The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-14 00:00:00

seven in the evening, and the effect was, that in 50 seconds
the dog which had received the smaller eh se fell, and
in ten minutes he died. The second died in half the time.
He opened the bodies of the dogs eighteen hours after
death, the s= me period at which the deceased was opened,
and he could ascertain no smell of prussic acid. On opening
the stomachs of the dogs the prevalent smell was that of
some beer. The food was but half-digested. He shouldhave
expected a smell of prussic acid in the case of a person who
had died in a quarter of an hour after its being administered.
He attributed the absence of smell to the admixture with the
stout. He had examined the body of Mrs. Hart, and he would
on opening the body have expected to find the cause
of death, and if prussic acid had not existed in the stomach
he had no doubt he could have traced some other cause. The
`body was perfectly healthy. He was much in the habit of
opening bodies, and he was satisfied that less than one grain
would cause death.
Cross-examined by Mr KEULY—He had never attended
any one who had taken prussic acid. When taken as
a medicine, the ordinary quantity was, of Scheele's,
five minims, or drops. Prussic acid, be thought, might
with advantage be used in varicose affections. He
agreed with Dr. Thomson, of London, that, ex-
ternally applied, prussic acid might be found useful in cance-
rous diseases. He had the sense ofsmel! very acutely, and he
could not detect the smell of the acid in the stomachs ofthe dogs.
The dogs were kept in an outhouse after they were dead, and
before they were opened. He tried these experiments on the
dogs on the 18th Feb. succeedins, the death of the deceased.
Headache and vomiting frequently followed a disorder of the
stomach occasioned by something being taken into it. The
quantity vomited bore no proportion to the quantity taken
into the stomach. He had given medicinal doses of prussic
acid to allay irritation of the stomach.
Mr. KELLY—In the whole course of your experience
did you ever find vomiting produced by prussic acid ?—I
have seen dogs affected to vomiting.
Mr. KELI,Y—I speak of the human being.
Witness (emphatically)—The stomach of the dog is ex-
actly similar to that of the human being.
Mr. KELLY—You speak very dogmatically, but I would
wish a plain answer to a direct question. Have you, Sir,
in the course of your experience, seen vomiting from the
stomach of a human being induced by prussic acid ?—No ; I
have not.
Two witnesses were then examined, but they established
- no important fact, and added nothing new to the evidence
already edduced.
Henry Thomas, chemist, Bishopsgate- street—He remem-
bered Wednesday, the .Ist of January, perfectly well. He
saw the prisoner on that day between twelve and two, at his
shop. He asked for two drachms of Scheele's prussic acid.
He brought a half-ounce phial, labelled " Scheele's prussic
acid." He gave that bottle to put the prussic acid in. The
phial had a glass stopper. Witness could not get the stopper
out, and was in consequence obliged to give Lint a stopper of
his own. He thought the prisoner said, " You need not
put a label on ;" but the circumstance was so common-
that he did not pay any attention to it. He said he wanted
to apply the acid externally to a varicose vein. (The book
in which the entry was marked was produced.) Witness
saw the prisoner on the following day, between the hours of
ten and twelve, and he asked for two drachms more. He
said he had had a misfortune, he had broke the bottle. He had
the same quainity as formerly in the bottle he had originally
bought. .Ele had been frequently to the shop before that
time.
By Baron PARKE—He might have sold him prussic acid
before, but did not recollect perfectly. The prisoner said he
had been an apothecary and chemist. He was in the habit
of covering these phials with leather. Witness first gave
information that the prisoner had bought prussic acid on the
Tuesday following. He afterwards came down to Aylesbury
on the 13th, and he was told on the day fallowing that the
prisoner was in the gaol. lie there saw the prisoner, and at
once recognised him.
Cross-examined by Mr. KELLY—If he covered the phial
at all, it was with leather and not with paper. Ile had no
doubt that the prisoner was at that time affected as he stated
with varicose veins. Ile eid not believe that Scheele's
prussic acid could be taken into the stomach and yet net
ascertained by the smell. Ile had mixed thirty drops of
Scheele's with eleven ounce., or nearly a tumbler full, of
porter, and the smell wes slightly percepti-
hle. The bottle does not contain the quantity of
eleven ounces. It is the property of this acid while
it is volatilizing to give out a smell. He was aware that
apple-pipe contained prussic acid. He saw fifteen small-
apples tested by distillation, and then with sulphuric acid
and sulphate of iron. The quantity of prussic acid that re-
sulted was one grain and one-fifth.
