improbability of its having been committed so strong as not to be overpowered by positive evidence. But, gentlemen, if there be any motive which can be assigned, I am bound to tell you that the adequacy of that motive is of little importance. We know from the experience of criminal Courts that atrocious crimes of this sort have been committed from very slight motives, not merely from malice and revenge, but to gain a small pecuniary advantage and to drive off for a time pressing difficulties. It seems to me, gentlemen, you will have to consider well whether the symptoms of Cook’s death are consistent with a poisoning by strychnia. If they are not, if you believe that death arose from natural causes, the prisoner is at once entitled to a verdict of not guilty at your hands; but if those symptoms are consistent with a poisoning by strychnia, then you will have another and an important question to consider, whether the evidence which has been adduced is sufficient to convince you that it was a death by strychnia, and by strychnia which the prisoner administered. In cases of the sort the evidence has often been divided into medical and moral evidence, the medical being that of the scientific men, and the moral the circumstantial facts which are calculated to prove the truth of the charge against the party accused. Gentlemen, they cannot be finally separated in the minds of the jury, because it is by combination of the two species of evidence that their verdict ought to be found. In this case you will look at the medical evidence to see whether the deceased, in your opinion, did die by strychnia or by natural disease; and you will look at what is called the moral evidence, and consider whether that shows that the prisoner not only had the opportunity, but that he actually availed himself of that opportunity, to administer to the deceased the deadly poison of which he died. Now, gentlemen, with these preliminary observations I will proceed to read over to you the evidence which has been given in this long trial; and I must implore you earnestly that, in any observations I may make upon its effect, you will be guided only by your own judgment. To assist you from time to time I may make observations, but you will not be in the slightest degree influenced by them unless so far as your own judgment concurs in them. The verdict must be yours, and in your hands the life of the prisoner must rest. [His lordship then began with and took the jury through the story of Palmer’s financial transactions; next the evidence of Cook’s illness at Shrewsbury; and then that of Elizabeth Mills and Lavinia Barnes, and of Mr. Jones as to the illness at Rugeley; and passed to the evidence of Newton.] [Sidenote: Lord Campbell]