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 JUSTICE DENIED
BILL HOSKING QC WITH JOHN SUTER LINTON

Foreword by
His Honour Judge Stephen Norrish QC

www.harlequinbooks.com.au
 ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Born in Broken Hill, William ‘Bill’ Hosking became a clerk in the Petty Sessions branch of the Department of the
Attorney-General and of Justice in 1954, serving in courthouses all over New South Wales. In June 1961, at the age of
twenty-three, Bill embarked on a different career path when Jack Mannix, the Labor member for Liverpool and
Minister of Justice, appointed him as his acting private secretary. In 1965, the new Minister of Justice, John Maddison,
retained Bill on his personal staff. Soon, he became assistant private secretary to Sir Robert Askin, the Premier of New
South Wales. Within months, Wal Fife, Assistant Minister for Education and soon-to-be Minister of Mines, selected Bill
as his private secretary.
In 1970, Bill commenced practice at the private bar in Chalfont Chambers, which Jack Mannix had once occupied.
Mr Mannix had loaned Bill his wig and gown to wear when he was called to the Bar in 1968, and gave them to him
when he joined Chalfont Chambers. In 1973, he became a public defender and in 1980 he was appointed Queen’s
Counsel and Deputy Senior Public Defender.
As a leading QC appearing in a large number of notable trials, and as a District Court judge from 1987 to 2000, Bill
has garnered some fascinating stories which bring to life the drama of the courtroom and lively exchanges of the
participants. In 2014 Bill was appointed as a reserve judge of the County Court of Victoria, continuing his love of the
law and justice.

John Suter Linton has worked extensively in radio, television and print media, and as a writer, journalist, researcher
and producer. He wrote for the TV shows Sons and Daughters and Neighbours and developed the pilot for Australia’s
Most Wanted. John has also written five true-crime books, including Murder at Anna Bay, An Almost Perfect Murder
and Blood Ties. John’s interest in crime came from his father, a printer on the Sydney Morning Herald in the sixties
and seventies, who would recount details of gruesome crimes of the times to friends not knowing his young son was
listening.
To the late Judith Pamela Armitage, my dear wife for fifty years.
 FOREWORD

There are very few people in the New South Wales legal community who have better experience and insight into the
criminal justice system and the ability to comment on examples of where justice has been denied than William ‘Bill’
Delbridge Hosking QC.
From his early professional life working within the court system and his role as a ministerial advisor to becoming a
barrister and then a judge in the busiest sentencing and trial court in the Commonwealth of Australia, Bill has
acquired unique opportunities to participate in, contribute to and observe the criminal justice system over decades of
enormous change and thus to understand, and in some cases correct, the wrongs and excesses that any imperfect
system can produce.
During the inquiry into convictions of the Ananda Marga Three, as senior counsel representing one of the young
men wrongly convicted of serious crimes for which they each spent almost seven years in gaol, Bill observed in
submissions that ‘the well of justice had been poisoned at its source’. Hyperbole was not unknown to him in his
advocacy, but as it turned out, there was no hyperbole in that observation.
Bill was first and foremost a master jury advocate and tactician, a rare skill among all lawyers. But he was not one
to grandstand and was certainly not one for self-promotion. He worked assiduously to protect the interests of his
individual clients, with the strength and courage to speak up when it was required and the keen and innate instinct to
identify the prospect of a miscarriage of justice and, in many cases, to identify the means to avoid the consequences of
that. However, despite the best efforts of lawyers, miscarriages of justice still occur.
When Bill commenced practice at the Bar, common practices of the period in police investigations were ‘the
verbal’—the unsigned record of interview; flawed processes of out-of-court identification; reliance upon unreliable and
later discredited science and scientific investigation; and the use of prison informers. These practices were well known
not just to police and prosecutors, but also to judicial officers, many of whom did little or nothing to prevent
miscarriages of justice occurring. The battle for the integrity of the justice system was largely fought by skilled and
courageous lawyers such as Bill Hosking, representing accused persons and fighting the systemic unfairness on a
case-by-case basis. It was not until the mid-1990s when Justice Wood conducted his Royal Commission into the New
South Wales Police Service that the conduct of corrupt and dishonest police officers was exposed.
The direct and indirect consequences of that royal commission were revolutionary. The commission did not just lead
to the reform of legislation to almost eliminate the practices in investigation that had led to many injustices in the past,
but also to the public and official recognition of those practices by a legal system that previously had been either ill-
equipped or uninterested in addressing.
This could not be said of the judges of the High Court of Australia who, since the 1977 decision in Driscoll v The
Queen—about which Bill writes—provided leadership and direction over the next two decades in relation to matters
such as the admission of confessional evidence, appropriate judicial identification warning and the proper approach to
the admission of forensic evidence, where legislatures were too timid to act. Yet these decisions of the High Court
were only desultorily followed by many trial courts and intermediate special courts. It took eight years after the
decision in Driscoll for the unsigned record of interview to be cut down by the unanimous decision of the High Court in
Stephens v The Queen, another decision emanating from New South Wales.
The protections now available under the Commonwealth and state laws have their origins not only in the leadership
of the High Court, the impact of the Wood Royal Commission and to some extent the findings of the earlier Fitzgerald
Inquiry in Queensland, but also in the work of the people who can be properly regarded as ‘knights of justice’
practising law across Australia, lawyers such as Bill Hosking and the other trial advocates throughout Australia who
exposed to juries on a case-by-case basis the many deficiencies of the legal system: a system where rules for the
protection of the person bearing the presumption of innocence were either not clearly defined or were unilaterally
made by participants in the system who had a primary interest in securing convictions.
Before he undertook his revolutionary royal commission, Justice Wood had presided over the Ananda Marga inquiry.
If the conduct of the investigators and others in the investigation of those men had ‘poisoned the well of justice’ at its
source, the work of Bill Hosking and other lawyers in that inquiry must have contributed to the open-minded approach
that Justice Wood took to his work in the royal commission a decade later.
The task Bill has undertaken in his examination of past injustices is one that has a contemporary resonance
because, while on many occasions people in the community will complain about the inadequacy of sentences and the
inappropriateness of acquittals, the capacity of the justice system to cause injustice to the person who wears the
presumption of innocence is far greater. The measure of any justice system is its capacity to provide justice to the
worst of the worst, not just to the most worthy. In this book, Bill also exposes where this test of our justice system has
not been passed and explains why that was so.
This book demonstrates the need for everybody who participates in the justice system and the community to
exercise the enduring vigilance needed to prevent mistakes of the past occurring in the future, even for those accused
of involvement in unspeakable crimes that seize the public imagination and cause revulsion in reasonable minds.
His Honour Judge Stephen Norrish QC
 CONTENTS

About the Authors

Introduction

1. Jimmy Driscoll—The Death of the Police Verbal

2. The Trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover
3. Mrs Dawson Makes the News
4. Hoodwinked—The Blind Prison Escapee
5. Who Shot Harold Price?
6. Michelle Lawford—The Tragic Mum
7. Maddison v Goldrick—The Case that Changed the Law
8. Peter Schneidas—A Wasted Life
9. Mad or Bad?
10. Mallard and Veen—The Sleep of Reason
11. Tim Anderson—Conspiracies and Bombings
12. Angelo Maric—Guilt by Hearsay
13. Anita Cobby—An Unfailing Test of Civilisation
14. A Cautionary Tale …
15. Never a Dull Moment …

Acknowledgements
Index
 INTRODUCTION

Public defenders are briefed in the most serious criminal cases, particularly when clients can no longer afford to retain
the Bar’s elite. My clientele was wide and varied. The notorious, the oppressed, the young and the old. The wise and
the foolish. My clients included solicitors, police, schoolteachers, doctors and nurses, underworld heavies and
prostitutes.
These memoirs recall some of the many notable cases in which I appeared as a barrister. They provide a rare
insight into the emotion and complexity of a defence barrister’s role. I have appeared in cases at all levels, the Local
Court, District Court, Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeal, and six times before the High Court of Australia as
leading counsel—only once successfully—and once for the Crown as junior counsel to the Solicitor-General, Harold
Snelling QC. These are narratives of my clients’ misfortunes.
It is rare and more interesting to read a barrister’s frank admission of his own mistakes and errors of judgement,
rather than accounts only of courtroom triumphs. There are both in this book. The emphasis is categorically, and
unsubtly, from the defence viewpoint. Human frailty and its dark side underline the criminal trial process.
These are not impartial narratives, but my memoirs. There are none drawn from my years as a judge. Enough has
been written about that period by the Court of Appeal and the Court of Criminal Appeal.
Justice is an elusive end, and not always achieved. Hence the title Justice Denied.

