make good his
case. Every point that -aid tell in his favour
is put forward by his counsel. The judge sums
up the evidence for both sides fairly and
calmly. He points out to the jury the strength and
the weakness of either. If, after so steady and
solemn au inquiry, there conies at last the verdict
of Guilty, we may well be convinced of its truth—
we may well concur, as we do in Palmer's case, in
the deliberate and unanimous opinion of the three
judges that he committed the crime laid to his
charge.

(Front the Daily Noes.)
After a trial of unexampled duration, conducted
with singular ability, the most impartial fairness,
and the most exemplary patience, William Palmer
has been found guilty by the just judgment of his
country. The verdict by which he has been thus
branded as one of the most odious and execrable of
felons must long since have been anticipate' by all
those who have attentively watched the progress of
this most remarkable investigation. It was impos-
sible to read the lucid and masterly address with
which the Attorney-General opened the case for the
prosecution without feeling that if the evidence at
all came up to the statement the prisoner at the
bar was a doomed man. The evidence did come up
to the statement. In the six days occupied by the
case for the prosecution there was not a single ma-
terial witness who broke down, not a single mate-
rial point which was not made out. As the long
detail of proof evolved itself, it was curious to watch
how each fact seemed to fall into its proper place,
till link by link there was substantiated in evidence
that chain of circumstantial narrative which the
skill of the great advocate had already wound in
deadly, but polished, folds round the culprit's neck.
The case for the prosecution was altogether admi-
rably got up. The interests of truth and society
were in good hands. It is fortunate, indeed, that
it was so. Had a single weak point been left—had
there been any gap in the evidence—any break in
that continuity of circumstances, each in itself un-
important, but in their aggregate effect overwhelm.
ing—instant advantage would have been taken of
it by the counsel for the defence, and instead of
rejoicing, as we now do, at the just doom by which
this unparalleled offender has been overtaken, we
should have had, in all probability, to submit to the
scandal and the misfortune of witnessing his escape.
In a case of such absorbing interest we may safely
conclude that the generality of our readers have
made themselves acquainted with the evidence, as
it has day after day been recorded in our columns.
On the present occasion we shall only glance at a
few of the more salient points. The case for the
prosecution was, that Palmer had an interest in
Cook's death ; that he first practised on him by
antimony, and finally poisoned him by strychnia ;
that all the symptoms under which Cook died were
referable to poisoning by strvchnia, and to nothing
else ; while the admitted failure to discover any
traces of strychnia in the body after death was not
in itself incompatible with guilt, and was utterly
nugatory as a defence in the face of all the proved
facts of the case. The defence took issue on all
these points—but principally relied on the absence
of motive, and the non-discovery of poison in the
dead body. Neither of these grounds, though both
were urged with considerable ingenuity and confi-
dence, could give rise for a moment to any reason-
able doubt. As to motive, it was abundant. On
this point it is only necessary to recall the facts of
Palmer's position on Tuesday, the 13th of Novem-
ber, when Cook's horse, Polestar, won the Shrews-
bury Handicap. He had long been in difficulties.
For two years his normal state had been that of a
man who is paying constantly increasing losses by
perpetually accumulating loans. His book was al-
most uniformly ill made up. He had repeatedly
raised money at 60 per cent. on the security of life
policies and forged acceptances. In 1854 he had
just managed to clear himself by what no one, we
suppose; will now doubt to have been the timely
proceeds of an enormous crime. In September of
that year lain wife peritikeds and la obtikbad the

