Mrs. Maybrick's Own Story: My Fifteen Lost YearsMaybrick, Florence Elizabeth
History
Mrs. Maybrick's Own Story: My Fifteen Lost Years
Maybrick, Florence Elizabeth
Maybrick, Florence Elizabeth, 1862-1941; Trials (Murder) -- England; Women prisoners -- England
The attention of counsel is called to the fact that this saucer of
mixed glycerin and borax which was actually used _was not produced_
at the trial, but Justice Stephen, when summing up to the jury, said:
“Then you get the _blue_ bottle which contained Price’s glycerin. Here
is the bottle, which there is no evidence to show that Mrs. Maybrick
had even seen or touched; a considerable portion is still left. That
glycerin was found in the lavatory outside, and if the bottle were
filled and the same proportion of arsenic added, there would be
two-thirds of a grain of arsenic in it. You have heard already that
his mouth was moistened with glycerin and borax apparently the night
before he died. If that be so, and the glycerin be really poison, it is
certainly a very shocking result to arrive at.” Sir Charles Russell: “I
think the evidence of Nurse Gore is that the bottle that was used the
night before was taken, not from the lavatory, but from the cupboard
of the washstand.” His Lordship: “It does not follow that that was the
same bottle. One does not know the history of that bottle or where it
went to. It may or may not have been the glycerin which was used for
the purpose I have mentioned, namely, for moistening the lips. But it
does appear in the case that a bottle was found in the lavatory, and
that it contained a grain of arsenic, and that his mouth was moistened
with glycerin and borax during the night in question; but the identity
between that bottle and the bottle which contained the glycerin is not
established and not proved.”
It is submitted that the above was an _unfair and inflammatory
suggestion_, and amounts to a gross MISDIRECTION, especially after
all the evidence about the condition of deceased’s tongue and his
complaining of a sensation as of a hair in his throat.
This concludes the whole of the evidence to any articles containing
arsenic which were found in the house, in which the arsenic was present
in anything except as _unweighable “traces.”_
MISDIRECTION AS TO EVIDENCE OF PHYSICIANS
Justice Stephen further summed up: “The witness (Dr. Stevenson) stated:
‘I should say more arsenic was administered on the 3d of May.’” It
will be seen, by a reference to Dr. Stevenson’s evidence, that Dr.
Stevenson _did not_ say this.
[Illustration:
Copyright, 1904, by Pach Bros., New York.
HON. JOHN HAY, American Secretary of State, 1898--]
Dr. Humphreys was the only medical man in attendance at that time. The
only symptoms on Friday, the 3d, were that he had “vomited twice.” At
the inquest Dr. Humphreys said as to this:
Q. “Did he say anything about his lunch on the previous day, Thursday,
the 2d?”
A. “Yes; he said some inferior sherry had been put into it, and that it
had made him as bad as ever again.”
And that also appears in Dr. Stevenson’s evidence at the trial:
“He told the doctor he had not been well since the previous day, when I
learn he had his lunch at the office.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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