***

Whenever I drive past a gaol I feel a sense of sadness and fear. Going inside the forbidding walls and hearing the
inevitable clanging of gates is worse. The Victorian-era East Maitland Gaol, Parramatta Gaol, Goulburn Gaol and the
sprawling Long Bay complex are the worst. Thankfully, the first two are now closed.
Imagine entering the prison, handcuffed, from the back of a stuffy, windowless prison van. Being stripped naked,
washing in the communal shower, and then being handed the drab prison green garb. Each stage of the ‘welcoming’ is
designed to destroy your self-respect. This is the start of days, months and years of personal danger and torment.
This is the fate of some of the worst villains who falsely claim membership of the human race. As this book tells, it is
also, sadly, the fate of too many innocent people.
How many is too many? One is too many.
From time to time, innocent people are convicted. That is the flaw in our system of justice. There can be no greater
injustice than a person being convicted of a crime they did not commit. Justice is not infallible and sometimes it is
denied. When it is denied, we are all somehow diminished. Traditionally, the mythical goddess Justice is depicted
blindfolded, which is said to portray even-handedness and impartiality. The great English advocate Sir Edward
Marshall Hall KC told juries the blindfold was to shield her look of infinite pity from public gaze. When an innocent
person is sent to gaol, justice truly is denied, and there have been far too many instances of that in Australia.
On 29 October 1982, a pregnant Mrs Alice Lynne Chamberlain received the mandatory life sentence for the murder
of her baby, Azaria, and was sent to gaol. Her appeal to the Federal Court of Australia was dismissed. By majority, her
appeal to the High Court of Australia was also dismissed. Years later, she was exonerated by a royal commission and
paid some money and released. Scientific evidence had proved she was innocent. No crime had been committed by
anyone.
The system had well and truly failed her. Mrs Chamberlain is not a lone figure. On 27 May 2008, in an Australian
first, the Victorian government pardoned Mr Colin Campbell Ross. Scientific evidence proved he also was innocent of
murder. It was too late to pay any money to Mr Ross. In a brief but solemn ceremony, he had been hanged by the neck
until dead at Melbourne Gaol in 1922. He was thirty years of age when his life was ended. The system had well and
truly failed him.
For a murder committed in 1936, in central western New South Wales, a trial was held at Bathurst eleven years
later. The death sentence was passed upon Mr Frederick Lincoln McDermott. The Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed
his appeal and so did the High Court of Australia. Fortunately, the death sentence was not carried out. In 1952, after a
royal commission, Mr McDermott was cleared. He was given the princely sum, in today’s money, of $1000 as
compensation after serving more than five years in prison. He died a broken man in 1977.
In 2013, DNA evidence confirmed Mr McDermott’s innocence. The Court of Criminal Appeal not only quashed the
murder conviction but, even though McDermott was dead, found him not guilty. This is the only time in Australian
history this has ever happened. Sadly, in Mr McDermott’s lifetime, the system had failed him.
All three of these trials took place in the twentieth century. Two resulted in the death sentence. In all three cases,
the jury verdicts were later proved to be wrong. The appellate courts, all the way up to and including the High Court,
also got it wrong. In each case, years later, the government sought, in vain, to make amends with a pittance.
Two other monumental jury miscarriages of justice involved Alexander McLeod-Lindsay in 1964 and Ziggy Pohl in
1973. Mr McLeod-Lindsay was convicted for the attempted murder of his wife, even though she tried to exculpate him
at his trial. Likewise, Mr Pohl, a humble and gentle migrant, had been the victim of circumstantial evidence, and
convicted of the murder of his wife. He too had served more than a decade in gaol.
Unscientific scientific evidence was the forensic rock on which Mr Alexander McLeod-Lindsay perished. That
happened at his trial, on appeal, and at a specially set up judicial inquiry in 1969. It was the so-called expert, but
wrong, explanation of his wife’s bloodstains on his clothes that convicted him. The police, court and jury all disbelieved
his wife when she claimed it wasn’t her husband who had bashed her and their four-year-old son. Mr McLeod-Lindsay
was cleared, but not before he had served his entire long sentence. He never gave up. It took a second judicial inquiry
in 1991 to eventually clear him. But it was not until 26 July 1994 that the Court of Criminal Appeal finally quashed the
conviction. Mr McLeod-Lindsay passed away in 2009.
The denial of justice to Mr Pohl, which was not finally recognised by the Court of Criminal Appeal until 17
December 1993, was almost as complete as Mr Ross’s tragic and wrongful death by hanging. At all times Mr Pohl had
protested his innocence, but in vain. He received a life sentence. His case was simply closed until, years later, the
actual killer came forward, confessed and was sentenced. Otherwise, the injustice would have remained unrecognised
to this day.

***
Miscarriages of justice do not recognise national or state boundaries.
On 22 August 2014, a full bench of the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court quashed the murder conviction
and life sentence of David Eastman. At that stage, Mr Eastman had served nineteen long years of his life sentence. The
decision followed a top-level judicial inquiry, which found there had not been a fair trial and the conviction was a
miscarriage of justice. It must be said, any blemish in the Eastman trial was not through any shortage of talent at the
bar table. For the Crown was Michael Adams QC, soon after to be a Justice, and for Mr Eastman, the future leader of
the New South Wales criminal bar, Winston ‘The Hat’ Terracini SC.
The Crown did not hoist the white flag of surrender. Instead, it exercised its right to require Mr Eastman, after all
those years, to stand trial again. Not surprisingly, Mr Eastman and a procession of lawyers provided for him by legal
aid resisted this decision. A distinguished and experienced trial judge from New South Wales was objected to and
eventually stood aside. Senior counsel for Mr Eastman were dismissed. One silk became seriously ill. At the time of
writing this book, the prolonged, unresolved, unhappy Eastman saga continues to occupy the Supreme Court of the
nation’s capital. Justice again denied and heavily delayed.
Mr Eastman was not a once-in-a-generation aberration. On 22 December 2014, the South Australian Court of
Criminal Appeal quashed the murder conviction and life sentence of Henry Keogh, who had served, like Mr Eastman, a
shade less than twenty years in gaol. The Crown elected to put Mr Keogh on trial for a third time. Bravely, Mr Keogh
elected to set aside a jury trial and be tried by a judge. The Crown rejected this challenge and discontinued the
prosecution in November 2015. Keogh’s defence was an unusual but not an unprecedented one. He argued there had
never even been a murder, as the deceased had died of natural causes.
Roseanne Beckett, formerly Catt, was convicted by a jury in the Supreme Court in 1991 for attempting to kill her
husband. She was sentenced to twelve years gaol with a non-parole period of ten years and three months. Her appeal
was dismissed. Ten years after going to gaol, she was released on bail when evidence came to light that she had been
framed. It was a hollow victory. Her non-parole period was weeks away from expiry and, thus, she was due for release
anyway. A new trial was ordered, but this time the DPP hoisted the white flag.
Roseanne Beckett sued the government for malicious prosecution. She won. In 2015, the Supreme Court awarded
her $2.3 million plus costs, which will exceed $1 million. Over $3 million for all those wrongful years in gaol. Adequate
compensation? No. Ten times that amount and more would not be enough for what she suffered.
As Justice Harrison so succinctly and eloquently put it, there is no way of knowing what Ms Beckett’s life would
have been had she not been charged. That applies to all those unfortunates to whom justice has been denied, with
Colin Campbell Ross the ultimate, tragic victim.
It was the famous jurist Sir William Blackstone who wrote in the eighteenth century: ‘It is better that ten guilty
escape than one innocent suffer.’ It must be remembered that this presumption in favour of the innocent is never
absolute.
 CHAPTER

