If it be proved that all who ate of a particular dish have suffered, and all who did not have escaped, the kind of moral evidence now under review becomes strongest of all. It is well for the medical jurist to remember also, that such evidence is very useful in directing him where chiefly he should look for poison. At other times it happens that the several people affected, suffer in proportion to the quantity taken by each of a particular dish. Too much importance ought not to be attached to the absence of that relation; for it has been already mentioned that habit, idiosyncrasy, and the state of fulness of the stomach at the time, will modify materially the action of poisons. But when present, it will often form strong evidence.—A good illustration of what is now said may be found in the case of Thomas Lenargan, tried in Ireland for the murder of his master, Mr. O’Flaherty. He had for some time carried on an amour with O’Flaherty’s wife; and afterwards, to get rid of the troublesome surveillance of the husband, contrived to despatch him by poison. The crime was not suspected for two years. Among the facts brought out on the trial the most pointed were, that O’Flaherty’s daughter and two servants were affected at the same time with the very same symptoms as himself; that they had partaken of the same dish with him; that the severity of their several complaints was in proportion to the quantity each had taken; and that others of the family, who did not eat it, were not affected.[131]