Mr. Smythe, clerk to Barnett, Hoare, and Co., examined
—The prisoner had been in the habit of banking with them.
On Wednesday, the Ist January, he came between two and
three o'clock, and drew a cheque for 141. Paid him in gold.
His account was overdrawn at that date. Ile believed the
paper shown him to be his handwrit:ng. (The paper re-
ferred to was a prescription for varicose veins.)
Cross-examined—There was not the slightest objection to
his overdrawing his account.
A letter was handed to the witness, which he thought was
in the handwriting of the prisoner. The letter was addressed
to Mrs. Hart, 93, Crawford-street, Portman-square, and was
as follows .
" Dear Friend,—l wish to ineorm you that I expect to be
at home in a fortnight and therefore you Led better not
write to me.—Your friend, "A. HART."
Mary Ann Moss— W tn ess lived with Sarah Hart, at 93,
Crawford-etreet, Bryanston-square, about four years
since. She was pregnant when she went there, and a
child was born in March, 1841. The only person
who used to visit her was the prisoner. Ile came about
once in six weeks, or perhaps oftener. The deceased
lived in Crawford-street about twelve months, and then
went to Farringdon-green, where she lived twelve months.
She then went to Bath-place, at Slough, and witness called
on her about eight or nine months befhre, her death. When
the prisoner first came to Crawford street, he asked if there
• was a person living there the name of Hart. She heard him,
and said " Here I am ; it's all right." She had, at first, a back
room furnished, but she aftewards bought furniture
herself for the front-room. She saw a parcel once conic to the
deceased, and the prisoner called afterwards, and asked " if
it was all right." Witness observed that she had got some
blankets. When Mrs. hart was confined, the prisoner called
upon her, and went into her room alone. The last time she
saw the deceased was in October last. She had not seen the
prisoner for a long time before.
Mrs. Bacon, the wife of a carpenter in Gray's Inn-lane.
She knew Sarah Hart before she went into the prisoner's
service, about six years. She was taken upon witness's re-
commendation to nurse the first Mrs. Tawell. She then
went by the name of Hadler. Witness noticed that when
she lived with prisoner after his wife's death, she was in the
family-way. That was in April, 1839. Witness recollected
that once at tea, in Mr. Tawell's house, the deceased sat down
by the side of her. Witness slid, " I know what you are
going to say, and you had better begin." The prisoner said
Le was about to be married to Sarah Cutmore (}xis present
wife), and it would be greatly against him to have the affair
of Sarah's being in the family-way spoken cf. He bid Sarah
not to excite herself, and she said that from that day she
would be dead to the world—no one should know anything
about her—not even her own mother.
Grace Hadler sworn—The deceased was her daughter, and
was, when she last saw her, living with Mr. Tawell. She
never heard of her after leaving Bridge-street till this
occurred.
That was the case for the prosecution.
The iurvmen were allowed some short time for refreshment.
Oa their re-assembling, and their names being called over,
Mr. F. KELLY, in rising to address the jury, said that the
responsibility of his present position was so great, that even
be, hacknied as he was in courts of justice, shrunk under it.
