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.

Madeleine Smith

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.

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$The Lord Justice-Clerk.—About what age was he ? Wit?iess.—Between twenty-eight and thirty, I think. The Lord Justice-Clerk.—Did he bring recommendations to you, or did you get acquainted with him accidentally ? Witness.—I think I got accidentally acquainted with him in a house in Glasgow, but I do not recollect. The Court adjourned shortly after six o'clock, under an interlo- cutor similar to that pronounced at the close of the first day's sitting. THIED DAY—THURSDAY, July 2, 1857. The Court met at ten o'clock. EVIDENCE FOR THE PROSECUTION CONTINUED. 20. Charles 0'Xeill{A4:), civil engineer and architect, Glasgow, examined by the Solicitor-General.—I was employed by the public authorities to make a plan of the house, No. 7, Blythsvvood Square, which was occu- pied by Mr James Smith, the father of the panel. [Shown plan. No. 189 of Inventory.] This is the plan which I made, and it is an accurate one. The house is at the corner of Blythswood Square and Mains Street, entering from Blythswood Square. It consists of two floors—a street floor and a sunk floor. The lobby, as you go in, runs along the side wall of the house, to the lef't-liand side. There ai'e no rooms to that side. On the right-hand side thei-e is, first, tlie drawing-room, then the dining-room, then a space occupied by the stairs entering from Mains Street to the houses above, but which are no portion of Mr Smith's house. The passage takes a turn a little to the right there, and becomes narrower than the lobby. After it turns, there is a small pantry facing the lobby, and beyond that there are three bed-rooms. Down stairs there is an area door to Blythswood St^uare, and a door at the back of the house, leading into an inner area which opens into a lane. Going in at the front area door, on the left hand there is a small bed-room, and to the right is tiie kitchen. Beyond the bed-room, to the left, there is a closet and wine-cellar. Beyond the kitchen, to the right, there is another bed- room, with two windows looking to iMains Street. That is marked, No. 5, Madeleine's bed-room. The lower sill of these windows is about eighteen inches below the pavement of INIaiiis Street, and there are iron gratings and stanchions over them. Tiie glass of the windows is about six inches from the street, so that a person standing in the street, and putting tlie arm through the railings, can quite ciisily touch the windows; and anything let fall inside tlie railing.-^, would fall on the level of the sill of the window. Anything so let fall could be jiickod up by a person opening the window. Where the passage passes that room, there are stairs, then a [inntry, and beyond that a bed-room, marked on tlie$