The Sun.
London, England, 1857-07-10 00:00:00

tion, called upon the jury not rashly to tear asunder the
veil of mys ery in which Providence had wrapped this
case, and said, so assured did he feel of what the verdict
ought to be, and so personal an interest did he feel in the
result, that, should there be a miscarriage of justice in
this case, he should be able to attribute it to nothing
but his own inability to conduct the defence, and the re-
collection of this day and of this prisoner would haunt
him as a dismal spectre to his grave. May, he said, the
spirit of all troth guide you to an honest, just, and true
verdict ! but I pray you to remember that no verdict
will be either honest or just or true unless it at once sa-
tisfies the conscientious scruples of the severest judgment,
and yet leaves undisturbed and unvexed the tenderest

consciences among you.
A burst of applause followed the conclusion of the
learned counsel's speech.
The Lord Justice Clerk then charged the jury. He
said that the crime of murder by poisoning was one al-
most always secretly committed, and two cases only, he
believed, had been known in this country in which any
one had seen the admixture or the administration of the
poison. It was a crime which generally must be proved
by circumstantial evidence aline, but they muse, en
the other hand, take care that the circumstan-
tial evidence was such as excluded the possi-
bility either of innocence on the one hand, or of
unexplained mystery on the other, and they must not al-
low any defect in the evidence to be supplied by suspi-
cion, still less by presumptions arising from probabili-
ties in the case. They must be satisfied that the parties
were together when the poison was said to be adminis-
tered. They must be satisfied that there was a purpose
to administer poison, and that the accused had the peison
in her possession ; and, further, that it was administered
on the particular occasion and in the circumstances set
forth in the indictment. It was unnecessary for the pri-
soner's counsel so solemnly to abjure them not to quench
a doubt in order to arrive at a verdict of guilty, for he
was sure that if the result of their deliberations should
be to pronounce a verdict of guilty, is would only be
wrung from them by the most powerful and conclusive
evidence. Though they might not be satisfied with any
of the theories propounded in behalf of the prisoner,
though they might not be inclined to adopt any of those
notions as to the deceased taking laudanum twice in the
course of the journey, as to his being in the habit of tak-
ing arsenic, or as to her using it as a cosmetic, though
all these matters may fail in her defence, yet the case fer
the prosecution might still be radically defective on the
evidence. His Lordship then went into the evidence,
cemmenting on i; as he proceeded. He referred to the
fact that the deceased had his first illness some days at
leai:t before the prisoner was proved to possess any ar-
senic, and said it would not do to infer from her having
purchased arsenic afterwards that she had it before.
That would bea serious and violent presumption against
the prisoner indeed. In reference to Mrs. Jenkins evi-
dence, he referred to L'Angelier's remark to the latter
that "It was the letter you sent me that brought me
home," by which the supposition as to his having come
to see Mr. Mitchell was excluded. In regard to the de-
ceased' second illness of the 22d of February, he said that
if there was no proof (and they would see what light the
correspondence threw on that subject by and by) that the
prisoner ti ad the opportunityof administering arsenic, there
was much force in the remark that the foundations of
this case were shaken. His Lordship then remarked on
L'Angelier's repeating, even in his last illness, that it
-was bile, was of importance as showing whether or not
he had any suspicion of having received anything to
injure him. His lordship next adverted to the letter
the deceased received at the Bridge of Agin, which said
" Come, beloved, and clasp me to your heart," plainly
implying that the former and missing letter made ar-
rangements for an interview within the house. As to
whether the deceased had gone to seek the' prisoner on
the Sunday night, they would perhaps think the proba-
bility was that he did so. Whether he succeeded in find-
ing her was another question. Suppose that letter
brought him to Glasgow, were they in a condition to say
that they were satisfied in their consciences, as an ine-
vitable and ju-t result from the evidence in the case Ow
they really met that night ? That was the real point in
the case. That they might have a strong moral suspi-
cion in the matter—that they might believe he was well
able, after all their clandestine correseondence, to obtain
the means of an interview—that as she had complained
of his not coming on the Thursday, she " waited and
waited" for him not only on the Saturday but on the
Sunday evening—that might be all very true. Pro-
bably they all thought so ; but they were trying a case
of which the evidence must be setisfactory, complete,
and distinct. A jury might often safely infer certain
facts from correspondence, they might safely infer that
meetings appointed to take place since did take place,
but it was for them to say here whether it not having
been proved that ho was in the house that night by any
one, they could hold that that link in the chain was sup-
plied by just and satisfactory inference If they merely felt
in their own minds a strong suleiciori, cr that tee whole
probabilities of the Case were in favour of it, it was not
enough, for if that was all they could derive from infe-
rence in the matter, then a link remained still wanting ;
the catastrophe and its aFeged cause were not found to-
gether. His lordship proceeded to read further portion 3
of the evidence, remarking that whether or not the pro•
secutor's case ha I been made out, the theories urged in
defence were of the most unsatisfactory kind ; but they
could not from that supply any defect, if detect there
existed, in the Prosecutor's proof.
His lordship bad gone nearly half through the parole
evidence when the court adj owned till the next morning
at nine o'clock.

