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
As regards white arsenic, also produced by these women, it must
be observed that not only was it not shown that Mrs. Maybrick had
purchased any, but it is submitted that the judge _ought to have
pointed out to the jury_, as the fact is, that it would have been
almost impossible for her or any woman to have obtained any white
arsenic at all. No shopkeeper dare sell it to any one except to a
medical man, and even then under the stringent restrictions of the Sale
of Poison Act.
At the trial a wholesale druggist (Thompson, of Liverpool) gave
evidence that James Maybrick constantly visited his cousin, who had
been in his employment at his stores, where he could have obtained
white arsenic from him without any difficulty; and it will be observed
that it was found in his hatbox.
It is a remarkable thing in this connection that, while Edwin Maybrick
called the police in on Sunday night, and gave them the black
solutions and white solutions which Mrs. Briggs had found on the Sunday
morning, he did not give them the black powder which Alice Yapp had
found on the-night before; and, in fact, that Michael Maybrick did not
give it to the police until Tuesday, the 14th.
It is also a remarkable fact that, although these black solutions and
that white solution of arsenic and that solid arsenic which Mrs. Briggs
had found, were not handed by the police to the analyst until several
days afterward, and were therefore _not known to be arsenic by anybody,
yet Mrs. Briggs was able to inform Mrs. Maybrick on Tuesday, the 14th,
as was testified to, that these bottles contained arsenic_.
It is submitted that Mrs. Briggs could not have known that without some
other means of knowledge than looking at them.
The importance of this _misdirection_ of the judge as to the question
of possession of arsenic by Mrs. Maybrick can not be overstated. It
was _conclusively_ shown that no decoction of fly-papers or of the
black powder was the source of the arsenic with which certain articles
found in the house and office were said to be infected, because the
analyst said he had searched for the fibers of the papers and for the
charcoal, _and could not find any traces of either_. If Mrs. Maybrick
knew of the pure arsenic, why should she have bought the fly-papers,
either for a cosmetic purpose or murder, and what should she have
wanted with “poison for cats?”
MISDIRECTION AS TO “TRACES” OF ARSENIC
Out of the list submitted by the police, therefore, the only two things
which could have been the source of the arsenic were the bottle of
saturated solution, No. 10 in the Police List, and the bottle of solid
arsenic, No. 11 in the Police List.
It may be observed that if all the arsenic or “traces” of the same,
with which various things were said to be infected, were collected
together, it would not constitute a fatal dose, the smallest fatal dose
recorded being two grains, and this in the case of a woman, and surely
not in the case of a person addicted to large doses of arsenic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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