1
Jimmy Driscoll—The Death of the Police Verbal

In the early 1970s a gang known as the Toecutters became active in the Sydney underworld, torturing fellow criminals
for information as to the whereabouts of stolen loot. The method was simple and effective: amputate fingers and then
toes to force disclosure of the treasure’s hiding place; when the information is revealed, stop amputating. The loss of
blood usually resulted in death. The bodies, it is believed, were then weighted and taken out past Sydney Heads and
fed to the sharks, never to be seen again. A few, however, did wash up along Sydney’s shoreline and panic set in. A lot
of gangsters on both sides decided it was better to hide than risk becoming a victim.
One alleged member of the Toecutters was John Patrick ‘Jake’ Maloney. He was forty-four years old, and was holed
up in a safe house in Revesby, a southwestern suburb of Sydney on 24 November 1972. Shortly before midnight, Jake
Maloney was alone in the house, his lover having just left. While the house was securely locked, a window was partially
open. He went to the bathroom before going to bed and was shot dead. Death was instantaneous from two bullet
wounds to the back of his head. The murder weapon was a .22 machine gun pistol. There was no sign of a struggle and
the murder had all the hallmarks of the work of a professional hitman.
Two of New South Wales’ top detectives, Detective Sergeant Noel Charles Morey and Detective Roger Caleb
Rogerson, were assigned to investigate the Jake Maloney murder and related crimes. The Morey–Rogerson pairing was
not by chance. They had worked together for over six years. In the seventies, that duo bestrode the Sydney law
enforcement world like a colossus. Modesty and diffidence were not hallmarks of their style, but efficiency and success
were.
Roger Rogerson had not yet reached forty, but he was so admired there was talk of him as a possible future
commissioner of police. In his heyday, Rogerson was the perfect, unshakeable witness. The judges liked him and his
style and it showed. His image was that of a dependable pillar of truth, duty and authority. Accordingly, he was able to
stretch the rules to the limit. Not yet fifty, Morey was destined to rise to the very top as chief superintendent in charge
of the CIB.
Initially, suspicion for Maloney’s death fell on two men: Linus Patrick Driscoll, known as Jimmy the Pom, or just
Jimmy to his friends, and Richard Kaczmarek. There was no suggestion the two men were acting together. In fact, they
were enemies. But both, police believed, had their reasons to want to see Jake Maloney dead.
On the morning of 19 October 1972, Jimmy Driscoll had found a bomb made with ten sticks of gelignite fitted with a
remote-controlled detonator hidden under the back seat of his car at his Oatley residence in the southwest of Sydney,
just over ten kilometres from Revesby as the crow flies. Driscoll immediately called the police, and Sergeant Ross
Nixon from the New South Wales Police ballistic unit and an army disposal expert, Major Morrison, attended the
scene. Detective Sergeant Brazel and Detective Senior Constable McMillan from the consorting squad also responded.
Brazel and McMillan alleged Driscoll told them, ‘I’ll handle it in my own way,’ and made mention of the Maloney
brothers, Jake and Billy. He had a motive to kill them, no doubt.
A month earlier Richard Kaczmarek’s Paddington residence, in Sydney’s east, had been peppered with a fusillade of
shotgun blasts, blowing out windows. Again, police believed Kaczmarek blamed Maloney for the attempt on his and his
family’s lives.
After Maloney’s murder, Morey and Rogerson pulled Kaczmarek and his brother Kazimierz—‘Kaz’—in for
questioning. After some initial unwillingness, they sided with police and claimed that about a week before Maloney’s
death, Driscoll had said he intended to shoot Maloney.
He may have been a polite and well-mannered expat Englishman, but Driscoll had a scary side. And there was
more, albeit circumstantial, evidence against him. Driscoll owned two machine pistols that fired bursts of .22 bullets
and he had a reputation for brandishing the modified pistols at people he didn’t like. He called his little pistol machine
guns the Silent Ones because each was fitted with a silencer and could send out a lethal spray of bullets without
making much noise. His associates later claimed they had seen Driscoll test fire the Silent Ones in the backyard; while
neighbours hosed their gardens, ‘Jimmy hosed his plants with lead’. No need for weed killer.
Less than a month after the murder, by sheer chance, an abalone diver found the murder weapon and the silencer.
The machine pistol was wedged in a rock crevice under the sea off Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach. Bondi, it just
happened, was where Driscoll had been working as an assistant manager at the Astra Hotel around the time of
Maloney’s murder.
If Driscoll did kill Maloney, the only question was why? Driscoll and Maloney were friends. What would have caused
them to fall out and for Driscoll to believe Maloney had planted a bomb in his car? And then execute Maloney a month
later? Friendships in the underworld are tenuous at the best of times and can change in a minute over the slightest
disagreement. Police learned Driscoll’s soon-to-be sister-in-law, Gaye Dauroff, was having an affair with Maloney.
Other than the killer(s), Gaye was the last person to see Maloney alive. Had the affair been known to Driscoll, police
ascertained, it would not have endeared Maloney to him and, therefore, given Driscoll yet another motive.
In reality, Driscoll couldn’t have cared less about the affair.
After Maloney’s death, Driscoll immediately went into hiding. This, Morey and Rogerson believed, was an admission
of guilt. To them, innocent men don’t hide from the police.
The police certainly didn’t entertain the idea Driscoll may have fled out of fear. The bombing attempt on his car had
proved not only he but also his family were in danger. And if he hadn’t killed his friend, was Driscoll fearing he’d be
next, or that an attempt would be made to frame him for the murder? Another reason to run. Against that, if Maloney’s
death was Driscoll’s version of vengeance upon the would-be bomber, then the source of danger had been extinguished
by Maloney’s death, and there would not have been any need for him to run away.
The Maloney murder was a murky underworld case with more than one suspect but the police seemed determined
to get Jimmy Driscoll. Morey and Rogerson had no witnesses and the case was built around one criminal’s word
against another, a possible motive or two, and a bit of suspicion, but no proof. None at all.
But Morey and Rogerson were patient men; they knew their day would come and it did.
Using an alias, Jimmy Driscoll lived in Melbourne for a little over eighteen months until an informer alerted police.
At 6.45 pm on 5 July 1974, a cold, wintery Friday night, Driscoll was arrested by Victorian police without incident in
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 twenty-four feet from the table on which the body was lying.”
(Before making this last statement the witness referred to a
plan of the room which was put in by the Attorney-General.)
“The other door near which Palmer was standing was not the
one by which he entered the room. I called to Palmer, ‘Will
you bring it here?’ I went from the table and met Palmer half-
way coming with the jar. Since I last saw it it had been cut
through both bladders. The cut was hardly an inch long, done
with a sharp instrument. I examined the jar. The edges were
quite clean; no part of the contents could have passed
through it. Finding this cut, I said, ‘Here is a cut! who has
done it?’ Palmer, Devonshire, and Newton, all said they had
not done it, and nothing more was said. When I was about to
remove the jar from the room, the prisoner asked me what I
was going to do with it. I said I should take it to Mr. Frere’s (a
neighbouring surgeon). He said, ‘I would rather you would
take it to Stafford than take it there.’ I made no answer that I
remember. On finding the slit, I cut the strings, and altered
the bladder, so that the slits were not over the top. I took it to
Mr. Frere’s, and left it in his hall, tied and sealed. Afterwards
when I went for my carriage, whilst waiting in the yard, the
prisoner came and asked me what would be done with it, and
I said, ‘Sent either to Birmingham or London for examination.’
When I recovered the jar, I tied each corner separately and
resealed it with my own seal. During the first post-mortem
examination, there were several Rugeley persons present,
but, I believe, no one on behalf of the prisoner. At the second
examination there was some one on behalf of Palmer (Mr.
Pemberton and Mr. Bolton).”

