A report on the trial and acquital of Mary Hunter, for the alleged murder of her husband by arsenic : with arguments in proof of her innocence, and strictures upon some parts of the medical jurisprudence of this country / by P. H. Holland, surgeon.

  • Holland, P. H. (Philip H.)
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A report on the trial and acquital of Mary Hunter, for the alleged murder of her husband by arsenic : with arguments in proof of her innocence, and strictures upon some parts of the medical jurisprudence of this country / by P. H. Holland, surgeon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    manifested any antipathy to it.” Now it ought to have been in Mr. Wilkins’ instructions, for it was in the depositions taken at the inquest, that one of the witnesses, Caroline Bedford, recollected the prisoner tell- ing her that on seeing the cat kill a rat in her presence, “ it frightened her very bad,—she fainted away through it.” If a false statement made to persuade the druggist to sell her the poison was a presumption of guilt, so this true statement, thus curiously confirmed, was certainly a presumption of her innocence of intention. The other deviations from a correct statement of the evidence will be remarked upon as I proceed. The passages in small capitals are presumptions of innocence rather than of guilt,—for instance, the “ fear that her husband would leave and never see her again,” was not the feeling of one contem- plating his murder. Nor would one who had been so guilty go to the surgeon of all men in the world, to excite his suspicion by asking him so immediately after her husband’s death, for a certificate to enable her to get possession of his property ; to whom she stated, what was probable if not true, that her husband’s relatives intended to prevent her getting possession of his property, a design which she was natu- rally desirous of preventing. I do not see that any good purpose would be attained by troubling my readers with a verbatim detail of the evidence, the imperfect report in the papers occupies nearly six closely printed columns, yet much of what was most important is omitted. I think I shall accomplish my object best by confining my attention almost entirely to those points which tend to illustrate the nature of the fatal illness of the deceased, giving merely a sketch of the other evidence. Alice Belshaw: I accidentally met the prisoner in Ancoats-street, on the 12th of November, about four o’clock, in broad day-light. It was raining, and pri- soner gave me shelter under her umbrella. She asked me to go with her to Dr. Howard’s, the druggist, where she wanted to buy some arsenic to poison twitch- clocks, (black beetles), as she was almost snied away with them. We went to the shop, when she told me to say I lived with her, which was false. The druggist’s boy would not sell her any. There was no attempt at concealment. [This witness said that she looked at the prisoner whom she had never seen before, so that she would know her again, that she thought then that she had some bad design: but Mr. Pollock, by his cross-examination made it quite evident that this suspicion of the witness had entered her mind afterwards, not at the time.] Thomas Woolfenden, apprentice to Mr. Howard, druggist, merely proved that the prisoner and the last witness had asked him for arsenic to kill twitchclocks, which he refused to sell. “ There was no attempt at concealment, it was done quite openly.” Richard Davies.—I am a druggist in Travis-street. I remember where the de- ceased John Hunter lived. His house is about a hundred yards from mine. I have known the prisoner two or three years by her coming occasionally to my shop. I remember the inquest on the deceased. The prisoner came to my shop twelve or fourteen days before, and asked for some arsenic. She did not at that time men- tion any particular quantity. I asked what she wanted with it. She said it was for the purpose of destroying mice. 1 asked her if she did not keep a cat. She
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