Case Name: The People, plaintiffs in error, v. Andrew Williams, defendant in error
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1855-06
Citations: 3 Park. Crim. Rep. 84
Docket Number: 
Parties: The People, plaintiffs in error, v. Andrew Williams, defendant in error.
Judges: 
Reporter: Parker's Criminal Reports
Volume: 3
Pages: 84–111

Head Matter:
Court or Appeals. Albany,
June Term, 1855.
Before Gardiner, Chief Judge, and Denio, Johnson, Ruggles, Dean, Hand, Crippen and Marvin, Judges.
The People, plaintiffs in error, v. Andrew Williams, defendant in error.
When it is necessary, on the trial of a cause, to inquire into the nature of a particular act, or the intention of the person who did the act, proof of what the person said at the time of doing it is admissible in evidence, as part of the res gestee, for the purpose of showing its true character; b’ut to render such declaration competent, the act with which it is connected should be pertinent to the issue; for when the act is, in its own nature, irrelevant, and when the declaration is, per se, incompetent, the union of the two will not render the declaration admissible.
Where, on the trial-.of A. W. for the alleged murder of his wife by poison, it appeared that he lived apart from his wife, and in the same town, and that his wife left her- residence, on* Saturday evening before her death, and returned home, at five o’clock the next morning, sick, and continued ill till she died, her symptoms being the same as in cases of poisoning; Held,
• That it was not competent to prove what the deceased said, when she left home on Saturday evening, as to where she was going; and where such evidence was admitted, and it was proved that she said she was going with clothing for her husband, and the prisoner was convicted, it was held erroneous, and the judgment was reversed.
Where it was claimed by the prosecution that arsenic had been administered to the deceased, in a bowl in which there had been tea and toast, which had been fed to her from the bowl by the prisoner, during her last illness, and there was evidence tending to identify the bowl as the same one delivered to the physician who had analyzed the contents at the request of the prosecution ; Held, That it was competent for the prosecution, at the trial, to prove by the physician the condition and contents of the bowl, and the analysis made by him of the contents, though the identification of the bowl by the witnesses was not positive, it being a question for the jury to decide whether the bowl was identified to their satisfaction.
On such a trial, it is proper, on the question of motive, to prove that the wife had, sometime previous to the alleged poisoning, entered a compíáint against her husband, the prisoner, as a disorderly person, on the ground that he had abandoned his wife, and that the prisoner was arrested on such complaint, and gave a recognizance, with surety, on which he had been required to pay, and had paid, to the magistrate, weekly, the sum of $2 for the support of his wife.
Where a paper, claimed to be such a recognizance, was produced in court, which purported to be signed by the prisoner and his surety, and to have been taken before a police justice, but had never been filed, and there was no evidence of its execution, except what might be inferred from the testimony of an agent of the governors of the alms-house who produced it, that weekly payments of $2 had been made on it by the prisoner; Held, That there was not sufficient proof of its execution to allow it to be read in evidence. By Hand and Mitchell, JJ.
Where an inquiry into the condition of a person’s health is material, any account given by such person relative to his health is evidence of complaints and symptoms; but it is not evidence to charge any other person as the cause of those sufferings. By Clerke, J.
To authorize any further proof of the statements and declarations made by a person during his last illness, it is necessary to show that they were made under the apprehension of death, and that the deceased was conscious of approaching and inevitable death; and it is not necessary that such consciousness should be uttered in express terms, but it may be inferred from the tenor of his conversation, the nature of his sufferings, and his whole demeanor. By Clerke, J.
Form of an indictment for murder by poison, and of a certificate of a justice of the Supreme Court allowing a writ of error and staying proceedings.
Symptoms of poisoning by arsenic, as described by witnesses and proved by a physician.
Mode of conducting a post mortem examination in such a case, as described by a physician.
