The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-11 00:00:00

justify the charge against the prisoner. There had been no
proof of improper intimacy between him and Rickerby ; and,
if it had been substantiated, it only showed that he had no-
thing to gain from her, by the death of his wife, he having her
already at his bidding. Out of the whole history of John
Graham, only one instance had been found of reproach from
the lips of his wife. All the circumstances alleged with re-
gard to his treatment of 'her were more in his favour tl an
against him.
The Learned JUDGE in summing up said—Before the
Learned Counsel addressed them application had been made to
him on what was called a point of law. He did not think it At
to stop the case, for lie did not think there was anything in t
point of law at all; but the Learned Counsel had properly re-
mirked that such an application ought not to prejudice his
address to the facts of the case, fur undoubtedly, in a matter of
doubt affecting the life of a client, it was the duty of the counsel
to make the application if he thought it likely to be advan-
tageous. It was necessary to tell the jury what the charge
against the prisoner was. It was that, knowing that his late
wife, Margaret Graham, was about to take some bread and
milk or that she was going to take some panada, or some
medicine (any of these would be sufficient), he, contriving
wickedly to poison her, mixed up with that bread, or that
panada, or that medicine, or with all of them, a eertain
quantity of deadly poison called arsenic ; and afterwards,
she not knowing that there was any poison mixed up with
the bread and milk, or the panada, or the medicine, or
with all of them, swallowed it, and thereby, in consequence
of that, died, either from taking first one and then the other,
all of them being mixed with poison, or from taking any one of
them so mixed. It was for the jury to be satisfied as to
whether that charge had been proved. Such being the charge,
then, what was the nature of the evidence by which it was sup-
ported? In any charge of death occasioned by poison, it was,
from the nature of things, scarcely ever possible to have any
direct testimony. It was said always to be the most odious
kind of murder ; perhaps, among other reasons, that stamp
was affixed on it because it was necessarily perpetrated in the
dark, or, what was the same thing, in obscurity, with no eye to
detect it, with no possibility of detecting it, but by circumstan-
tial evidence. If they were satisfied beyond all reasonable
doubt that the prisoner did administer poison and cause the
death of his wife, their oath, by which they swore to do
their duty to their country, imperatively called upon them
to return a verdict of guilty. But if the circumstances de-
tailed in the evidence, and the inferences fairly deduced
from them, did not lead to that conclusion, he for one thought
it would be an insult to them to suppose that anything they
might have heard out of Court could induce them to commit
The gross injustice of letting a man suffer, not for the evidence
on which he was tried, and which he had the opportunity of
answering and commenting on, but en what might have been
said by irresponsible persons whom be had no opportunity of
contradicting. They must now proceed to the discharge of
their duty, and return a verdict according to what they consi-
dered to be the real nature of the case.
The jury then retired, and afier an absence of little more
than half an hour, returned a verdict of Not Guilty.
August 8.
FURTHER CHARGE AGAINST JOHN GRAHAM.

. -
Mr. Baron Rolfe took his seat on the bench at nine o'clock,
and Mr. Temple having intimated to his Lordship that the
prosecution had thought it necessary to go on with the second
indictment against the prisoner, he was brought up at once, and
the trial proceeded ; but after some evidence
HIS LORDSHIP recapitulated the facts to the jury, and in
so doing, appeared to express his view of the case to be, that it
was not one upon which the jury could satisfactorily believe,
without doubt, that the crime alleged had been perpetrated.
The jury retired from the Court for somewhat less than a
quarter of an hour, and returned a verdict of Acquittal.