We have thus briefly recorded the history of the criminal, for the purpose of noticing the moral signs of depravity which form so striking a part of his character. He was a member of the medical profession-one of ourselves. He studied at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, under some of the most distinguished teachers of medicine, surgery, anatomy, physiology, chemistry of the day; so that, with but moderate talents and not more than ordinary attention, he could scarcely fail to be well educated in the rudiments of his profession. This was less than ten years ago, if his age be correctly stated at thirty-one. It does not appear that prisoner, and there the symptoms are repeated. He is not bilious, nor suffering from any complaint which should produce vomiting, and yet he is sick after everything that the prisoner administers. A servant in the place tastes some broth prepared at the prisoner's house, and suffers in the same manner for hours afterwards. When the unhappy man dies, antimony is found in the blood,--a fact which science pronounces conclusive of its having been administered within forty-eight hours before death. Yet no medicine containing antimony had been openly prescribed, nor is it pretended that the deceased was in the habit of taking any such drug. In fact, the defence totally evaded the question of the antimony altogether. The counsel brought witness on witness to give their speculations on tetanus, epilepsy, and convulsions, but no answer was made to the evidence which proved that Cook had vomited for days without a cause, and that after his death a poison which kills by producing vomiting had been found in his body in a state which showed it had been recently swallowed. Can we, therefore, come to any conclusion but that the prisoner, a medical man, having this drug in his possession, and knowing its effects, had used it for the purpose of producing in Cook symptoms which might be confounded with those of ordinary disease? For it is worthy of notice that it was not the interest of Palmer that his friend should die until the stakes and bets he had won were due, but that he should be ill and unable to receive them personally. Hence we find antimony used until Palmer has gained possession of large sums on Cook's account, and then, within a few hours, as soon as it became his interest that Cook should die, the first dose of strychnine is administered. Palmer's affairs, in fact, grew more desperate every day. The usurer who had him in his power was incessant in his demands for money. Palmer had forged his mother's name, the bills were due, and writs were out against both mother and son. Twentyfour hours might discover all; for, unless 450l. were paid immediately to Pratt, proceedings would be taken against Mrs. Paliner. Cook had won money at Shrewsbury races, and had it about him; bets were due to him in London. That money disappears, no one knows how, and as for the bets, Palmer receives them through an agent, and applies them to his own use, the day before Cook dies. Here, then, is a motive for haste. If Cook discovers that he has been robbed, if the creditors discover that Mrs. Palmer's name has been forged, Palmer may within a week stand in a felon's dock. He knows the use of strychnine. He knows that it kills by tetanic fixing of the respiratory muscles.' Perhaps he does not know that it causes horrible convulsions of the whole body, but thinks that the sufferer dies with merely internal spasms. If we believe the witness Newton, he buys strychnine on the Monday night, and on that night he administers pills to Cook, which are followed by tetanus. There are doubts thrown on the evidence of Newton, because he concealed, or at least did not volunteer it, until the eve of the trial. But, even supposing this young man to be capable, for no earthly reason, of swearing away the life of one who had never done him wrong, the case does not end here. Another witness, whose testimony is not disputed, swears positively to the purchase of six grains of strychnine at another shop, that of Mr. Hawkins, on the succeeding day, but a few hours before Cook's death. If ever anything was proved in a court of justice, it is the purchase of this deadly drug by William Palmer. The defence, loosely enough, shifted its ground as regards this question. First, it was that no poison had been purchased, and that

he was more exposed to corruption during his studies than the rest of his fellow-pupils, many of whom have, since then, shown themselves to be well-informed and respectable practitioners.

Mr. Serjeant Shee, in his eloquent speech for the defence, quoted a letter of Palmer's to the lady who subsequently became his wife, penned by himself while he was yet a pupil, and evincing his affection for her. Some of the daily press affect to see in this letter nothing but deceit for our parts, we own we believe every word of it, and think that he felt sincerely what he there expressed. It is one of those strokes of nature without which the likeness of the criminal would have been too darkly

The

Newton was perjured; then it was that the strychnine might have been wanted to kill dogs which annoyed Palmer's horses in a paddock. Neither of these assertions are supported by a jot of evidence. The testimony of Newton was not shaken; that of Roberts was not even questioned. As for the supposed purpose of the strychnine, no evidence followed the suggestion of the prisoner's counsel. death of the deceased occurred on the evening which succeeded the last purchase. He died just as strychnine is proved to kill. The evidence of the medical witnesses for the Crown is decisive as to the improbability of his dying by any known form of disease. Mr. Curling, Dr. Todd, Sir Benjamin Brodie-all speak positively as to this point. Thus three main points of the case are made out fully,-the death of the deceased by strychnine, the purchase of the poison by the prisoner within a few hours of the death, and the prisoner's pressing motive for the destruction of his companion.