This case came before the Court of Appeals on writ of error to the Supreme Court, sued out by the district attorney of the city and county of New-York. By the return it appeared that in May, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, an indictment for murder, in the following form, was found against the defendant in the New-York General Sessions.
City and County of New-York, ss:
The jurors of the people of the State of New-York, in and for the body of the city and county of New-York, upon their oath, present: That Andrew Williams, late of the first ward of the city of New-York, aforesaid, laborer, of his malice aforethought, wickedly contriving and intending one Bose Williams, with poison, willfully, feloniously and of his malice aforethought, to kill and murder, on the twenty-ninth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, at the ward, city and county aforesaid, with force and arms, a certain quantity of arsenic, to wit, two drachms of arsenic, being a deadly poison, feloniously, willfully and of his malice aforethought, did infuse, mix and mingle in and together with a certain quantity of liquor (to the jurors aforesaid unknown), he, the said Andrew Williams, then and there well knowing said arsenic to be a deadly poison. And the said Andrew Wiliams afterwards, to wit, on the day and in the year aforesaid, at the ward, city and county aforesaid, the poison aforesaid, so as aforesaid infused, mixed and mingled with the said liquor (to the jurors aforesaid unknown) aforesaid, feloniously, willfully and' of his malice aforethought, did give and administer to her, the said Rose Williams, to take, drink and swallow down into her body; and she, the said Rose Williams, not knowing the poison aforesaid to have been mixed and mingled as aforesaid, afterwards, to wit, on the day and year aforesaid, at the ward, city and county aforesaid, the said poison, so as aforesaid mixed and mingled, by the persuasion and procurement of the said Andrew Williams, did take, drink and swallow down into her body. And thereupon the said Rose Williams, by the poison aforesaid, so mixed and mingled, as aforesaid, by the said Andrew Williams, and so taken, drank and swallowed down into her body, as aforesaid, became then and there sick and distempered in her body; and the said Rose Williams, of the poison aforesaid, and of the sickness and distemper occasioned thereby, from the said twenty-ninth day of April, in the year last aforesaid, until the fourth day of May, in the last year aforesaid, did languish, and languishing did live. On which said fourth day of May she, the said Rose Williams, at the sixth ward of the city and county aforesaid, of the poison aforesaid, and of the sickness and distemper thereby occasioned, as aforesaid, died.
And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do say, that the said Andrew Williams, her, the said Rose Williams, in manner and form, and by the means aforesaid, then and there feloniously, willfully and of his malice aforethought, did kill and murder, against the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the people of the State of New-York and their dignity.
Second Count.—And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present: That the said Andrew Williams, afterwards, to wit, on the third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, at the sixth ward of the city and county aforesaid, wickedly, feloniously and of his malice aforethought contriving and intending one Eose Williams to kill and murder, with force and arms, in and upon the said Eose Williams, then and there being, feloniously, willfully and of his malice aforethought, did give and administer unto the said Eose Williams, with intent that she shojild take and swallow the same into her body, he, the said Andrew Williams, then and there well knowing the said arsenic to be a deadly poison. And the said Eose Williams the said arsenic, so given and administered unto her by the said Andrew Williams as aforesaid, did take and swallow down into her body, by reason and by means of which.said taking and swallowing down of the said arsenic into her body, as aforesaid, the said Eose Williams became and was mortally sick and distempered in her body, of which said poisoning and mortal sickness and distemper the said Eose Williams, on the fourth day of the same month of May, in the same year aforesaid, at the ward, city and county aforesaid, died.
And so the jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do say, that the said Andrew Williams the said Eose Williams, in manner and form aforesaid, feloniously, willfully and of his malice aforethought did kill and murder, against the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace of the people of the State of New-York and their dignity.
The indictment was sent to the New-York Oyer and Terminer, where the defendant pleaded not guilty; and the issue thus joined came on to be tried in such Court of Oyer and Terminer on the eighteenth May, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four, before the Hon. James J. Roosevelt, one of the justices of the Supreme Court.
