Report of the trial of Madeleine Smith : before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, June 30th to July 9th, 1857, for the alleged poisoning of Pierre Émile l'Angelier / by Alexander Forbes Irvine, advocate.

Smith, Madeleine, 1835-1928.

Date:: 1857

Credit: Report of the trial of Madeleine Smith : before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, June 30th to July 9th, 1857, for the alleged poisoning of Pierre Émile l'Angelier / by Alexander Forbes Irvine, advocate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

303/330 (page 285)

$the matter. L'Angelier goes out apparently as soon as he changed his coat, and makes some arrangements about tea or somethino- else. And it was for the Jury to say whether they doubted that that letter brought L'Angelier into Glasgow on that Sunday night, taking the mail train, and walking to Coatbridge; but here the proof stopped. And, sup])osing the Jury w'ere quite satisfied that the letters did bring him into Glasgow, were they in a condition to say, with satisfaction to their consciences, that as an inevitable and just result from this, they could find it proved that the prisoner and deceased had met that night ? That was the point in the case. That you may have the strongest moral suspicion that they met —that you may believe that he was well able, after all this clandestine correspondence, to obtain the means of an interview, especially as she had complained of his not coming on the Tliursday, said she would wait again to-morrow night, same hour and place, and talked of wishing him to clasp her to his bosom—that you may suppose it likely that, although he failed to keep his ap- pointment on Saturday, she would be waiting on the Sunday, which was by no means an uncommon evening for their a])pointment, —all that may be very true, and probably you will all tliink so, but remember you are trying this case upon evidence that must be satis- factory, complete, and distinct. A Jury, said his Lordship, may safely infer certain facts from correspondence. They may even safely infer that meetings took place wdien they find these meetings either mutually appointed or arranged for by the parties. But it is for you to sa}^ here whether it has been proved that L'Angelier was in the house that night. If you can hold that that link in the chain is supplied by just and satisfactory inference—remember I say just and satisfactory—and it is for you to sa}'^ whether the inference is satisfactory and just, in order to complete the proof— if you really feel that you may have the strongest suspicion that he saw her, for really no one need hesitate to say that, as a matter of moral o])inion, the whole probaljilities of the case are in favour of it—but if that is all the amount that you can derive from the e\idence, the link still remains awanting in the chain, the catastrophe and the allcii-ed cause of it are not found linked toiicther. And therefore you must be satisfied that you can here stand and rely upon the firm foundation, I say, of a just and sound, and, perhaps I may add, inevitable inference. That a Jury is entitled often to draw sucli an inference there is no doubt; and it is just because you Ijelong to that class of men to whom the Lord Advocate referreil—namely, men of common sense, ca])able of exercising your juflgment upon a matter which is laid before you to consider—it is on that very account that you are to put to yourselves the question, Is tliis a satisfactory and just inference? If you find it so, 1 cainiot tell you that you are not at liberty to act upon it, because most of those matters occurring in life nnist (le[)en(l upon circumstantial evidence, and iipon the infer-$