On cross-examination, after stating that Palmer’s

words, “they won’t hang us yet,” were addressed to
Bamford in a loud whisper, and afterwards repeated
to several persons, and that his original notes in
pencil were destroyed, a more formal report being
written by him on getting home, Dr. Harland said—
“At the base of the tongue of the deceased I observed
some enlarged mucous follicles; they were not pustules
containing matter, but enlarged mucous follicles of long
standing. There were a good many of them, but I do not
suppose that they would occasion much inconvenience. They
might cause some degree of pain, but it would be slight. I do
not believe they were enlarged glands. I should not say that
the deceased’s lungs were diseased, although they were not
in their normal state. The lungs were full of blood and the
heart empty. I had no lens at the post-mortem examination,
but I made an examination which was satisfactory without
one. The brain was carefully taken out; the membranes and
external parts were first examined, and thin slices about a
quarter of an inch in thickness were taken off and subjected
to separate examination. I think that by that means we
should have discovered disease if any had existed; and if
there had been any indication of disease I should have
examined it more carefully. I examined the spinal cord as far
down as possible, and if there had been any appearance of
disease, I should have opened the canal. There was no
appearance of disease, however. We opened down to the first
vertebra. If we had found a softening of the spinal cord, I do
not think that it would have been sufficient to have caused
Mr. Cook’s death; certainly not. A softening of the spinal cord
would not produce tetanus; it might produce paralysis. I do
not think, as a medical man investigating the cause of death,
that it was necessary carefully to examine the spinal cord. I
do not know who suggested that there should be an
examination of the spinal cord two months after death. There
were some appearances of decomposition when we examined
the spinal cord, but I do not think that there was sufficient to
interfere with our examination.[36] I examined the body to
 ascertain if there was any trace of venereal disease. I did find
certain indications of that description, and the marks of an old
excoriation, which was cicatrized over.”
Re-examined by the Attorney-General.—“There were no
indications of wounds or sores such as could by possibility
produce tetanus. There was no disease of the lungs to
account for death. The heart was healthy, and its emptiness I
attribute to spasmodic action. The heart being empty, of
course death ensued. The convulsive spasmodic action of the
muscles of the body, which was deposed to yesterday by Mr.
Jones, would, in my judgment occasion the emptiness of the
heart. There was nothing whatever in the brain to indicate
the presence of any disease of any sort; but if there had
been, I never heard or read of any disease of the brain ever
producing tetanus. There was no relaxation of the spinal cord
which would account for the symptoms accompanying Mr.
Cook’s death as they have been described. In fact, there was
no relaxation of the spinal cord at all, and there is no disease
of the spinal cord with which I am acquainted which would
produce tetanus.”

Dr. Monckton, a physician at Rugeley, made a

separate examination of the spinal marrow of the
deceased on the 28th of January, when he said that
the body was in such a condition as to enable him to
do so satisfactorily, and when had there been any
disease of a normal character on the spine he should
have had no difficulty in discovering it. All that he
found were certain granules, the origin of which it
was difficult to account for, though frequently found
in persons of an advanced age, but which he never
knew to occasion sudden death. He agreed entirely
with the evidence of Dr. Harland.[37]

EVIDENCE OF MEDICAL EXPERTS.

We come next to a remarkable body of evidence

given by men of such eminence in their profession as
Mr. Curling, Dr. Todd, Sir Benjamin Brodie, and others
of nearly equal mark, negativing the idea that had
been suggested in the previous cross-examinations
that the death was due to one of the two forms of
true tetanus, and affirming that the symptoms which
had been detailed were those of the action of
strychnia. Not only were these opinions closely
questioned in cross-examination, but as many
medical men, several of them of not less eminence
than these witnesses, were subsequently called for
the defence to contradict them; and thus the most
extraordinary conflict of scientific evidence raised
that had hitherto been witnessed in a criminal court.
Subsequently, as we shall see, a similar dispute
between the medical giants of the day was roused in
the case of Dr. Smethurst, but with, in the end, a
very different result. In reading the following
statements for the prosecution, it will help to make
them more clear, if it is borne in mind that tetanus is
of two kinds—(1), Idiopathic, or self-generated, and
the other (2), Traumatic, the result of a wound or a
sore; that the former may arise from exposure to
cold or damp, or even from the irritation of worms in
the alimentary canal, but in temperate climates is by
no means a frequent disease; whilst the latter, from
the various accidents to which human beings are
liable, is of more frequent occurrence. Another point
to be remembered is, that it is a moot point in
medical practice whether a syphilitic sore, unless of
course of a most aggravated character, will produce
tetanus, and that the difference between the
symptoms and progress of true tetanus and of that
due to poison is, in the opinion of these experts, very
marked. Dr. James Blizard Curling, surgeon to the
London Hospital, was first called, and after
describing the two kinds of tetanus and their causes,
and speaking of the very numerous cases of the
“traumatic” kind which he had seen, he thus detailed
the symptoms:—
“The disease first manifests itself about the jaws and
neck. Rigidity of the muscles of the abdomen afterwards sets
in. A dragging pain at the pit of the stomach is almost a
constant attendant. In many instances the muscles of the
back are extensively affected. These symptoms, though
continuous, are liable to aggravations into paroxysms. As the
disease goes on these paroxysms become more frequent and
more severe. When they occur the body is drawn backwards;
in some instances, though less frequent, it is bent forward. A
difficulty in swallowing is a very common symptom, and also
a difficulty of breathing during the paroxysms. The disease
may, if fatal, end in two ways. The patient may die somewhat
suddenly, from suffocation, owing to the closure of the
opening of the windpipe; or he may be worn out by the
severe and painful spasms, the muscles may relax, and the
patient gradually sink. The disease is generally fatal. The
locking of the jaw is an almost constant symptom attending
‘traumatic tetanus;’ I may say a constant symptom. It is not
always marked, but generally so. It is an early symptom.
Another symptom is a peculiar expression of countenance. I
believe this is not peculiar to ‘traumatic tetanus,’ but my
observation is from such cases. There is a contraction of the
eyelids, a raising of the angles of the mouth, and contraction
of the brow. In ‘traumatic tetanus’ the lower extremities are
sometimes affected, and sometimes, but rarely, the upper
ones. When the muscles of the extremities are affected, the
time at which that occurs varies. If there is no wound in the
arms or legs, the extremities are generally not affected until
late in the progress of the disease. I never knew of tetanus
being produced by a sore throat or a chancre. In my opinion
a syphilitic sore would not produce tetanus. I know of no
instance in which one has led to tetanus. I think it a very
unlikely cause. The time within which ‘traumatic tetanus’
causes death varies from twenty-four hours to two or three
days or longer. The shortest time to my knowledge was eight
to ten hours. When once commenced, the disease is
continuous.”
Question.—“Did you ever hear of a case in which a man
was attacked one day, had twenty-four hours’ respite, and
was then attacked the next day?”
Witness.—“Never. Such a case could not occur.”
Question.—“You have heard Mr. Jones’s account of the
death of the deceased. Were the symptoms there consistent
with any forms of traumatic tetanus?”
Witness.—“No.”
 Question.—“What distinguishes it from such causes?”
Witness.—“The sudden onset of the disease. In all cases
that have come under my observation the disease was
preceded by the milder symptoms of tetanus, gradually
proceeding to the complete development.”
Question.—“Were the symptoms described by Mills those
of tetanus?”
Witness.—“No. Not of tetanus of disease.”
Question.—“Assuming tetanus to be synonymous with
convulsive or spasmodic action of the muscles, was there, in
that sense, tetanus on Monday night?”
Witness.—“No doubt there was spasmodic action of the
muscles, but not idiopathic or traumatic tetanus, because the
sudden onset of the spasms, and their rapid subsidence, are
consistent with neither of the two forms of tetanus.”
Question.—“Is there not hysteric tetanus?”
Witness.—“Yes: it is rather hysteria combined with
spasms, but it is sometimes called hysteric tetanus. I have
known no instance of its proving fatal, or of it occurring to a
man. Some poisons will produce tetanus. Nux vomica, acting
through its poisons, strychnia and brucia, poisons of a
cognate character, produce that effect. I never saw human or
animal life destroyed by strychnia.”