VEIMICT OF THE JURY.
NINTH DAY.-MURSDAY, July 9.

The Court me th a moreing at 9 o'elueir,vvhen

The Lord Justice-Clerk proceeded with his charge to
the jury. Remarking oh the recovery of the litters
found in the reposit ries of L'Angelier, he said that a!
though the method of procedure which was adopted had
been loose irregislar, and sloienly, it did not appear
that the peeel bad suffered any prejudice from the
want of any of them. As to each letter being ire its
proper envelope, in the first cart of the correspond-
ence it did not much signify whether such were the
case, because there was no doubt that those passionate.
letters written by the prisoner declaring such strong love
for L'Angelier, and some of them expressed in very
licentious terms, had been written by her at some time
or other. Complaints bad been made as to the difficulty
of getting access to the correspondence on the part of the
prisoner. On the whole it appeared to him that the facili-
ties afforded to her for conducting her defence were such
as no other panel bad ever had. Commenting on the
evidence of the female servants, he observed that a
material part of this evidence was, that it showed th
on one occasion an interview tock place between prisoner
and deceased in the house, and that there were ample
facilities for the prisoner admitting L'Angelier to the
house, if she wished it, without any one in the house
knowing of it ; so that it there was evidence otherwise
sufficient t ) satisfy the jury that he went to the house
on the night of- Sunday the 22d of March, there was
nothing in the fact that he was not heard. On this
point there was also the fact that the prisoner got out of
the house on the Thursday morning without this being
known by any one. As to the story about using the
arsenic as a cosmetic, he confessed that he looked on it
as a false pretence altogether, and an excuse for the pos-
session of the arsenic; this stery, therefore, was not of
the slightest importance at all. There was no doubt that
on the night of the22d, after his return from Bridge of
Allan, he went out in the (Erection of the panel's
house. With reference to the illegibility of several
of the postmarks on the letters, he observed Oat the
attention of the Post-office authorities had been called to
the necessity of their being mute more distinct by Lord
Campbell in a similar case, and by h.mself ; and consi•
dering the importance of this point to the ends of civil
and criminal justice, he trusted' this would be the last
occasion on which these marks would be so carelessly
impressed. Revering again to the probability of an
interview between the prisoner and deceased on Sunday,
his lordship remarked that as she had waited for him
one night according to appointment, and another night
after that, and then wrote another letter, imploring him
in terms professing strong passion for him, to come and
clasp her to his heart, it would not be wonderful if she
expected that he would come on the Sunday night,
though the appointment was for Saturday night. Com-
ing next to Miss Perry's evidence, he remarked on the
fact that L'Angelier had said to her that on two occa-
sions before he took ill he had got coffee or cocoa and
chocolate from the panel. They had no proof that the
panel had arsenic in her possession on the 19th Feb.,
and there was no evidence of any meeting on she 19th,
except what was drawn from the letter, the date of which
the Lord Advocate fired for the Wedeesday. But here
was a statement by the dead man, good and competent
evidence ; and the jury must juege of the weight of it.
He mentioned at Portobello that he was ill after getting
coffee and cocoa, and that he thought he had been pot-
sooad, and again to Miss Perry he said, "I can't teink
why I was so unwell after getting that coffee ded choco-
late from her." This most unquestionably referred to
two different illnesses, each following the getting of
coffee and cocoa or chocolate from the prisoner. Toe
jury must judge whether this conversation with Miss
Perry was of importance. She did not interrogate
him on the subject, and she seemed very properly
to wish to banish the thought from his mind. Still
this was said in earnest, and Miss Perry stated on
oath that she thought he entertained some suspicion of
the panel, though not a serious suspicion. It was
true that Miss Perry knew the intimacy between the
two parties was clandestine ; tbat was strange conduct
in a person of her respectability and of her age ; but
sometimes they would find that ladies at her time of
life had a good deal of absurd sentimentality about
them, and this lady seemed to have had. considerable
pleasure in being tie confidant of the attachment be-
tween these two young persons.' It might be explaned
in this way ; but he did not think it could be doubted
that
she was a truthful witness. The jury must, how-
ever, consider whether all this amounted to more than to
give rise in their minds to very
great suspicion, which
might not warrant them in coming to a conclusion that
he did not get poison. must
Theyremember that though
he was ill on these occasions, and seemed to ascribe it
to cocoa, there was no proof that the attack was re ally
o
eaused by arsenic on either of these two occasions. The
symptoms corresponded with those of irritant poison, no
doubt, but then they might also be the symptoms
of bilious attack ; and the jury must coniside
they were warranted in confiding on his statemenwtsh,eitwer
over strongly made, to Miss Perry, that these attacks
arose from some poisonous substance, it did not signify
what. Prisoner bought arsenic on the 21st of February.
before the second illness, and there the fact of her pos-
sessing it on that occasion of course gave much greater
strength and point to his remark,' that he did receive
something which had made, him iii, on the 27th of Fe-
bruary. As to the evidence for the defence, that he had
on one occasion threatened to t.brow himself from a
window in tbe Rainbow Tavern, his Lordship observed
that as the witness was in bed at the time, the de-
ceased had ample opportunity to have thrown bireseit
over, if he had been so inclined, before the witness could