13,0001. for which he had insured her life. In 1856
he made a desperate effort to secure the same resource.
In August of that year Waiter Palmer, the brother,
died, just in time to satisfy the pressing claims of his
creditors ; and if the offices had paid the 13,0001. for
which the brothers's life had also been insured, the
Rugeley poisoning cases might never have been
heard of. But the offices refused, and Palmer's case
at once became desperate. The usurers rapidly
grew importunate. Pratt held acceptances to the
extent of 11,5001., every one of which had been
forged by Palmer in his mother's name. Palmer
had made unheard-of efforts to carry on the battle.
He had frequently sent up small remittances to
Pratt ;he had imploringly pressed for time. "As
well," exclaims the Attorney-General, " might a
man appeal for mercy to a rabid tiger, as to a usu-
rer when the securities he has advanced upon have
failed." On the 9th November, Pratt, tired of law-
yers's letters, actually issued a writ for 4,000/.
against Palmer and his mother. Everything,
forgery and all, was on the point of immediate ex-
posure. Palmer had 9/. 16s. at his banker's, and
not another resource in the world. Shrewsbury
races came on. He was obliged to borrow 251. in
order to go there. He had a horse—The Chicken—.
to run at those races ; eventually it did run, and
lost. Cook's horse, Polestar, was more fortunate.
On Tuesday, Nov. 13, 1855, Polestar won the
Shrewsbury Handicap. Cook had large payments
made to him on the course. He gave Fisher be-
tween 7001. and 8001. to take care of for him on the
Tuesday night. Fisher returned it to him the next
morning, and since that time it has never been ac-
counted for. Besides this, Cook was to receive in
London on the next. Monday (the 19th), the settling
day at Tattersall's, a sum o' 1,0201., as appeared
by his betting-book. That book, which was sworn
to be in his possession up to the time of his death
—which Palmer must obviously have consulted be-
fore he went up to town on the Monday to receive
Cook's debts—has never besn found since.
If Palmer could procure this sum of nearly
2,0001., and appropriate it to his own uses, was
there no motive here? Why, by a judicious use of this
2,0001. he could get rid of the pressure of his liabi-
lities until the January—he would have nearly two
months' respite from the usurers ; and to the
sanguine temper of a turf man, two months, under
such circumstances, is a species of eternity. True,
Palmer owed at that time about 19,0001. in the
aggregate ; but a larger sum than 19,0001. has
been made by the reckless gamblers of the turf on
the issue of a single race. Time—time, was all
the man warded—a month's, a week's, a day's
respite was worth everything. And time he deli-
berately purchased by Cook's destruction. While
Cook, having left Shrewsbury and returned to
Rugeley, is labouring under the effects of antimony
administered by Palmer, this man, who was com-
pelled to borrow money in order to carry him to
the races, and who, instead of winning, had lost
there, is found paying away money to the more
pressing creditors who were harassing him at
Rugeley. On Monday, the 19th, he leaves Cook
ill at the Talbot, and goes himself to get paid at
Tattersall's those bets which Cook has won.
Every farthing of these bets is applied by Palmer's
directions to getting time on the bills for whose
payment Pratt is pressing him. Motive !—why
it is not left to speculation. We need not ask
what motive he could have had, we need only
ask what he has actually proved to have done.
How did he collect these winnings of Cook's f
How did he procure the accurate information of
the sums dile to him by different parties in town ?
How—but by Cook's betting-book ? What became
of this book ? It has never been produced. When
Palmer was asked about it by the stepfather of his
victim, his reply was, " Oh, it's of no use ; a dead
man's bets are void." True, but Cook's bets had
been received during his life. They were taken on
Monday, the 19th ; Cook died on Tuesday, the
20th. Who received them ? Palmer. Who was
answerable for them ? Palmer. Who had an in-
terest in concealing their amount ? Palmer.
On Monday, having thus applied to his own pur-
poses every farthing of Cook's winnings, Palmer
returns to Rugeley. The antimony has been a
failure—some more stringent means are requisite.
It is absolutely indispensable to Palmer's safety
that Cook should never rise from the bed on which
he is lying to learn the manner in which his money
has been applied. On his return from town on the
Monday, if we believe Newton, Palmer purchases
three grains of strychnine ; on the Tuesday, be-
yond a doubt, be purchases six grains. Of the
manner in which this quantity ofstrychnine was
di posed of no attempt was made on the part of
the defence to offer any account. On Monday
and Tuesday Palmer is in possession of this deadly
poison ; on the Monday Cook is seized with fright-
ful spasms in consequence of taking pills admin-
istered by Palmer: on Tuesday, within one hour
after taking a similar dose, he expires in the ter-
rible convulsions of spasmodic tetanus. How
to judge from the symptoms alone, was that teta-
nus caused ? Taking the whole evidence together
on this point, it completely corroborates the opi-
nion of the most eminent surgeon of our time. Sir
Benjamin Brodie distinctly declared that, referring
to the symptoms themselves and the course they
took, the tetanus of which Cook died was not idio-
pathic (or constitutional), not traumatic (or caused
by external injury), but that it was referable to
nothing else but poisoning by strychnia. In the
deplorable case of Mrs. Serjeantson Smith, where
strychnia was the undoubted cause of death, the
symptoms were almost identical with those of Cook.
The spasmodic convulsions, the sense of suffocation,
the dying request of the agonised suffer, " Turn
me over," the iron rigidity of the limbs, the fright-
ful distortion, the incurved body, the absolute emp-
tiness of the heart, were the same in both. But
then in Cook's case there was no strychnia found
in the body. Admitted ; but what does that prove ?
One of two things, neither of which is in any way
incompatible with guilt. Either that Dr. Taylor
did not employ the proper tests, or that the dose ad-
ministered had been so nicely calculated that it was
only just sufficient to kill, and was consequently all
absorbed in the system. Half a grain destroys
life. Experiment shows that when two grains are
administered the poison can be reproduced in some
abundance—when one grain is taken, it can still
be detected—but when only half a grain, there is
no instance in which it has been discovered.

Fortunately for the safety of society and the in-
terests of justice, the admirable reply of the Attor-
ney• General and the masterly summing up of the
Lord Chief Justice, guided the jury to the cardinal
points through the mass of irrelevant matter in
which they might otherwise have been bewildered.
Nor would it be fair to omit all mention of the
debt of gratitude which the public certainly owes
to the jury, who for a period of 14 days have given
their close and undivided attention to this most
arduous and protracted case. They have manfully
done their duty. The work of investigation is
completed ; it is now for the law to take its course.
The safety of society imperatively demands that
no mistaken clemency should be shown to so unex-
ampled an offender against its most sacred laws as
the wretch who was yesterday condemned to die
a felon's death by the stern sentence of retributive
justice.

IRELAND.