Accordingly there are cases, in which the evidence from experiments on animals with suspected articles of food is unequivocal. For example;—a sexton and his wife, who had got a bad name in their village in consequence of informing against the bailiff for smuggling, and who were on that account shunned by all the neighbours, accused the bailiff and his wife of having tried to poison them by mixing poison with their bread. Immediately after eating they were attacked, they said, with sickness, griping, swelling, and dizziness; and they added, that a cat was seized with convulsions after eating a part of it, had sprung away, and never returned. A large portion of the loaf was therefore sent to the Medical Inspector of the district; who reported, that it seemed exactly similar to another unsuspected loaf;—that, although he was not able to detect any poison, it might after all contain one,—vegetable poison particularly;—but that he could hardly believe it did, for he fed a dog, a cat, and a fowl several days with it, and they not only did not suffer any harm, but even appeared very fond of it.[107] In this case it was clear that poisoning was out of the question. On the other hand, the effects of some poisons on man may be developed so characteristically in animals as to supply pointed evidence. Thus, in the case of Mary Bateman, an infamous fortune-teller and charm-worker, who after cheating a poor family for a series of years, at last tried to avoid detection by poisoning them, it was justly accounted good evidence, that a portion of the pudding and the honey, supposed to have been poisoned, caused violent vomiting in a cat, killed three fowls, and proved fatal to a dog in four days, under symptoms of irritation of the stomach such as were observed in the people who died.[108]