Cook, John Parsons, -1855; Palmer, William, 1824-1856 -- Trials, litigation, etc.; Trials (Murder) -- England -- London
Now, I beg your attention to this letter. On that day, the 16th, Palmer
writes thus to Pratt--“I am obliged to come to Tattersall’s on Monday to
the settling, so that I shall not call and see you before Monday, but a
friend of mine will call and leave you £200 to-morrow, and I will give
you the remainder on Monday.” That is written on the 16th, the day they
dine together at Palmer’s house. Now, you recollect that the person who
ordinarily settled Cook’s accounts in racing transactions was a person
of the name of Fisher, the wine merchant, in Shoe Lane. He was called as
the first witness on this trial. That very day Cook writes to Fisher as
follows:--“It is of very great importance to both Palmer and myself that
a sum of £500 should be paid to a Mr. Pratt, of 5 Queen Street, Mayfair,
to-morrow without fail; £300 has been sent up to-night, and if you would
be kind enough to pay the other £200 to-morrow on the receipt of this,
you will greatly oblige me, and I will give it to you on Monday at
Tattersall’s.” Then there is a postscript which I will read, but make no
comment upon it now--“I am much better.” What is the fair inference from
these two letters? I submit to you that the inference is that at that
date Cook was making himself very useful to Palmer. Pratt was pressing
him for an additional sum of £200 when he had need of all his money, and
Palmer having communicated his difficulty to Mr. Cook, Cook at once
comes forward and writes to his agent to pay that £200. And the letter
shows more--you may have forgotten that letter, but it was read in the
first hour after the speech of my learned friend the Attorney-General;
you may have forgotten it, but I read it to you word for word--the
passage, “£300 has been sent up to-night,” shows that Cook knew all
about it, and probably had an interest in Palmer’s transactions with Mr.
Pratt; it was inserted merely for the purpose of putting a good face
upon it to Mr. Pratt, as a man does who, not having a farthing of the
sum that he wants to pay, will pretend that he has to pay more, in order
to represent that he has got a portion of what he wants to pay, and he
says, “Will you lend me a little more; I am not entirely dependent upon
you for the sum that I have to pay”; or it means that on that day £300,
which had come to their hands in some way or other, was by Cook made
applicable to the convenience of Palmer--one of those things it means;
whichever way you take it, it proves to demonstration that Palmer and
Cook were playing into each other’s hands in respect of that heavy
incumbrance upon Palmer; and that Palmer could rely upon Cook as a fast
friend in any such little difficulty as that; and though his
difficulties sound large when we talk of £11,500, the difficulty of the
day was nothing like that, because in the spendthrift, reckless way in
which they were living, putting on bills from month to month, and paying
what sounds an enormous interest per annum, the actual outlay on the day
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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