In his cross-examination, Mr. Curling admitted

that irritation of the spinal cord, or of the nerves
proceeding to it, might produce tetanus, and the
correctness of Dr. Watson’s statements in his
Lectures, that, in four cases out of five, the disease
begins with lockjaw, and that all the symptoms of
tetanic convulsions may arise from very trivial blows;
but he denied that there was any well authenticated
instance of “traumatic tetanus” occurring within a
quarter of an hour after the reception of the injury,
or that it was very likely that the irritation of a
syphilitic sore by wet, cold, drink, mercury, or mental
excitement, might lead to tetanic symptoms.
“The irritation,” said Mr. Curling, “which is likely to produce
tetanus is the sore being exposed to friction, to which
syphilitic sores in the throat are not exposed. I should class
tetanus arising from the irritation of a sore as traumatic.
Cases very rarely occur which it is difficult to class as either
traumatic or idiopathic. I should class tetanus arising from
irritation of the intestines as idiopathic. The character of the
spasms of epilepsy are not tetanic.”
Serjeant Shee.—“Not of the spasms; but are not the
contractions of epilepsy sometimes continuous, so that the
body may be twisted into various forms, and remain rigidly in
them?”
Answer.—“Not continuously.”
Question.—“For five or ten minutes together?”
Answer.—“I think not.”
Question.—“Does it not frequently happen that general
convulsions, no cause or trace of which in the form of disease
or lesion is to be found in the body after death, occur in the
most violent and spastic way so as to exhibit appearances of
tetanic convulsions?”
Answer.—“No instance of the kind has come under my
observation.”[38]
Question.—“Do you agree with this opinion of Dr. Copland,
expressed in his Dictionary of Practical Medicine, under the
head of ‘General Convulsions,’ ‘The abnormal contraction of
the muscles is in some cases of the most violent and spastic
nature, and frequently of some continuance, the relaxations
 being of brief duration or scarcely observable, and in others
nearly or altogether approaching to tetanic?’”
Answer.—“I would rather speak from my own observation.
I have not observed anything of the kind.”
Question.—“Does it not happen that a patient dies of
convulsions, spasmodic in the sense of their being tumultuous
and alternating, and chronic in the sense of exhibiting
continuous rigidity, yet after death no disease is found?”
Answer.—“It does not often happen to adults.”
Question.—“Does it sometimes?”
Answer.—“I do not know, nor have I read of such a case. I
have no hesitation in saying that people may die from tetanus
and other diseases without the appearance of morbid
symptoms after death.”
Question.—“Are not convulsions, not, strictly speaking,
tetanic, constantly preceded by retching, distention of the
stomach, flatulence of the stomach and bowels, and other
dyspeptic symptoms?”
Answer.—“Such cases do not come under my observation
as a hospital surgeon. I think it is very probable that general
convulsions are accompanied by yelling. I don’t know that
they frequently terminate fatally, and that the proximate
cause of death is spasm of the respiratory muscles, inducing
asphyxia.”
Re-examined by the Attorney-General.—“These
convulsions are easily distinguished from tetanus, because in
them there is an entire loss of consciousness.”
Question.—“Is it one of the characteristic features of
tetanus that the consciousness is not affected?”
Answer.—“It is.”

Dr. Todd, for twenty-one years physician to King’s

College Hospital, well known for his lectures on
Tetanus and the diseases of the Nervous System,
and who had seen only two cases of what appeared
to him to be idiopathic tetanus, so rare are they in
this country, gave the following evidence:[39]—
“In my opinion the term tetanus ought not to be applied
to disease produced by poisons, but I should call the
symptoms tetanic in order to distinguish the character of the
convulsions. I have observed cases of traumatic tetanus.
Except that in all such cases there is some lesion the
symptoms are precisely the same as those of idiopathic
tetanus. The disease begins with stiffness about the jaw. The
symptoms gradually develope themselves and extend to the
muscles of the trunk.”
Question.—“When the disease has begun is there any
intermission?”
Answer.—“There are remissions, but they are not
complete; only diminutions of the severity of the symptoms,
not a total subsidence. The patient does not express himself
as completely well, quite comfortable. I speak from my own
experience.”
Question.—“What is the usual period that elapses between
the commencement and the termination of the disease?”
Answer.—“The cases may be divided into two classes.
Acute cases will terminate in three or four days, chronic cases
will go on as long as from nineteen to twenty-two or twenty-
three days, and perhaps longer. I do not think that I have
known a case in which death occurred within four days. Cases
are reported in which it occurred in a shorter period. In
tetanus the extremities are affected, but not so much as the
trunk. Their affection is a late symptom. The locking of the
jaw is an early one. Sometimes the convulsions of epilepsy
assume somewhat of a tetanic character, but they are
essentially distinct from tetanus. In epilepsy the patient
 always loses consciousness. Apoplexy never produces tetanic
convulsions. Perhaps I may be allowed to say that when there
is an effusion of blood upon the brain, and a particular
portion of the brain is involved, the muscles may be thrown
into short tetanic convulsions. In such a case the
consciousness would be destroyed. Having heard described
the symptoms attending the death of the deceased, and the
post-mortem examination, I am of opinion that in this case
there was neither apoplexy nor epilepsy.”

The deposition of Dr. Bamford, before reported,

was here read, his inability to attend from illness
having been proved.
The examination of Dr. Todd by the Attorney-
General was then proceeded with as follows:—
“Having heard the deposition of Dr. Bamford read, I do not
believe that the deceased died from apoplexy or from
epilepsy. I never knew tetanus arise either from syphilitic
sores or from sore throat. There are poisons which will
produce tetanic convulsions. The principal of these poisons
are nux vomica and those which contain as their active
ingredients strychnia and brucia. I have never seen human
life destroyed by strychnia, but I have seen animals destroyed
by it frequently. The poison is usually given in a largish dose
in those cases, so as to put an end to the sufferings and
destroy life as soon as possible. I should not like to give a
human subject a quarter of a grain. I think that it is not
unlikely that half a grain might destroy life; and I believe that
a grain certainly would. I think that half a grain would kill a
cat. The symptoms which would ensue upon the
administration of strychnine when given in solution—and I
believe that poisons of that nature act more rapidly in a state
of solution than in any other form—would develope
themselves in ten minutes after it was taken, if the dose was
a large one; if not so large, they might be half an hour or an
hour before they appeared. Those symptoms would be tetanic
convulsions of the muscles—more especially those of the
spine and neck; the head and back would be bent back, and
the trunk would be bowed in a marked manner; the
extremities also would be stiffened and jerked out. The
stiffness, once set in, would never entirely disappear; but
fresh paroxysms would set in, and the jerking would
reappear, and death would probably ensue in a quarter of an
hour or so. The difference between tetanus produced by
strychnia and other tetanus is very marked. In the former
case the duration of the symptoms is very short, and instead
of being continuous in their development, they will subside if
the dose has not been strong enough to produce death, and
will be renewed in fresh paroxysms: whereas in other
descriptions of tetanus the symptoms commence in a mild
form, and become stronger and more violent as the disease
progresses. The difficulty experienced in breathing is common
alike to tetanus properly so called, and to tetanic convulsions
occasioned by strychnia, arising from the pressure on the
respiratory muscles. I think it is remarkable that the deceased
was able to swallow, and that there was no fixing of the jaw,
which would have been the case with tetanus proper,
resulting either from a wound or from disease. From all the
evidence that I have heard, I think that the symptoms which
presented themselves in the case of Mr. Cook arose from
tetanus produced by strychnia.”
Cross-examined by Mr. Grove, Q.C.—“There are cases
sloping into each other, as it were, of every grade and
degree, from mild convulsions to tetanic spasms. I have
published some lectures upon diseases of the brain, and I
adhere to the opinion there expressed, that the state of a
person suffering from tetanus is identical with that which
strychnia is capable of producing. In a pathological point of
view, an examination of the spinal cord shortly after death, in
investigating supposed deaths from strychnia, is important.
The signs of decomposition, however, could be easily
distinguished from the evidence of disease which existed
previously to death, but it would be difficult to distinguish in
such a case whether mere softening resulted from
decomposition or from pre-existing disease. There is nothing
in the post-mortem examination that leads me to think that
the deceased died from tetanus proper. I think that granules
upon the spinal cord, such as I have heard described, would
not be likely to cause tetanus. In animals to which strychnia
has been administered I cannot say that I have observed
what you call an intolerance of touch, but by touching them
spasms are apt to be excited. That sensibility to touch
continues as long as the operation of the poison continues. I
have examined the interior of animals that have been killed
by strychnia, but I have not observed in such cases that the
right side of the heart was usually full of blood. It is some
years since I made such an examination, but I am able,
nevertheless, to speak positively as to the state of the heart.
It is usually empty on both sides. I do not agree with Dr.
Taylor, or other authorities, that, in cases of tetanus, animals
died asphyxiated. If they did, we should invariably have the
right side of the heart full of blood, which is not the case. I
think the term asphyxiated is sometimes very loosely used. I
know, from my reading, that morphia sometimes produces
convulsions, but believe they would be of an epileptic
character. I think that the symptoms of morphia would be
longer deferred in making their appearance than from
strychnia, but cannot speak positively on the point. Morphia,
like strychnia, is a vegetable poison. I have not observed in
animals the jaw fixed after the administration of strychnia.”
Re-examined by the Attorney-General.—“Whatever may
be the true theory as to the emptiness of the heart after
strychnia, I should say that the heart is more ordinarily empty
than filled after tetanus, and more contracted after strychnia,
 than in ordinary tetanus. I do not believe that a medical
practitioner would have any difficulty in distinguishing
between ordinary convulsions and tetanic convulsions. I have
heard the evidence of the gentlemen who made the post-
mortem examination, and I apprehend that there was nothing
to prevent the discovery of disease in the spinal cord had any
existed previously to death.”