The district attorney, in his opening, stated that Rose Williams, the deceased, came to her death by poison (arsenic) administered to her by the prisoner, her husband, on the night of Saturday, the 29th day of April, 1854, and on the evening of Wednesday, the 3d day of May, 1854.
The following testimony was then taken:
Mary Campbell, being sworn, testified: I resided on the first of May last in No. 58 Duane-street,; I had been there prior to that three months; I knew the deceased for about a year; we then lived together at No. 28 City Hall-place; we left there and immediately came to Duane-street. Mrs. Williams was with me four months, from February up to her death; I knew her husband; deceased and her husband did not live together; they have not lived together since I became acquainted with her; the last Saturday before her death, she left my house with clothing for her husband (who was a watchman on some ship in the North river), as she said. ‘
This was said in answer to a question by the district attorney, who asked the witness to state where the deceased said she was going on Saturday evening previous to her death. The prisoner’s counsel objected to the question, but the court overruled the objection, and the defendant excepted. The witness proceeded:
She did not return until five o’clock the next morning; when she came in she appeared very ill; she said she got sick on board the vessel on which her husband was; she said she had not been drinking; she said that her whole frame seemed as if it were on fire, and her heart felt awful, On the day she returned her husband called to see her, and she was in bed; when he came in she was so glad to see him that she rose up and put on some of her things; she then gave me fifty cents and told me to go out and get her some apples and candies. When he came in the wife told him that I had said she had been drinking some liquor, and he said she had not been drinking anything; I then went out for the things and brought them in and gave them to the deceased, and the deceased gave them to the prisoner; I was absent about five minutes; I put the apples and candy on the trunk, and deceased handed them to him; she vomited during the whole Sunday, both day and night; and when she took any water, which she was continually calling for, she brought it up; he did not stop very long on Sunday; I did not notice their conversation particularly; on Monday, a little before two o’clock, the doctor came; the prisoner was there on Monday in the afternoon; he told her then that he had left $10 at the City Hall for her,- to pay her weekly allowance; he said that he would call again, and did so on the Monday evening at eight o’clock; she was no better then, and was vomiting all the time; she told him that she had “ felt awful ” ever since she had tasted what he had given to her in a pitcher; he then told her it was the water she had drank that made her feel so bad; she then asked for some water, and he would not let her have any; she then told him to leave, but he said there was time enough; he then went down stairs and brought up some butter, a loaf, and some sponge cake; he ate most qf it himself; he offered her some, but she would not eat it; she was frequently asking for water, but he would not let her have any; she then asked him to lie down, when he would not go; it was a far advanced period of the night at this time, and he would not leave, so that he should prevent her from getting water; he laid down; I slept in the same room; he remained all night; she, during the night, wanted water, and he seemingly would be asleep, and when she attempted to get out of bed to get water he prevented her; at five o’clock on Tuesday he left my room; he did not come on Tuesday, and she was no better, vomiting all the time ; he came on Wednesday, about half-past six, P. M.; on Wednesday she felt better, and was up by seven, A. M.; when he came she was in bed, and I was talking to her; he asked her how she felt; she said she felt no better; he sat down by the bedside, and she took hold of his hand and put it on her heart and said the pain was there; she felt as if she was all' on fire; she told him to look at her gums; they were all raw; when I last saw that her gums were raw, she asked her husband to look at them; he said they were not so bad as she said they were; he asked her if she had eaten anything ; she said yes, some tea witness had made for her, having some toasted bread in it; I made the tea, used the brown sugar taken at the inquest, and tried to get her to take some more of it before he came in, but she could not; placed the bowl on the stove; no fire in it; when he came in it stood in the same place, with toast in it; I drank some of the tea that was in the bowl; he took the bowl and tasted the tea; said it was not sweet enough; she said she did not want any more sugar in it as it made her thirsty; he then asked her if she wanted anything; she said no; I told him a little port wine would strengthen her; he