I think you will not believe that Newton comes forward for the purpose of making a false representation as to this conversation. What was the conversation? He is sent for by Mr. Palmer to his house, and he is treated with a glass of brandy and water, and when he has a glass of brandy and water they get into general conversation, and then, I think, the prisoner says, “How much strychnia would you give if you wanted to kill a dog?” “Why, I should give from half a grain to a grain.” “Would you expect to find any appearances in the stomach after death?” “No inflammation or erosion, no appearances.” Upon which a sort of half-uttered ejaculation comes from the prisoner. “That is all right,” and a sort of action of the hands. Was that entirely an invention? Was nothing said about a dog? Was nothing said about strychnia? Now, it may have proceeded from two causes, if you believe the conversation. It may have been that the prisoner was in a state of great anxiety when he found the post-mortem examination was to take place, and he was anxious to know whether the views of another medical man confirmed his own with regard to the appearances in the body after death, where death had been occasioned by strychnia. It may have been that he meditated some trickery, some jugglery, that involved the real destruction of a dog, which may have given rise to those questions which were suggested on the part of the defence to one of the witnesses who were called; it may have been that something was in contemplation to destroy or attempt to destroy a dog, to account for the purchase of the strychnia, which he knew was likely to be brought up in evidence against him, and which it would be a difficult matter to explain. Whether any such attempt was afterwards made I know not; I imagined that we were going to have some evidence to that effect, from the questions that were asked, but no such evidence has been afforded--not the slightest as to what purpose this quantity of strychnia has been applied. It has not been found upon the prisoner’s premises. What has become of it? I cannot solve precisely the secret of that conversation. Like many other matters in this case, it remains a mystery; but this I know, I can look at it in no aspect in which it does not reflect light upon the guilt in which this transaction is involved; if you can solve the difficulty, for heaven’s sake do, but I can suggest to you no solution. From that man Newton, then, he got his strychnia on the Monday night, and for that man he sends on the Sunday. With that man he holds a conversation--was it with the view of leading Newton to believe that it was for the purpose of killing a dog he had got it? These are speculations and surmises, into which I do not deem it necessary further to go. It will be for you to say whether you can entertain any doubt upon all these facts, when they are before you, that this death was occasioned by strychnia, and that that strychnia was