A

"Only on one point can there be the slightest doubt. The body is unskilfully dissected, and the stomach, with some of the other parts, is sent to Drs. Taylor and Rees. They find no strychnine. Of course, on this the whole defence rests. number of medical men are brought to declare that if strychnine had been taken it must, in their opinion, be found. But one fact is worth any number of opinions. Drs. Taylor and Rees perform experiments with rabbits, giving them not large doses, like the defence doctors, but just enough to kill. In two cases strychnine is found; in two it is not. Therefore these two gentlemen are justified in declaring that, according to the tests made use of by them in the case of Cook and in the case of the animals, the poison is sometimes found and sometimes not. We cannot but think that the witnesses for the defence endeavoured to prove too much. Scientific dogmatism could go no further than when two gentlemen alleged that Cook could not have taken strychnine because he allowed himself to be touched,— -an act which always threw a rabbit into a spasm. Equally unavailing for the prisoner were the suggestions as to the cause of death; it was apoplexy, epilepsy, idiopathic tetanus, traumatic tetanus, epilepsy with tetanic complications, and so on. There were as many opinions as men; and though certainly a prisoner is not bound to account for the cause of death, yet a jury, observing the differences between these witnesses, who made such a display of science, might naturally be led to think that their opinions were not sufficiently authoritative to destroy the testimony of facts and the deductions of common sense. If we add to this that in one case a medical witness confessed to having expressed a belief in Palmer's guilt, and an opinion of the incompetency of Dr. Taylor to detect it, we can have little wonder that the jury should have made so little of the large array of testimony for the defence.

All these points were fully noticed by the Chief Justice in his long and conscientious summing up, as well as those minor incidents which strengthen into certainty the belief of the prisoner's guilt. The anxiety about the jar, the presents to the coroner, the attempted bribing of the postmaster and the postboy, the curiosity about Dr. Taylor's analysis, leading the prisoner to procure the tampering with his letter, and inconsistent with the knowledge that no strychnine had been administered, all forced home the conclusion of the prisoner's guilt."--The Times, Wednesday, May 28, 1856.

coloured and deformed; and if, in spite of this early avowal, he afterwards ended by maligning, if nothing worse than maligning, the first object of his affections, it is only one proof more of the desperate means that a course of vice forces us to at lastNemo repente turpissimus fuit.*

He was essentially selfish-it is the main feature of his character. Everything turned upon SELF. The murder of Cook, the alleged murder of Walter Palmer, his brother, his design upon Bates, his treaty with Pratt for the possession of the winning horse, Polestar,—all turned upon self. Everything was made subservient to this end; he was ready to sacrifice the world to it; he did, in fact, sacrifice his own mother to his unworthy purposes; and, in endeavouring to suborn the postboy, he was, at the same time, ready to sacrifice Mr. Stevens's safety, by the upsetting of the fly, in order to break the jar which, in all probability, contained the damning proof of his own culpability.t

The mass of the evidence against him may be broadly ranged under two principal heads. 1. The moral. 2. The scientific. As regards the moral, or circumstantial branch of the evidence, the most zealous opponents of the propriety of the conviction would probably admit that, taken by itself, it enormously preponderated against the prisoner. We need not again travel over ground with which the general public are so familiar. Suffice it to say, that the following are few of the points which the prisoner's defence left wholly untouched :-No answer was given to the charge that Palmer had, within a few days before Cook's death, applied nearly 20001. of Cook's winnings to satisfy the claims of his own money-lenders; no account was given of the disposal of the strychnine which Palmer was proved to have purchased on the very eve of Cook's death; no explanation was given of Palmer's strange eagerness to get the body put into a coffin, of his demeanour at the post-mortem examination, of his tampering with the jars containing the matter about to be sent up to Dr. Taylor for analysis, of his attempt to bribe the postboy, of his inquiries as to the possibility of discovering strychnia in the body, of his exultation on receiving a negative answer, of his eagerness to ascertain the result of Dr. Taylor's report, and his subsequent endeavours to pervert and misdirect the mind of the coroner. But on these and on other similar points it is really unnecessary to dwell. As far as the circumstantial evidence is concerned, all those who by patient attention to the case have qualified themselves to form a judgment, must admit that, in its cumulative effect, it told with overwhelming weight against any rational theory of the prisoner's innocence."-The Express, June 7, 1856.

"The very moment when he was enjoying the good-will of his neighbours, living apparently an easy, careless life of enjoyment, he was inwardly distracted by all the passions of the gamester. Under the jovial expression of these rubicund cheeks, who could have imagined the secret history which was being transacted? For this jolly fellow was racing, betting, winning-more often losing-and encumbered with debt. To relieve himself from his obligations he was contracting more debtselling himself body and soul to money-lenders-using the hand of his own wife (he himself confessed it) to forge the name of his own mother on bills of acceptance for thousands of pounds, knowing at the very time that nothing but a lucky cast could make him to discharge those obligations, which, nevertheless, if not discharged, must prove passports to prison. Nor was this all. Other means were needed to satisfy his wants: and Palmer was not the man to hesitate. He had a wife and a brother. Money must be had. He insured their lives. His brother was fond of liquor. He hired a wretch to lead him on to fatal excess, and death soon overtook

