Let me call your attention to this part of the evidence. You are aware that in the months of February (the last week of February) and March a very frightful case of strychnia poisoning occurred at Leeds. It was a case in which a person, having constant access to the bedside of the patient, was supposed to have administered repeated small doses of strychnia so as not at once to strike her down, but gradually to destroy her; and that after having kept her in a state of irritation for a lengthened period, he at last consummated the work and killed her. That was the case. It appeared in all the newspapers. The nurse who attended the patient and the medical gentlemen spoke of symptoms which she exhibited from the 24th or 25th February to the 1st of March, and they described it in this way--She had “prickings” and “twitchings” in the legs, coming on without any violent paroxysms or spasms, and was alarmed at the thought even of being touched by anybody in the intervals of the spasms which occurred from time to time. Now, let me call your attention to the evidence before you of Elizabeth Mills. She says, “He said, ‘I cannot lie down’; his body and neck were moving and jerking; he would throw himself up, jumping and jerking all over his body all the time; he asked me to rub his hands; I noticed him to ‘twitch’ while I was rubbing his hands.” (The learned serjeant read a portion of the evidence.) Now, I submit to you that some of these expressions, particularly the twitching, are very remarkable; and it may well have been that, this case coming before the public and exciting no little degree of attention, although not to the same extent as this Rugeley case, persons who had been in the habit of going to see her and conversing with her may have been asking her questions about this case, of which she admitted she had heard, “Did you observe in Cook any such symptoms as these?” her attention being called to them in such a way as to induce her to alter the statement made by her at the inquest. You cannot, indeed, account, as I submit to you, for so remarkable a difference between the first and second statements, without supposing something of that kind. Now, is it improbable that that did take place? From the time she left the Talbot Arms till she came here she seems to have been a person of very remarkable importance. She went to Dolly’s, and Mr. Stevens visited her six or seven times. Why did he visit here? What for? Mr. Stevens is unquestionably--and if under proper self-restraint, no one can blame him for it--very indignant at what he fears to have been the foul play of Palmer with Cook. He is not in the same condition of life as Elizabeth Mills. Why should he have gone to visit her six or seven times, conversing with her in a private room? She says, “He only came to see whether I liked the place; he called to inquire after my health.” Gardner also, his attorney, saw her once, but only asked her how she was, and they talked about other things.