Sir Benjamin Brodie’s evidence, which follows,

was given “with great clearness, slowly, audibly, and
distinctly,” and produced a marked effect.
Sir Benjamin Brodie, examined by Mr. James, Q.C.—“I
have been for many years senior surgeon to St. George’s
Hospital, and have had considerable experience as a surgeon.
In the course of my practice I have had under my care many
cases of death from tetanus. Death from idiopathic tetanus is,
according to my experience, very rare in this country. The
ordinary tetanus in this country is traumatic tetanus. I have
heard the symptoms which accompanied the death of Mr.
Cook, and I am of opinion that so far as there was a general
contraction of the muscles they resembled those of traumatic
tetanus; but, as to the course those symptoms took, they
were entirely different. I have attended to the detailed
description of the attack suffered by Mr. Cook on the Monday
night, its ceasing on Tuesday, and its renewal on the Tuesday
night. The symptoms of traumatic tetanus always begin, so
far as I have seen, very gradually, the stiffness of the lower
jaw being, I believe, invariably, the symptom first complained
of—at least, so it has been in my experience. The contraction
of the muscles of the back is always a later symptom—
generally much later. The muscles of the extremities are
affected in a much less degree than those of the neck and
trunk, except in some cases where the injury has been in a
limb, and an early symptom has been spasmodic contraction
of the muscles of that limb. I do not myself recollect a case of
ordinary tetanus in which occurred that contraction in the
muscles of the hand which I understand was stated to have
taken place in this instance. Again, ordinary tetanus rarely
runs its course in less than two or three days, and often is
protracted to a much longer period. I knew one case only in
which the disease was said to have terminated in so short a
time as twelve hours; but probably in that case the early
symptoms had been overlooked. Again, I never knew the
symptoms of ordinary tetanus to last for a few minutes, then
subside, and then come on again after twenty-four hours. I
think that these are the principal points of difference which I
perceived between the symptoms of ordinary tetanus and
those which I have heard described in this case. I have not
witnessed tetanic convulsions from strychnia on animal life. I
do not believe that death in the case of Mr. Cook arose from
what we ordinarily call tetanus—either idiopathic or traumatic.
I never knew tetanus result from sore throat or from a
chancre, or from any other form of syphilitic disease. The
symptoms were not the result either of apoplexy or of
epilepsy. Perhaps I had better say at once that I never saw a
case in which the symptoms that I have heard described here
rose from any disease. (Sensation.) When I say that, of
course I refer not to particular symptoms, but to the general
course which the symptoms took.”
Cross-examined by Mr. Serjeant Shee.—“I believe I
remember one case in the physician’s ward of St. George’s
Hospital, which was shown to me as a case of idiopathic
tetanus, but I doubted whether it was tetanus at all. It was a
slight case, and I do not remember the particulars.”
Question.—“Considering how rare cases of tetanus are, do
you think that the description given by a chambermaid and a
provincial medical man, who had never seen but one case, is
sufficient to enable you to form an opinion as to the nature of
the case?”
 Answer.—“I must say I thought that the description was
very clearly given.”
Question.—“Supposing that they differed in their
description, which would you rely upon—the medical man or
the chambermaid?”
Lord Campbell.—“That is hardly a proper question.”
Baron Alderson.—“It may be a very proper observation for
you to make.”
Cross-examination continued.—“I never knew syphilitic
poison produce tetanic convulsions, except in cases where
there was disease of the bones of the head.”

Two other surgeons, Dr. Daniell, late surgeon to

the British Hospital, and Mr. Samuel Solly, of St.
Thomas’s Hospital, confirmed in every respect the
views of the previous medical witnesses, that the
circumstances attending Cook’s death were clearly
distinguishable from those attendant on ordinary
tetanus. They relied on the fact that ordinary tetanus
was always progressive, and that it is never
intermittent to the extent witnessed in Cook’s case,
and seldom endured less than from thirty to forty
hours. Mr. Solly alluded to the peculiar grin—“the
risus Sardonicus, as the first symptom of true
tetanus, which is not common to all convulsions, and
which having once seen,” he said, “you cannot
forget.” He distinguished between tetanus with
convulsions and death from epileptic convulsions by
the fact that “the first seldom leaves any trace
behind it, whilst the latter does leave its trace in the
shape of a slight effusion of blood on the brain, and
a congestion of the vessels.” The syphilitic theory
was finally overthrown by the testimony of Mr. Henry
Lee, surgeon to the Lock Hospital, which is
exclusively devoted to syphilitic cases. Though he
saw there nearly 3000 cases a year, he had never
known one resulting in tetanus, or read of a case of
primary or secondary symptoms having that result.
In addition to these experts, on the sixth day
important evidence was given by Dr. Jackson, who
had had twenty-five years’ experience of tetanus in
India, on the difference of the symptoms observed in
the idiopathic and traumatic kinds; the former being
much more frequent in India than in other climates,
affording him in his practice as many as forty cases.
“It is as equally fatal,” said Dr. Jackson, “according to my
experience, as traumatic. It is frequently found, in India, in
children, both natives and Europeans, and generally takes
place the third day after birth. It will also be occasioned by
cold in that climate. In infants there is a more marked
symptom of lockjaw in idiopathic tetanus. In adults there is
no difference in the symptoms from traumatic. I have always
seen the idiopathic form preceded by premonitory symptoms,
such as a peculiar expression of the countenance, stiffness of
the muscles of the throat and of the jaw. The usual period
from the attack to death in infants is forty-eight hours; in
adults, when arising from cold, it is of longer duration, and
may continue for many days, going through the same grades
as the traumatic forms.”
 Cross-examined by Mr. Serjeant Shee.—“The patient
always appears to be very uncomfortable shortly before an
attack of idiopathic tetanus. His appetite would not be
affected, but he would chiefly complain of the muscles of the
neck. He might entertain a desire for food, and take it as
usual within twelve hours of the attack. I never heard a
patient complain of want of appetite. Within the twelve hours
I should say that the patient’s attention would be more
directed to the stiffness of his mouth and neck. I have known
cases of idiopathic tetanus, where the first paroxysm was in
bed. Difficulty of swallowing is another premonitory
symptom.”
Re-examined by the Attorney-General.—“In the case of a
child not more than six hours would elapse between the
premonitory symptoms and the tetanic convulsions; in an
adult the period would not be greater than twenty-four hours.
The duration of the disease generally varies from three to ten
days, but death has occurred as early as two days. The
traumatic and idiopathic cases are alike in these respects.
Both forms of the disorder are much more common in India
than they are in this country. The symptoms are not more
severe. In all my experience I never saw a case in which the
disease ran its course in twenty minutes.”

