utterance,— he never leaves a point without waiting to see whether it has had the precise effect upon the constitutional tribunal which he intends. The general impression in court was that the opening speech for the prose cution was a great effort of forensic acumen; and the learned counsel for the prisoner was heard to observe that it would tell with deadly if not fatal effect on his client's chances of escape. The first witnesses were two girls, Eliza Masters and Eliza May, who were brought to prove that Mill was in the company of Clover some days before her death. Their testimony, however, was not altogether sat isfactory. Mill had made an appointment to visit them at their lodgings at a certain hour on a certain afternoon. They were on the outlook for him at the time appointed, and swore that they saw him pass beneath their window along with the girl, Matilda Clover. The window, however, was shut; Clover's companion was walking on the in side of the pathway; the glimpse which the girls caught of him was momentary at the best; and Masters at least failed to identify him, when she saw him subsequently with his hat on at Bow Street Police Court. Then came the girl, Lucy Rose, who was servant in the house where Clover lodged. But she, too, refused to identify the prisoner with the man whom Clover had brought home with her on the night of her death. There was clear evidence that this unfortunate girl was poisoned with strychnine, and died from its effects. No trained eye can mistake the symptoms produced by that cruel and deadly drug; and although the ignorant witnesses who saw Clover die were unaware of its presence, their artless description of her death-bed agony enabled the well-known expert to the Home Office, Dr. Thomas Stevenson, to say at once that strychnia, and strychnia alone, was the cause of death. There was no evidence, however, that Mill had administered anything to her; and if the case had stopped here, he would certainly have been entitled to an acquittal.
But with the fatal maladroitness which criminals of his class invariably display, he proceeded to weave the rope of circumstan tial evidence which ultimately hanged him. It was proved — and one could not fail to ob serve in the faces of the jurymen the telling effect of the testimony — that at a time when no living soul had dreamed that the girl Clover had been murdered, much less murdered by strychnine, Mill was writing to Dr. Broadbent, the physician to the Prince of Wales and one of the most hon ored and honorable members of the medical profession, explicitly stating that Clover had been poisoned with strychnine, and threaten ing to accuse him of the murder unless he was prepared to pay handsomely for the blackmailer's silence. It was proved that Mill was in possession of large quantities of strychnine; that he had attempted to ad minister pills to another girl named Loo Harvey of the same class as Matilda Clover, had then circulated a report that she too had fallen a victim to strychnia, and had endeavored to levy fresh blackmail out of the circumstance. Loo Harvey told her story well, and no one present had any doubt that she was speaking the truth. Then it was demonstrated that two other girls in the same unfortunate rank in life, Marsh and Shrivell, had died mysteriously from strychnine poisoning, and that a man whom the police positively identified with Mill had been in their company a short time be fore. Finally, there was found in Mill's pos session memoranda containing the initials of all the murdered girls, and the precise dates when their deaths occurred. This closed the case for the crown. No witnesses were called for the defence; but Mr. Geoghcgan most ably contended that the proof of identity was too defective to entitle the jury to bring in a verdict which would deprive a fellow-creature of his life. Sir Charles Russell replied with the same deadly moderation that he had exhibited in his opening speech; and then the court ad journed for the day, in order to enable Mr.