said yes, go and get some; I did so, and returned in about ten minutes, when he was sitting on the bedside with my baby on his lap; I gave her a little of the wine in a tumbler ; she did not wish it, but he insisted, and she drank about a tea-spoonful of it; when I came in the toast was broken, and stirred in with the tea, and the spoon was in the middle of the bowl; when I left the toast was whole, and the bowl was nearly full; he took the bowl after I had put the wine away, and asked if there was any sugar; Mrs. Williams replied there was plenty; I got the sugar jar and held it up; he shook the spoon before he put it into the sugar; he took one spoonful and mixed it with the tea and toast; he then said he would feed her with that, as she had often fed him; she then laid on her back on the bed; he gave her one spoonful and told her to sit up; she sat up, and he gave her a few spoonsful more; she said, Andrew, dear, I cannot take any more; he said she must take it, as it would strengthen her a good deal, and if she would he would give her a splendid dress and a new hat; she then put her hand round his neck and kissed him; she had drank nearly all the tea, and then said to me, Mrs. Campbell, you ought to examine your sugar ; I asked her what was the .matter with it, and she said it was all sand; I then looked at her, and it was like the cracking of salt under her teeth, and he was scraping the bowl, and giving 'her what was left of it; she took it all; he gave her all; he then set the bowl on my trunk and came back to the bedside, and said, Mrs. Campbell, you did not take any of the wine, and he got up and poured some in the tumbler; I told him I did not care for the wine; I drank it; he then put a spoonful in the tumbler and gave it to his wife; he was then going to leave, and she said on Friday she would be able to go after money; he said she would not ,• he said he would call on Friday to see how she was, and if she was not able to go he would bring the money himself; as he was leaving he said he would get the money, and leave it with her; he then kissed his wife, and shook hands with her; I then lit him down stairs; when I returned she was vomiting; she told me her whole body was all in a flame, and that her two ears were burning; she said she should not live till five o’clock in the morning; she died about three o’clock, Thursday morning; I was with her when she died, with the exception of a few minutes ; from the time I lighted him down stairs, her condition was most awful, vomiting and drinking water; she was conscious to the time of her death; I went to Mrs. Lambert to come in about an hour before her death, for I was frightened at being left there.
Cross-examined. The bowl out of which she had been fed was on the trunk when she died ; I cannot say how long it remained there; there were half a dozen people in the room from breakfast time until she died; I took hold of the bowl to look at it and set it down again; I handed the police-, the bowl about ten minutes after she died; I prepared the tea for her about half-past five o’clock on Wednesday afternoon ; I got the water to make the tea from Mr. Hart’s store; I got it in a wooden pail; I boiled it in a tin vessel which belonged to me; I do not know how many bowls full it would hold; I got the tea from Mr.Cashen’s,- at the opposite corner; deceased bought the tea on the Saturday previous; we used to use each other’s provisions occasionally; when she purchased- the tea I had none in my room ; I did not purchase any between Saturday and Wednesday; the tea was kept in a glass bottle which I got in-Hart’s store; I placed it in my trunk; it was not locked then; when the tea was ready I went to the trunk and got a bowl $ the bowl was near her bed during the day; I poured out one bowl of the tea for her and*two for myself, and sweetened them of the same sugar,; she had a slice of toast which I prepared, and she broke it in two and put half in the tea; she took two or three swallows of tea before he came in; she retained the tea on her stomach; I proposed to go* out and get some port wine, as it would do her good, and he asked me to go for it; I got the wine in a small black bottle; I got the tumbler from which she drank the wine from outside of my trunk; the tea might have been on the stove an hour before I went for the wine;. I had not touched it during that time; the spoon was. in the bowl, resting against the side; when-I came back, I noticed that the bread was mixed up in the bowl; I made such a statement before the coroner; when I came in, the spoon was standing in the centre of the bowl, upright; the prisoner came four times to see his wife during her illness; once on Sunday, twice on Monday, and once on Wednesday; he came the first time on Monday, before Dr. Bishop came, and the next time after; the first time he remained but a short time; he came the second time at about eight o’clock in the evening; when he came the first time he said he had left the money at the hall.
