The question of the prisoner’s guilt was not capable of being reduced to any issue upon which the prosecution could bring to bear direct evidence; the most they were capable of doing was to show that the prisoner had _opportunities_ of administering poison, which she _shared with every individual in the house_; further, that she had arsenic in her possession (and this was an _open secret_, as we have already explained with reference to the fly-papers); and, lastly, that she had the possibility of extracting arsenic in sufficient quantities to cause death, which was, however, extremely doubtful; and then the prosecution tried to complete this indirect evidence by proving that Mr. Maybrick died from arsenic poisoning, _which they signally failed to do_. The strong point of the prosecution, as they alleged, was that a bottle of Valentine’s meat juice had been seen in her hands on the night of Thursday, the 9th of May, and she replaced it in the bedroom, where it was afterward found by Michael Maybrick, and analyzed by Mr. Davis, who found half a grain of “arsenic in solution”; but there was _no direct proof_, such as is absolutely necessary to a conviction in a criminal case, _of the identity of the bottle_ seen in Mrs. Maybrick’s hands and that given to the analyst, and there was evidence that it had remained in the bedroom _within reach of anybody, Mr. Maybrick himself included_, for eighteen hours, and did not until the next day reach the hands of the analyst. These bottles are all alike in appearance, of similar turnip-like shape as the bovril bottles now sold, and it is clear there was more than one, because Dr. Humphreys says in his evidence that on visiting his patient on the 6th of May he found some of the Valentine’s meat extract had made Mr. Maybrick sick, which he was not surprised at, as it often made people sick; while Nurse Gore, speaking of the bottle seen in the hands of Mrs. Maybrick, said it was a _fresh, unused bottle_, which she had herself opened only an hour before. No evidence was given of what became of the opened bottle, and the presence of the arsenic having already been accounted for, and the fact recorded that the meat juice was not given to Mr. Maybrick, there is nothing to add to what has already been said, except that the account exactly dovetails with the prisoner’s own voluntary statement.