Let us analyse the character still more closely. There were some vices from which he was singularly free. He was not proud, but, on the contrary, he stood greatly in need of so superb a passion as that of pride, which might have preserved him from his other more desperate and debased propensities, it would have imparted to him a higher bearing, and the appearance, at least, of nobler behaviour; only, he was not proud. Nor does he seem to have been of an angry and choleric temperament, but just the reverse-always cool and collected, wary and sagacious. Neither was he gluttonous nor drunken; and even his more sensual pleasures he managed with so much address, that they did not disgrace his reputation so much as they ought to have done. He could join his friends at the table, but he only lent himself to it, without suffering it to take the mastery over him, or to deprive him of his senses and vigilance. He was too

cautious to be caught in his own trap. And, lastly, he was not slothful, but most diligent in the object of his research; for he left nothing unattended to, albeit his engagements ultimately outstripped him in the race.

"Consider the man. In the eyes of his fellow-townsmen this country surgeon had acquired a character for respectability. To most people he seemed an agreeable person-to many even gentlemanlike. He lived in his native town of Rugeley; he was admitted to its leading official society. He had soothed the pangs of many a youthful mother, and watched the sick-bed of many a first-born infant. Latterly, indeed, he had withdrawn from the practice of his profession, having betaken himself to Tattersall's and the turf.

"In the character of William Palmer there is, indeed, a sort of dramatic monstrosity. He was no common-place villain. The bludgeon and the horse-pistol-the knife and the centre-bit-were not his weapons. Like Cæsar or Napoleon, his pawns were men. His instruments were mortal. He turned everything to his own use-his personal appearance-his professional knowledge-his mother-his brother-his school companions-his friends-the friends of his friends -postmasters-money-lenders-coroners-profligate attorneys."

The Leader.

His sense of justice, or probity, was very small. He squanhim. His wife was his slave-to be coined into cash. As a medical man he might himself minister to her ailments. She must die. Her husband-so will the legend for ever run-will himself conduct her to the gates of death. He seats himself by her bedside with his own hand he tenderly administers the poisonous drugwrites down his grief in his private diary-watches the vital power of the poor creature slowly evaporate under his fatal skill-consoles his wounded spirit for her fortunate loss at the very steps of the altar-and then gathers in the golden harvest of deliberate crime. This surely is not the man who would reveal himself to the thousand eyes of a crowded court of justice. He had played the stakes of life and death too often and too successfully before he stood within that dock. In the last momentous scene-the crisis of his life. -no weak emotion was to disturb the serene apathy of this consummate artist."-The Leader, June 7, 1856.

dered his own means, unscrupulously made use of those of others, and disregarded truth, life, honour, and money alike. He carefully removed every obstacle that stood in his way, and made use of every means in his power to facilitate his plans. He killed Cook, forged his mother's signature, rifled his associate's purse the moment the breath was out of his body. He was a liar of the first magnitude. His last instructions to Pratt, the solicitor, were most of them false; his answers to Mr. Stevens respecting the betting-book were prevarications too transparent not to be seen through; his hints as to what they were likely to find in the post-mortem examination of Cook's body; his telling Mr. Jones that Cook was suffering from a bilious attack; and his persuading Dr. Bamford to fill up the certificate of death with the word "apoplexy," were all of them deliberate lies. The theme of his life was lying and money-getting throughout. Medicine offered no opportunity of making a fortune in any way equal to that of betting, racing, and life-insuring. He might, in the course of a long career, have realized a few thousands by means of the practice of medicine; but this was much too slow a game for one whose love of money could only be gratified with thousands and tens of thousands, though lost as soon as gained, and scarcely enjoyed even when won.

"He possessed," says the Daily News, "every requisite which would, a priori, be deemed necessary to success in the career to which he devoted himself; and yet this cold-blooded schemer, who never allowed any considerations of wrong, or morality, or fear, to stand for a moment between his desire and its object, this calculator who had reduced life to a game of chance,-money his only object, and crime his familiar means,—was singularly unfortunate as a speculator on the turf. The insurance of his wife's life-say, rather, the blood-money received for his wife's murder-paid off with difficulty the racing debts of 1854. In 1855 those debts had again reached the enormous aggregate of from 10,000l. to 20,000l. And yet the die with which this man played was loaded,--the hand that threw it never trembled with compunction. He owned horses, he was intimate with trainers, he was deeply versed in all the secrets of the turf; and yet this was the result-ruin, forgery, murder, and, finally, the scaffold. We disclaim the puerile exaggeration which would represent even the professional turfman as necessarily a candidate for ruin, or an adept at crime. Neither would we be so unjust as to hold up to reprobation the men in high station who actively engage in such sports. A great distinction should be drawn between those who engage in the turf as a mere gaming speculation, and he who is influenced by right and honourable motives-viz., the improvement in the breed of horses. We must, however, admit that a life whose business is reckless and illegitimate speculation, whether on the racing-course or at the gaming-table, or in the Stock Exchange, is a life of all others most demoralizing in its tendencies, and is obviously unfavourable to the healthful development