strychnia not having been reproduced or discovered affords negative conclusive proof that the death was not produced by strychnia. I have no positive proof on the one hand, but on the other hand my learned friend is in the same predicament--he cannot say that he has negative proof conclusive of the fact of this death not having taken place by strychnia. [Sidenote: Attorney-General] But now is there no other evidence in the case? Do I ask you to come to the conclusion that he administered strychnia to his friend, simply because the symptoms of that friend’s death are reconcilable with no known form of disease which the most enlarged experience or knowledge can supply? No, gentlemen, it does not rest there. Not because those symptoms are precisely those which show themselves in cases of poisoning by strychnia. No, the case does not rest there; I wish it did. But, alas! it does not. I must now draw your serious attention to a part of the case which has not been met, and has not been grappled with. My learned friend said that he would contest the ground with the prosecution foot by foot. Alas! we are upon that ground upon which, as it were, is centred the crisis of this momentous question; and, alas! my learned friend has not grappled with it for an instant. We have here a death of which the dread manifestations bore upon their face the character of strychnia poisoning. Was the prisoner at the bar possessed of that poison? Did he obtain it upon the eve of the death into which we are inquiring? These are matters of fearful moment. They are matters with which it behoved my learned friend, indeed, to have grappled with all the vigour of which he was capable and with all the means that his case afforded. But I grieve to say that this part of the case is left untouched as regards the defence. Did the prisoner at the bar obtain possession of strychnia on the Monday late? Did he get it again upon the Tuesday morning? The fact of his having got it on the Monday night rests, it is true, upon the evidence of an individual whose statement, as I said to you at the outset, and as I repeat now, requires at your hands the most careful and anxious attention before you adopt it easily. Newton tells us that on that night when Mr. Palmer came back from London, he came to him and obtained from him three grains of the poison of which, supposing it had been administered, the symptoms and effect both in life and death would have been precisely the same as those which have been described in Cook’s case. Is Newton speaking the truth, or is he not? It is open to observation--I said so from the beginning, and my learned friend has done no more than reiterate the warning I gave you--it is, I say, open to serious observation, that Newton never made that statement until the day previous to the commencement of the trial. He has explained to you the reasons which induced his silence. His employer had been for a long time upon unpleasant terms with Palmer. The