What then must be their feelings, sitting there to pronounce,
perhaps, the death-warrant of a fellow creature. But on what
evidence were they called on so to doe On the unsup-
ported opinions expressed in two books like these (referring
to two medical works on the table)—with the exception of
one case to which he would afterwards refer, this was the
only other instance, and a jury was call -d on to fix the doom
of a fellow creature upon such evidence. He was aware of
the prejudice which must exist against the unfortunate pri-
soner, in consequence of a fault committed in his earlier vears,
and for which lie (Mr. Fitzroy Kelly) trusted he was fully re-
pentant. That he was repentant, he firmly beiieved,
and it would be his duty to bring before the minds
of the jury, persons to shew that the prisoner had been, since
his return to his country, distinguished for his kindness, for
his humanity, and for his strict feelings of rectitude. The
jury must bear in mind that the witnesses called for the pro-
secution had come there prejudiced in their epinions, and
pledged, in . fact, to support a certain theory. He would
state to them what, in his humble judgment, the prose-
cutor was bound to prove, betides calling upon them for a
verdict of guilty against the prisoner. They must first
show that this unfortunate woman died of poison—they
must also show that the poison of which she had died
was prussic acid. Ile was sure that when they examined
the statements of the different witnesses they must be
agreed, that, as regarded these points, the prisoner was
entitled to an acquittal. The prosecutor was bound
to show by clear, positive, and certain evidence, nut only that
the individual was murdered, but that she was murder-
ed from the cause charged in the indictment. There was not
sufficient evidence in this case that would justify them in
giving even a month's imprisonment against the prisoner.
The Learned Counsel referred to the chemical evidence given
in this case, and contended that the prosecutor might to have
brought before the jury inen of practical experience in che-
mistry—men who derived not their knowledge from Taylor's
and other works, but from experience itself. Instead of doing
so, some two or three (they mast pardon hint for say-
ing so) green, inexperienced young men, of little know-
ledge and of less practice. They were called on to
pronounce a verdict of death, because this woman
had died of prussic acid, and yet the witnesses thernsclve
had not been agreed as to the quantity of poison found in her
body, or, in fact, that that acid was found, in sullicient
quantity, to cause death at all. That the, woman had died
suddenly was not denied, but there were many causes which
might account for this. The tables of mortality published
every week, and eventually every year, proved that there
were at least one sudden death in every hundred ; and could
they say that paralysis of the nerves of the heart, or of some
other part of the human frame, might not have occasioned
this death. They had no evidence upon oath that a grain of
prussic acid would occasion the death of a htrmae being.
'They had merely the opinion of a man who read a hook,
founded upon the opinion of the man who wrote the
book. They had tried to prove that a grain of
prussic acid had been found in the deceased per-
son's stomach, but they ought also to have proved
that a grain of this poison would take away the life of a
fellow- creature. They indeed referred to a couple of in-
stances recorded in Taylor, and he would test the value of
that opinion. The Learned Counsel then, in the most mas-
terly manner, analysed the correctness of the authority re-
ferred to, and showed from internal evidence and the
writings of other and more distinguished chemists that the
opinion was founded upon uncertainty and speculation, and
not to be weighed against the life of a human being. In that
-case Wee- witnesses had assumed that the woman was poi-
soned, and having started with this theory, they said," Well,
if this woman is poisoned, it must be with prussic acid,"
and immediately they commenced their experiments,
not for the purpose of testing a doubtful theorv, but for
the purpose of c, ntirming a favourite and cherished impres-
sion.t. It was said that prussic acid was found in her stomacb.
I'gilt perhaps be truly said, but then the question arose,
whence came it ? To what cause was its existence to be at-
tributed? They had been informed that the woman had
eaten a number of apples, and the • must be
• informed that nothing in vegetable nature, ex-
cepting bitter almonds, produced thelesi.n unfortunate t e acid
in greater quantities than the pips IX a
Counsel then referred to the construction put bv r. Sergeant
Bytes, in his opening address, on a letter referring to the
pri-
soner's circumstances. The Learned Sergeant Lad assigned,
as a motive fur the commission of the murder, a deSire on the
part of the prisoner to retain the altos ance which he had
made to the deceased. but would the crime lessen any part
of his circumstances? Would the clalren not survive if the
mother were dead? Would it not have been easier for him
to allow the trifling sum of 50/. a year, than to take these
children to his own home, where, owing to his superior posi-
tion in society, an additional expense woule be entailed upon
him, and perhaps domestic disagreements follow their intro-
duction. The evidence given by the witnesses was then ex-
amined piecemeal, and explained away in the most ingenious
manner. The Learned Counsel concluded by solemnly ap-
pealing to the jury to weigh the doubts in the case, and to
give the prisoner the be::efit of them.
Mr. Baron Pau; Wll3.summing up when our express left.