that not only in individuals of different species, but between individuals of the same species, the same poison and the same dose will produce effects different in degree, different in duration, and different in power. But, again, it is perfectly notorious that the rapidity with which the poison begins to work depends materially upon the mode of its administration. If it is administered as a fluid, it acts with great rapidity; if it is administered in a solid state, its effects come on more slowly; and if it is administered in some indurated substance, it will act with still greater tardiness; and if that substance is difficult of solution, then the period will be still longer before the substance, having become dissolved, is acted upon by the absorbents and taken up into the system. [Sidenote: Attorney-General] Now, what was the period at which this poison began to act after its administration, assuming it to have been poison for the purpose of argument? It seems, from Mr. Jones’ statement, that the prisoner came and administered these pills; he saw him administer the pills somewhere about eleven o’clock, so that they were not administered upon his first arrival. The patient, as though with an instinctive sense of the peril which impended, strenuously resisted the attempt to make him take them, and no doubt those remonstrances and the endeavour to overcome them occupied some period of time. The pills at last were taken, and, assuming them to have contained strychnia (which I only do now for the purpose of argument), how soon did they begin to operate? Mr. Jones says he went down after this and had his supper, and came back about twelve o’clock. Upon his return to the room, after a word or two of conversation with Cook, he proceeded to undress and go to bed; and he had not been in bed ten minutes before the warning came that another of these paroxysms was about to take place. The maid-servants put it still earlier; they say that about ten minutes before twelve the first alarm was given, which would make the interval little more than three-quarters of an hour from the taking of the pills and the first manifestation of the symptoms. When, therefore, my learned friend’s witnesses tell us that it took an hour and a half or two hours, we have here another of those exaggerated determinations to see the facts only in the way that will make most for the view which they think proper to put forward. I say it certainly was not more than an hour, and I find in some of the experiments that have been made that the duration of time before which the poison began to work has been little less, if any less, than an hour. Mr. Morley, who is as much entitled to your attention as Mr. Nunneley--indeed, when I contrast the way in which the two men gave their evidence, I am paying him but a poor compliment when I say that he is as worthy of attention as Mr. Nunneley--Mr. Morley says in his evidence that five or six minutes, or something less than an hour, is