- —There was not sufficient left so as to ascertain it accurately.
So that that last test would not be so proper as the others?—The tests I used would detect a more minute portion of arsenic, and therefore were more proper for that occasion, as I found that there could not be much arsenic in the fluid, from the appearances produced by these tests.
And that was the reason that you resorted to those tests instead of this last test, which you did not use?—Yes, that was the reason, when I found by the other tests that the arsenic was not in a large quantity.
Had the quantity been larger, how would you have proceeded?—I should have resorted also to the last if there had been a larger quantity.
(By Mr. Justice Abbott.) The portion detected was very small?—Yes, my Lord.
Do I understand you to say that it was so small that you did not think it fit to try the other test, or that of evaporation?—That was my reason. I accounted for the smallness of the quantity of poison in this way—from the frequent throwing up, and the purging, which would carry off large portions.
Suppose the contents of the stomach had been suffered to remain in the jug as you had put them, unmixed with any quantity of fluid, would it have been more easy to perform the experiment, and securing its effect?—There would be the same result, but a difference in regard to the length of time that it would take to evaporate.
After having tried and made use of these tests, would it have been practicable still to have tried the test by evaporation and sublimation?—I did not do it as the quantity of fluid was so small, and I did not conceive that a small quantity would do. If I had evaporated the whole of it in the first place, I might perhaps have detected arsenic in substance; but I had made use of a great quantity in trying the other tests, which I threw away.
That would not have been proper to have tried again, that