David Uhl, M. D., testified: I am a physician ; I made a post mortem examination of the body of Bose Williams; Coroner Wilhelm’s deputy, Dr. Bichardson, assisted me; I did so on fifth of May, at 58 Duane-street, between eleven and twelve o’clock; I found the woman lying in her bed; her limbs were rigid and contracted; she had purple spots around the mouth and on other parts of her face; there was a slight bruise on the left leg, below the knee, and no other violence on the body ; on opening the chest, from the neck down, I found the lungs congested; the heart was healthy, but filled with clotted blood; I then tied both ends of the stomach and laid it on a clean rag on the floor; I then examined the intestines, and laid a portion of them by the stomach; I then took out the liver; I took the contents of the stomach and emptied them into two pint bottles, and sealed them up ; the fluid I emptied into them contained a large quantity of white powder which was in large cakes; the mucous membrane was inflamed; I put the stomach and liver, in a cloth, and sewed up the body; I then went to the coroner and labeled the bottles; the stomach also contained a large quantity of this white powder. I then took the stomach, bottles and liver to Dr. McCready; he was not in, and I waited until he came in, and I delivered them over to him personally, in the same state in which they were when I took them from the body; the coroner gave me the bowl, which I did not take up to McCready’s at that time, because I could not carry it; I locked it up, and took it to him in the evening; I received the bowl at the coroner’s office.
Question. In what condition was it ?
This question was objected to by the prisoner’s counsel, and the objection overruled and an exception taken. The same objection was made to proving the contents of the bowl, which was also overruled and an exception taken.
Answer. There was a very white substance on the inside of the bowl, which I carefully scraped, and tied the bowl up in a piece of paper.
Question. When did you receive that bowl?
Answer. Before I made the post mortem.
Question. Were you present at the examination of the contents of the stomach ?
Answer. On the first evening; it was made on the fifth of May; the principal test was Marsh’s, which is the best test that can be applied; the test was applied to .the white powder in the stomach, and we found arsenic; there was not less than a drachm; on Tuesday evening we made an analysis of the contents of the bowl, and found arsenic.
Question. About what quantity ?
Answer. I cannot say; in my opinion undoubtedly the cause of her death was from arsenic; I did not examine the sugar.
Cross-examined. I have made five or six post mortem examinations where death was caused by arsenic; I made the post mortem in this case about forty-eight hours after death; the coroner handed me the bowl in his office twenty minutes before I examined the body; he did not have it in his hands when I came in; there were three persons in the office; the bowl stood on a table by the desk; I wrapped it up in a piece of paper which was in the office; did not examine it particularly ; had no place to lock it up, so hid it under a lot of papers in the office; the room was not locked; I returned in three-quarters of an hour and found the bowl safe and the papers not disturbed; went up to Dr. McCready’s three hours afterwards; saw the bowl was safe in the same position as I had placed it; I placed the paper over the bowl in a particular position, and then took it to my office and locked it up; there is one person in my office; he had no access to it; at nine o’clock that evening took it to Dr. McCready’s; I examined the rags on which the contents of the stomach were placed, and found them clean; the appearances that would result from antimony and arsenic, when analyzed, would be nearly the same; I am not an expert.
Benjamin W. McCready testified: I am a physician; have been a graduate twenty years; have lectured on toxicology; Dr. Uhl requested me to analyze a human stomach, with two bottles with contents labeled and sealed; on fifth May he brought me the bowl and a spoon; from examination of the contents of the body, no doubt arsenic was in the stomach; from its contents four drachms of arsenic were produced; fifteen or twenty grains would produce death; on taking arsenic, the patient feels as though the abdomen was on fire, and vomiting is incessant; the patient complains of its grittiness when swallowed; I would attribute but little importance to blue spots on the body after death; I made a separate analysis of the contents of the bowl and spoon together.
