Madeleine [Smith] tried at the bar of common sense and common humanity : being a plea for the coroner's inquest in Scotland / by Historicus [i.e. David Dunbar Scott?.].

  • Historicus.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Madeleine [Smith] tried at the bar of common sense and common humanity : being a plea for the coroner's inquest in Scotland / by Historicus [i.e. David Dunbar Scott?.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    is all adduced by the prosecutor himself; and whether the frequency of re- petition be not such as to amount to moral certainty, if such moral certainty, can ever, as Bishop Butler clearly assumes, be reached at all. The cumu- late force of the proofs of innocent intention, on the prosecutor’s own principle, that guilt and secresy invariably go together, you will see, is overwhelming. It may be stated thus: Buying openly once, + buying openly twice, + buying openly thrice, 4- buying at the family druggist’s once, + ditto twice, + buying at another shop, + buying in one of the most public thoroughfares of Glasgow, + buying at a shop where she was known, and her purchase was likely to be the more marked from its not being the family druggist’s, -f putting it down to her father’s account, + using the wrong pretext for a person dreading investigation once, + ditto twice, + ditto thrice, + buying in company with a friend, + buying unnecessarily once, + ditto twice, + buying in a preposterously excessive quantity. Sixteen presumptions; all these sixteen presumptions, too, strictly limited to the subject-matter of the purchases, and independent of the other enormous presumptions against her ever for one moment having had such an atrocious idea as that of murder in her head. Would Bishop Butler have hesitated for a moment in pronouncing that if ever the multiplication of presumptions could amount to moral certainty, such moral certainty is here obtained? And mark this, Gentlemen, if it be morally certain that the accused bought these three parcels without dreaming of applying them to any more guilty purpose than that for which their chemical and mechanical qualities so well adapted them, it follows of necessity that she never poisoned the deceased with arsenic, seeing that, had she had any such purpose in view, arsenic is just the very last thing she would have bought to use as a cosmetic. I know not, Gentlemen, whether I need notice one part of the evidence against the accused which has raised both indignation and laughter in various parts of Scotland against the medical witnesses. I refer to that where washing the face and arms with warm water, into which an ounce of arsenic has been thrown—that is, with a very weak solution of arsenic—was represented as a highly dangerous experiment. Gentlemen, a day or two after that astounding evidence was given, I happened to meet a very able practitioner in one of our great sheep districts, who, on my alluding to it, threw up his arms in perfect amazement: “Why,” says he, “for ten years, j I have known shepherds have their bare arms up to the elbows in the strongest solutions of arsenic, from morning to night, without the slightest harm having, ever arisen from it except in one solitary instance, where the man had erysipelas in his arm!” And here I might mention other very relevant facts of recent occurrence in the same district; proving how very strong the solutions which the shepherds safely use must be, and how utterly incredible, in the absence of all facts to the contrary, the possibility of the body of the deceased having become saturated with arsenic any otherwise than by simply drugging himself with it in extremely minute doses. You remember, Gentlemen, the whole world stood agape with wonder at the discovery of such saturation, and men’s excited imaginations could see nothing in it but murder, or suicide at the least; whereas, had they simply allowed common sense and common humanity to guide their judgments, the whole mystery would have ceased, by assuming that the deceased had done wThat he said he did, taken arsenic regularly. To insist that he did not do it,