LATE EXAMPLES OF DEATH BY STRYCHNIA.

Four cases of undoubted poisoning by strychnia

were brought forward by the prosecution, in each of
which the symptoms had been observed by medical
men, as well as by the attendants on the several
patients. In the first case, that of Agnes Sennett, or
French, a patient in the Glasgow Infirmary, in
September, 1845, for a sore skin, from
thoughtlessness apparently, she took one of two
strychnia pills prepared for a paralytic patient, and
then went and sat by the ward fire. “In three
quarters of an hour,” said Kelly, another patient, “she
was taken ill and fell back on the floor. I went for the
nurse; we took her to bed, and sent for the doctor;
we were obliged to cut her clothes off first because
she never moved. She was like a poker. She never
spoke till she died.” Each pill, according to the
prescription, contained a quarter of a grain of
strychnia. When the medical clerk of the hospital saw
her in bed, the symptoms were—
“A strong retraction of the mouth; the face much suffused
and red; the pupils of the eyes dilated; the head bent back;
the spine curved, and the muscles rigid and hard as a board;
the arms stretched out; the hands clinched; and there were
severe paroxysms occurring in about a quarter of an hour.
She died in about an hour and a quarter. When I was called
the paroxysms did not last so long; but they increased in
severity.” “The retraction of the mouth was continuous, but
worse at times. I do not think I observed it after death. The
hands were not clinched after death; they were semi-bent.
The symptoms appeared about thirty minutes after taking the
pills. I tried to make her vomit with a feather. She only
vomited partially after I had given her an emetic. There was
spasmodic action and grinding of the teeth. She could open
her mouth and swallow. There was no lockjaw or ordinary
tetanus.”[40]
 Dr. Watson, the surgeon to the infirmary, who
was called in within a quarter of an hour of the
patient being taken ill, said, “She was in violent
convulsions, and her arms stretched out and rigid;
they were kept quiet by rigidity. She did not breathe,
the muscles being kept still by tetanic rigidity. That
paroxysm subsided, and fresh ones came on after a
short interval. She died in about half an hour. She
was perfectly conscious. Her body was opened. The
heart was found distended and stiff. The cavities of it
were empty. The spinal cord was healthy.”
The second case, also of accidental poisoning, by
the error of a local chemist, who substituted
strychnia for salicine (willow bark), of which there
ought to have been nine grains in the bottle of
medicine, was that of a Mrs. Sergeantson Smyth,
residing near Romsey. On the 30th of October, 1848,
she took half a wine-glass of the mixture, equal to a
third of the whole, containing three grains of
strychnia. The effect was of course immediate. The
symptoms were identical with Cook’s.
“I left the room,” said Hickson, the lady’s maid, “when I
had given it her. Five or ten minutes afterwards I was
alarmed by the ringing of her bell. I went into her room and
found her out of bed leaning upon a chair in her night-dress. I
thought she had fainted. She appeared to suffer from what I
thought were spasms. I ran and sent the coachman for Dr.
Taylor, and returned to her. Some of the other servants were
 there assisting her. She was lying on the floor. She screamed
loudly, and her teeth were clinched. She asked to have her
arms and legs held straight. I took hold of them; they were
very much drawn up. She still screamed and was in great
agony. She requested that water should be thrown over her,
and I threw some. I put a bottle of hot water to her feet, but
it did not relax them. Shortly before she died she said she felt
easier. The last words she uttered were, ‘Turn me over.’ She
died very quietly. She was quite conscious, and knew me
during the whole time. About an hour and a quarter after I
gave her the medicine she died.”
Cross-examined by Mr. Grove, Q.C.—“She could not sit up
from the time I went to her till she died. It was when she was
in a paroxysm that I tried to straighten her limbs. The effect
of the cold water was to throw her into a paroxysm. It was a
continually recurring attack, lasting about an hour and a
quarter. Her teeth were clinched the whole time.”
Re-examined.—“She was stiff all the time till within a few
minutes of her death. She was conscious all the time.”

Mr. Francis Taylor, of Romsey, found her dead on

his arrival. “Her body was on the floor by the bed;
the hands very much bent; the feet contracted and
turned inwards; the soles of the feet hollowed up
and the toes contracted, apparently from recent
spasmodic action; the inner edge of each foot was
turned; there was a remarkable rigidity about the
limbs; the body was warm, and the eyelids almost
adherent to the eyeballs.” Three days afterwards the
witness made a post-mortem examination, with the
following results:—
 “The contraction of the feet continued, but it had gone off
somewhat from the rest of the body. I found no disease in the
body. The heart was contracted, and perfectly empty, as were
all the large arteries leading from it. I analysed the medicine
she had taken with another medical man. It contained a large
quantity of strychnia. It had originally contained nine grains;
she had taken a third—three grains. I made a very casual
examination of the stomach and bowels, as we had plenty of
proof that poison had been taken, without the use of tests.”
Cross-examined by Mr. Serjeant Shee.—“In cases of death
from ordinary causes the body is much distorted. It does not
generally remain in the same position. If the body is not laid
out immediately, probably it is stiffened by the rigor mortis.
The ankles were tied by a bandage to keep them together. I
commenced to open the body by the thorax and abdomen.
The head also was opened.”

The third case was that of a Mr. Clutterbuck, a

gentleman suffering from paralysis, on whom, with
Dr. Chambers, Mr. E. D. Moore, who detailed the
case, had attended some fifteen years before.
“We had been giving him,” said the witness, “small doses
of strychnia, when he went to Brighton. On his return he told
us he had taken larger doses of it, and we in consequence
gave him a stronger dose. I made up three draughts of a
quarter of a grain each. He took one in my presence. I
remained with him a little time, and he said he felt quite
comfortable. About three quarters of an hour afterwards I
was summoned to him. I found him stiffened in every limb,
and the head drawn back. He was desirous we should move
him, and turn him and rub him. We tried to give him
ammonia in a spoon, and he snapped at it. He was suffering,
 I should say, more than three hours. Sedatives were given to
him. He survived the attack. He was conscious all the time.”
Cross-examined by Mr. Serjeant Shee.—“The spasms
ceased in about three hours, but the rigidity of the muscles
remained till the next day. His hands were at first drawn back,
and he was much easier when we got them round clinched
together. His paralysis was better after the attack.”
Re-examined by the Attorney-General.—“Strychnia
stimulates the nerves which act upon the voluntary muscles,
and therefore acts beneficially in cases of paralysis.”