The prisoner’s counsel objected to proving the analysis of the contents of the bowl, but the objection was overruled and an exception taken.
The bowl and the spoon were nearly clean and there was no dry powder upon them, but a dirty substance was scraped from them, and, the proper analysis having been made, arsenic was discovered; about two or three grains of matter were taken from the bowl and the spoon, and nearly all of that was arsenic.
The Coroner testified: That he held an inquest on deceased on Friday, fifth May, between ten and eleven o’clock; that he received the bowl in question from Lieutenant Bingham, of the sixth ward station-house, about twelve o’clock; that when he received it it was not clean, but there was a whitish stuff adhering to the sides and at the bottom; that he took the bowl with him to the office and gave it to Dr. Uhl, the physician, to make the analysis, and that it did not go out of Ms (the coroner’s) hands till he delivered it to Dr. Uhl, and that, when given to the doctor, it was in the same state as when he received it.
James Lanagan identified the bowl and testified that he received it from Mrs. Campbell, at the house where deceased died, and took it to the station-house and delivered it to Lieut. Bingham; that there was a substance around the side and bottom of the bowl.
Alonzo Bingham testified: That he received the bowl from Lanagan; that he noticed some substance in it that looked like gruel; that he set it on a book-case, about eight feet high, in the front office; that he took it from the same place two days afterwards, when he delivered it to the coroner, and that it was .then apparently in the same state as when he placed it there.
On cross-examination, he said he was not in the office the whole time the bowl was there, and that forty policemen might have been in the room during the forty-eight hours it was there.
A jar of brown sugar was produced on the trial, which was identified as belonging to Mrs. Campbell, and being the one referred to by her, and which it was proved had been taken from her and delivered to the coroner at the inquest, and had been kept by the coroner till produced on the trial.
George Kellogg, Jr., testified: I am the agent for the governors of the alms-houseI know the deceased and the prisoner.
Question. Do you know of any complaint having been made by the deceased against her husband ?
Counsel for the prisoner objected, as the recognizance was not produced.
Mr. Kellogg produced the recogmzance, dated June 7th, 1853.
Counsel for prisoner objected to its reading.
Examination resumed. Payments indorsed on the back of the recognizance have been paid by the prisoner to me up to the second of May; I am sure it was on the second of May (Tuesday), at the time of making that payment to me, he stated he thought his wife would not be able to come for the money, and that he would call and take it to her; I asked him “ why ? ” he said she was sick; I told him we could pay it to no other person but her; he then left; the last payment was ten dollars.
Cross-examined. We generally require a month’s payment in advance; we paid her by weekly installments of two dollars a week; we generally paid on Friday; sometimes she would come for the money and I refused to give it to her.
The district attorney then proposed to put the recognizance in evidence.
The counsel for the prisoner objected to the recognizance being put in evidence, or read to the jury, on the ground that the magistrate had not been produced to prove that it was subscribed and taken before him, and that there was not even proof of the signature purporting to be that of the magistrate.
The court overruled the objection of the counsel for the prisoner, received the recognizance in evidence and permitted it to be read to the jury. To which said decision, of the court the counsel for the prisoner excepted. The recognizance was in words'and figures following:
City, and County of New-York, ss:
Be it remembered, that on the seventh day of June, one thousand - eight hundred and fifty-three, Andrew Williams, of number twenty-one West-street, in the city of New-York, and William Broock, of number twenty-one West-street, in the said city, personally came before me, Abraham Bogert, one of the police justices for preserving the peace of the city of New-York, and acknowledged themselves to owe to the people of the State of New-York, that is to say," the said Andrew Williams, the sum of three hundred dollars, and the said William Broock the sum of three hundred dollars, separately, of good and lawful money of the State of New-York, to be levied and made of their several and respective goods and chattels, lands and tenements, to the use of the said people, if default shall be made in the condition hereinafter mentioned.
