does not venture to breathe even a suggestion of anything of the kind. I ask, gentlemen, what conclusion can we draw from these things, except one, and one alone? Death, with all the symptoms of strychnia--death in all the convulsive agonies and throes which that fatal poison produces in the frame of man--death with all the appearances which follow upon death, and mark how that death has come to pass--all these things, in the minds of those who can discuss and consider them with calm, dispassionate attention, who do not mix themselves up as advocates, partisans, or witnesses, leading to but one conclusion; and then the fact of the strychnia being purchased by the prisoner on the morning of the fatal day, if not obtained by him, as was sworn to, on the night before, is left wholly uncovered and wholly unmet, without the shadow of a defence. Alas! gentlemen, is it possible that we can come to any other than one painful and dread conclusion? I protest I can suggest to you none. It is said by my learned friend, “Is it likely that Mr. Palmer should have purchased strychnia at Rugeley when he might have got it in London?” I admit the fact. I feel the force of the observation. If he could have shown that he had done anything with this strychnia--if he could have shown any legitimate purpose to which it was intended to be applied, and to which it was afterwards applied--then I should say that it would be an argument worthy of your gravest and most attentive consideration. But just see on the one hand how the fact may stand. He was in town on the Monday, and he had the opportunity, as my learned friend suggests, of purchasing strychnia there. But on the other hand he had much to do; he had his train to catch by a certain time; he had in the meanwhile his pecuniary embarrassments to solve if he could. Time may have flown too fast for him to be able to go and obtain this strychnia; and even if he had had time, I do not believe it is sold in chemists’ shops in London without the name of the party purchasing it as a voucher. If he had given his name, of course, it would have been still worse if he had bought strychnia in London than if he had bought it in Rugeley. I do not say that it is not worthy of your consideration, that it is not a difficulty in the case; but I say there is plain, distinct, positive proof of the purchase of strychnia, and under circumstances which cannot fail to lead to the conclusion that he shrank from the observation of Newton at the time he was buying it; and there is a total absence of all proof, nay, of all suggestion, of any legitimate purpose to which that fatal poison was to be, or was in point of fact, afterwards actually applied. [Sidenote: Attorney-General]