They Hanged My Saintly Billy (65 page)

By
contrast,
Mr
Justice
Cresswell
Cresswell,
who
had
been educated,
like
Mr
Baron
Alderson,
at
the
Charterhouse
and
Cambridge,
comported
himself
with
dignity
and
strict
impartiality.
It was
clear
that,
but
for
his
intervention
at
many
important
points, the
Lord
Chief
Justice
would
have
admitted
illegal
evidence
against Dr
Palmer,
or
excluded
evidence
operating
in
his
favour.
When, on
one
occasion,
Mr
Justice
Cresswell
respectfully
addressed Serjeant
Shee
as
'Brother
Slice',
Mr
Baron
Alderson's
impatient ejaculation:
'O,
bother
Shee!'
was
heard
by
everyone
present.

The
Lord
Chief
Justice
first
showed
his
prejudice
by
allowing the
Attorney-General
to
acquaint
the
jury
with
the
story
of Bate's
life
insurance,
while
omitting
circumstances
which
Samuel Cheshire,
or
Jeremiah
Smith,
or
Dr
Palmer
himself—who,
by
a quirk
of
British
legal
procedure,
must
keep
silent
throughout
the trial,
whatever
falsehoods
might
be
told—could
have
supplied
in extenuation.
Dr
Palmer,
let
it
be
observed,
had
never
been
granted the
privilege
of
stating
his
case
from
any
witness-box,
or
before
any
public
authorities
whatsoever.
Serjeant
Shee
strongly
objected to
this
evidence
about
the
insurance
as
irrelevant,
and
it
was
excluded,
but
too
late
for
the
true
facts
to
appear.
Thus
the
black impression
remained
fixed
in
the
minds
of
the
jurymen:
'Dr Palmer
attempted
to
take
George
Bate's
life;
as
he
had
already taken
those
of
his
own
wife
and,
perhaps,
his
brother.'

Again,
it
is
a
first
principle
of
our
Law
that
noth
ing
which
has been
said
while
a
prisoner
was
absent
may
be
quoted
in
evidence against
him.
Yet
the
Lord
Chief
Justice
allowed
the
Prosecution to
prove
a
talk
between
Mr
Cook
and
Fisher,
held
in
Dr
Palmer's absence
when
the
latter
had
no
means
of
contradicting
Cook's drunken
suspicions
of
the
brandy.
It
seems
that
Mr
Justice
Cress-well
noted
the
impropriety,
because
he
later
interposed
at
this point
in
the
Lord
Chief
Justice's
summing-up
and
prevented
him from
reading
to
the
jury
evidence
which
should
never
have
been given.
Yet
the
passage
had
produced
a
decisive
influence
on
their minds,
and
blinded
them
to
the
fact
that
Cook
later
went
to Rugeley
with
Dr
Palmer,
dined
at
his
house,
constantly
sent
for him,
made
no
mention
of
any
'dosing'
to
Dr
Jones,
his
closest friend
and
his
physician,
and
kept
an
affectionate
faith
in
Dr Palmer
until
death
carried
him
off.

Serjeant
Shee
objected
time
after
time
to
Mr
James's
illegal questions,
but
the
Lord
Chief
Justice
overruled
him
so
constantly that
at
last
he
told
Mr
John
Smith,
Dr
Palmer's
solicitor:
'I
dare not
object
further.'

John
Smith
replied:
'This,
Sir,
is
an
organized
conspiracy
to hang
our
client;
and
so
I
suspected
from
our
correspondence
with the
Crown
solicitors.
You
will
remember
how
we
failed
to
extract a
report
from
them
as
to
Professor
Taylor's
analytic
methods. They
refused
my
demand,
and
were
supported
by
Sir
George Grey
at
the
Home
Office,
who
stated
that
it
was
an
unprecedented one,
and
that
these
matters
would
doubtless
appear
in
cross-examination.
I
answered
that
the
case
was
equally
unprecedented, this
being
the
first
in
which
strychnia
had
been
cited
as
a
means
of murder;
and
respectfully
denied
that
Professor
Taylor's
analyses could
form
a
proper
subject
'of
cross-examination,
unless
they were
duly
recorded
in
writing
and
the
depositions
read
to
the Judges
and
the
jury.
Nevertheless,
Sir
George
brushed
me
off. Yes,
Sir,
Mr
James's
questions
are
inadmissible,
as
every
member of
the
Bar
knows
well;
but
what
remedy
have
we?'

Mrs
Brooks's
testimony
that
she
had
seen
Dr
Palmer
holding
up
a
tumbler
of
water
against
the
gaslight
at
The
Raven
Hotel
was not
unfavourable
to
the
Doctor;
for
she
had
also
deposed
that many
odicr
people
in
Shrewsbury,
whom
Dr
Palmer
could
not possibly
have
dosed,
suffered
from
the
same
sickness
as
Cook. Yet
in
his
summi
ng-up
the
Lord
Chief
Justice
failed
to
remind
the
jury
of
this
important
fact.

When
Herring,
the
commission-agent,
known
on
the
Turf
as 'Mr
Howard',
was
examined,
and
the
Prosecution
wished
him
to reveal
the
contents
of
Cook's
betting-book,
Serjeant
Slice
objected:
'We
cannot
have
dus
given
in
evidence,
my
Lord,
since the
book
is
lost.'