Whereas, The said Andrew Williams has been duly convicted of being a disorderly person, that is to say, a person who has abandoned his wife, Bose Williams.
Now, therefore, the condition of the above recognizance is such, that if the above named Andrew Williams shall be of good behavior towards the people of the State of New-York, for'the space of one year next ensuing the date hereof, then the above recognizance be void, otherwise to remain in full force and .virtue.
The general character of the prisoner was proved to have been good. After the evidence was closed and the jury had been addressed by the respective counsel, the counsel for the prisoner asked the court to charge the jury that if the bowl was exposed on a table or in a chest, or room, or elsewhere, where many persons had access, between the time it was taken from the room of deceased and the chemical analysis by Prof. McCready, the evidence, as to the analysis of the contents of the bowl, should be rejected.
The court refused so to charge and the counsel for the prisoner excepted.
The court charged, among other things, that the jury might infer that the deceased was with her husband on the Saturday night preceding her death, although the evidence on that point was very slight; to which the counsel for the prisoner excepted.
The court further charged the jury that they might also, if the evidence in their judgment would warrant it, infer that the toasted bread in the bowl was the same which had been mutually used by the deceased and the witness Mrs. Campbell. To this the counsel for the prisoner also excepted.
The jury found the prisoner guilty of murder, and judgment of death was pronounced against him.
A bill of exceptions having been made, the case was carried to the Supreme Court upon a certifícate in the following form:
Upon hearing the counsel for the said Andrew Williams, and also Mr. Blunt, the district attorney, on behalf of the people, after due notice to him, and upon examining the above bill of exceptions settled and signed by Justice Roosevelt, who tried the said cause, and at whose desire the matter was heard before me: I, William Mitchell, justice of the Supreme Court of this state, do hereby certify on said bill that, in my opinion, there is so much doubt on the questions of law raised by said exceptions as to render it expedient to take the judgment of the Supreme Cours thereon, and that a writ of error should be allowed to the prisoner; and I do accordingly'allow such writ of error to issue, and do expressly direct that the same is to operate, as a stay of proceedings on the judgment upon which such writ shall be brought, until the decision of the Supreme Court shall be had upon such exceptions.
In the Supreme Court the judgment of the Oyer and Terminer was reversed, and the following opinions given:

Opinion:
Clerke, J.
The declaration of the deceased could only have been received as a part of the res gestee, or as a dying declaration.
When an inquiry into the condition of a person's health is material, any account given by such person- relative to health is evidence of complaints and symptoms; but it is not evidence to charge any other person as to the cause of those sufferings, nor is such an account any evidence of the truth of what has been declared. Anything which Mrs. Williams said to the witness Campbell, relative to the pain she was suffering and the particular nature of her complaint, was admissible; but that portion of her conversation which related to her alleged visit to her husband, and to what occurred during that visit, could only have been received on the ground that she made those statements under the ' apprehension of death. To warrant this, she must have been conscious of danger, and must have abandoned all hope of recovery, indicating a condition which the law supposes calculated to impress on the mind an obligation equal to that imposed by an oath administered in a court of justice. It is, indeed, the province of the judge, and not of the jury, to determine whether the circumstances under which the declarations were made are sufficient. But there must be some proof that the deceased was conscious of approaching and inevitable death. It is not necessary that this should be uttered in express terms; but it may be inferred from the tenor of his conversation, the nature of his sufferings, and his whole demeanor.
In the present case nothing sufficiently definite was presented to the judge to direct his attention to the subject; the witness was not asked a single question on this point; indeed it is probable, at the time when she made the declarations in question, she had no thought that her life was in danger.
I am of opinion, therefore, that the court erred in admitting those declarations.
A new trial should be granted.