The fourth case of poisoning by strychnia, though

at this time given anonymously, as it had not as yet
been brought to a public trial, was that of Mrs. Dove,
of Leeds, more fully related in the next report. In this
case, Mrs. Witham, who had been in attendance on
the deceased, described how, after taking the
medicine given to her, “She complained first of her
back; her head was thrown back; her body stretched
out; that she twitched, her eyes were drawn aside,
staring, and that when the witness put her hands on
the patient’s limbs they did not relax.” In this case
the illness commenced on the 25th of February;
attacks came on the 27th, 28th, and 29th (the last a
very slight one), and then again, about a quarter
past eight, on the 1st of March, and the person died
about twenty minutes to eleven on that night. “She
principally complained of prickings in the legs,
twitchings in the muscles and in the hands, which
she said she could compare to nothing else than a
galvanic shock. Between the attacks, she was
composed. She wished her husband to rub her legs
and arms. She was dead when the doctor came.”
On cross-examination, the witness said that the
sufferer “could not bear to have her legs touched
when the spasms were strong upon her. Her limbs
were rigidly extended when she asked to be rubbed
between the intervals of the spasms. Touching her
then brought on the spasms. Her body was stiff
immediately after death,” but how long it continued
so the witness could not say, as she did not stay
long. She was sensible from half an hour to an hour,
from a quarter past eight till after nine, and the
witness supposed she was insensible the remainder
of the time; she did not speak. On the Saturday
before she died the symptoms were the same as on
the other days—not more violent.”
Mr. Morley, the surgeon who had attended this
case, and whose opinion as to the symptoms being
identical with those in the present inquiry, was
directly opposed by Mr. Nunneley, of Leeds, who had
then assisted him in the post-mortem examination,
not only detailed the symptoms he then saw, but
also the method and results of his subsequent
examination of the body.
“I had attended,” said Mr. Morley, “on the lady to whom
the last witness has alluded for about two months before her
death. On the Monday before she died she was in her bed,
apparently comfortable, when I observed (as I stood by her
side) several slight convulsive twitchings of her arms. I
supposed they arose from hysteria, and ordered medicine in
consequence. The same symptoms appeared on the following
Wednesday and Thursday. I saw her on Saturday, the day she
died. She was apparently better and quite composed in the
middle of the day. She complained of an attack she had had
at night. She spoke of pain and spasms in her back and neck,
and of shocks. I and another medical man were sent for
hastily on Saturday night. We were met by an announcement
that the lady was dead. On the Monday I accompanied
another medical gentleman (Nunneley) to the post-mortem
examination. We found no disease in any part of the body
which would account for death. There was no emaciation,
wound, or sore. There was a peculiar expression of anxiety in
the countenance. The hands were bent and the fingers
curved. The feet were strongly arched. We carefully examined
the stomach and its contents for poison. We applied several
tests—nitric acid, followed by protochloride of tin,[41]
sulphuric acid, followed by bichromate of potash in a liquid
and also in a solid state. They are the best tests to detect
strychnia. In each case we found appearances characteristic
of strychnia. We administered the strychnia taken from the
stomach to animals by inoculation—to two mice, two rabbits,
and a guinea-pig, having first separated it by chemical
analysis. We observed in each of the animals more or less of
the effects produced by strychnia, namely—general
uneasiness, difficult breathing, convulsions of a tetanic kind,
muscular rigidity, arching backwards of the head and neck,
violent stretching out of the legs. These symptoms appeared
in some of the animals in four or five minutes, in others in
less than an hour. The guinea-pig suffered but slightly at first,
and was left, and was dead next day. The symptoms were
strongly marked in the rabbits. After death there was an
interval of flaccidity, after which rigidity commenced, more
than if it had been occasioned by the rigor mortis. I
afterwards made numerous experiments on animals with
exactly similar results, the poison being administered in a
fluid form.”
Cross-examined by Mr. Grove.—“I did not see the patient
during a severe attack. I have observed in animals that
spasms are brought on by touch. That is a very marked
symptom. The spasm is like a galvanic shock. The patient was
not at all insensible during the time I saw her, and she was
able to swallow, but I did not see her during a severe attack.
After death we found the lungs very much congested. There
was a small quantity of bloody serum found in the
pericardium. The muscles of the whole body were dark and
soft. There was a decided quantity of effusion in the brain.
There was also a quantity of serum tinged with blood in the
membranes of the spinal cord. The membranes of the spinal
marrow were congested to a considerable extent. We opened
the head first, and there was a good deal of blood flowing
out. Part of the blood may have flowed from the heart. That
might partially empty the heart, and would make it uncertain
whether the heart was full or empty at the time of death. I
have often examined the hearts of animals poisoned by
strychnia. The right side of the heart is generally full. In some
cases I think that the symptoms did not appear for an hour
after the administration of the poison. I have made the
experiments in conjunction with Mr. Nunneley. We have made
experiments upon frogs, but they are different in many
respects from warm-blooded animals. I have in almost all
cases found the strychnia where it was known to have been
administered. In one case it was doubtful. We were sure the
strychnia had been administered in that case, but we doubted
whether it had reached the stomach. There were appearances
which might lead one to infer the presence of strychnia, but
they were not satisfactory. I have detected strychnia in the
stomach nearly two months after death, when decomposition
has proceeded to a considerable extent.”
Re-examined by the Attorney-General.—“From half a grain
to a grain has been administered to cats, rabbits, and dogs.
From one to two grains is quite sufficient to kill a dog.”
Question.—“How does the strychnia act? Is it taken up by
the absorbents, and carried into the system?”
Answer.—“I think it acts upon the nerves, but a part may
be taken into the blood and act through the blood. We
generally examined the stomach of the animals when the
poison had been administered internally. Sometimes we
examined the skin. The poison found in the stomach would
be in excess of that absorbed into the system.”
Question.—“Are you then of opinion that, a portion of the
poison being taken into the system and a portion being left in
the stomach, the portion taken into the system would
produce tetanic symptoms and death?”
Mr. Serjeant Shee objected to a question which suggested
a theory.
The Attorney-General.—“What would be the operation of
that portion of the poison which is taken into the system?”
Answer.—“It would destroy life.”
Mr. Baron Alderson.—“And yet leave an excess in the
stomach?”
Answer.—“That is my opinion.”
The Attorney-General.—“Would the excess remaining in
the stomach produce no effect?”
Answer.—“I am not sure that strychnia could lie in the
stomach without acting prejudicially.”
Question.—“Suppose that a minimum quantity is
administered, which, being absorbed into the system,
destroys life, should you expect to find any in the stomach?”
 Answer.—“I should expect sometimes to fail in discovering
it.”
Question.—“If death resulted from a series of minimum
doses spread over several days, would the appearance of the
body be different from that of one whose death had been
caused by one dose?”
Answer.—“I should connect the appearance of the body
with the final struggle of the last day.”
Question.—“Would you expect a different set of
phenomena in cases where death had taken place after a
brief struggle, and in cases where the struggle had been
protracted?”
Answer.—“Certainly. At the post-mortem examination of
which I have spoken we found fluid blood in the veins.”
Mr. Serjeant Shee.—“Is it your theory that in the action of
poisoning the poison becomes absorbed and ceases to exist
as poison?”
Answer.—“I have thought much upon that question, and
have not formed a decided opinion, but I am inclined to think
that it is so. A part may be absorbed and a part remain in the
stomach unchanged.”
Mr. Serjeant Shee.—“What chymical reason can you give
for your opinion that strychnia, after having effected the
operation of poisoning, ceases to be strychnia in the blood?”
Answer.—“My opinion rests upon the general principle
that, in acting upon living bodies, organic substances—such
as food and medicine—are generally changed in their
composition.”
Mr. Serjeant Shee.—“What are the component parts of
strychnia?”
Mr. Baron Alderson.—“You will find that in any cyclopædia,
brother Shee.”
Mr. Serjeant Shee.—“Have you any reason to believe that
strychnia can be decomposed by any sort of putrefying or
 fermenting process?”
Witness.—“I doubt whether it can.”[42]

ANALYTICAL EVIDENCE.

On the fifth day, the late Doctor Alfred Swaine

Taylor, the well-known Analytical Chemist and Author
of “Medical Jurisprudence” (the text-book of the legal
profession in all criminal investigations), Doctor
Owen Rees, now one of the physicians extraordinary
to her Majesty, and the late Professor Brande, of the
Royal Institution, were called as witnesses. By the
two first, the analytical examination of the various
parts of Mr. Cook’s body had been conducted, and
they had made a joint report of the results. By the
last, that report had been carefully examined, and he
had also heard all the evidence as to symptoms
previously given in the case. No inconsiderable
portion of the cross-examination of Dr. Taylor was
occupied by questions connected with the
publication, in the Illustrated Times, by Mr. Augustus
Mayhew, of what professed to be statements as to
the details of their analysis by Dr. Taylor and Dr.
Rees, in which, if correctly reported, the former had
committed himself somewhat prematurely to
opinions on the case, and had used expressions
towards the prisoner which, to say the least, were
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