Mr. Whiteside.-I object to that question.

Chief Justice.-I think, Mr. Brewster, that the purpose for which that money was paid must appear by the document.

In his speech for the defence, Mr. Brewster described the case as one of the most rascally that had ever come into court; and the plaintiff as a person who attempted to entrap persons in authority into writing to him, in order that he might afterwards extort money from them by threats of publication of their private letters. In the pursuit of that course, he had written to Lord Palmerston, to Lord John Russell, and even to the Queen herself. A series of letters written by Birch was read, containing alternate threats and prayers for money, and clearly disproving the case of the plaintiff that there was a continuing contract to pay him. He swears that all the sums were paid by Sir William Somerville; yet his account was twice sent in to Lord Clarendon, giving Lord Clarendon credit for the very items of those payments. Lastly, and Mr. Brewster put this lastly because he desired first to show fully how this audacious plaintiff had acted-lastly, Lord Clarendon possesses his release of all claims. To get rid of the man for ever, Lord Clarendon gave him 2000l.; and the plaintiff signed a release of all causes of action, dated the 4th November, 1850-a release of all causes of action against Lord Clarendon," or any other person," from all claims for and in relation to services rendered, or alleged to be rendered, by James Birch.

The Lord Chief Justice summed up.

The jury almost immediately gave a verdict for the defendant, with 6d. costs.

CRIMINAL CAUSES.

CHELMSFORD, March 6.

THE CLAVERING POISONINGS.— Sarah Chesham, 41, widow, was indicted for feloniously administering to Richard Chesham, her husband, a quantity of arsenic, with intent to murder him. This case created great interest on account of the terrible celebrity gained by the prisoner, and the reputation she had of being a professed poisoner. She was tried in 1847 at these assizes upon a charge of poisoning the illegitimate child of Lydia Taylor, but acquitted. In 1848 she was again tried for poisoning two of her children; but although the evidence was most cogent, and left very little doubt of her guilt, she obtained a verdict of acquittal upon that occasion also. She was subsequently implicated in another charge of poisoning, and again escaped justice; and in 1849, a woman named May, who was convicted of poisoning her husband, admitted that she had been instigated by the prisoner to the commission of that crime. In September, 1850, she was taken up on the charge of poisoning her husband (see ANN. REG. for 1850, CHRON., p. 109).

Sarah Chesham deposed that she was the mother of the deceased, and at the time of his death she occupied part of the same cottage with him and the prisoner. I remember my son being very ill in the winter of 1849. He was first taken about that time, and he continued ill until the following May, and he died in that month. in the house with him shortly before his death. He was not able to feed himself for several days before he

I was

died, and the prisoner used to feed him with milk thickened with flour or rice. I saw the prisoner give her husband something on the day before he died, but I do not know what it was. The prisoner did not like anybody but herself to feed him, and she always did so.

By the prisoner.-I did not see anybody else give him anything to eat but you. Some one may have given him a cup of tea, but I know of nothing else.

The deposition of Mr. Willing, who was at the time relieving officer of the union of which Clavering is a portion, and who has since died, was then put in and read. It was to the effect that the prisoner applied to him for an order for the doctor for her husband, and he gave her one, and he subsequently repeatedly visited the deceased at his cottage. He always complained of pain in the chest, of continual vomiting, and also that his body was swollen, that his bowels were constantly out of order, and that he always felt sick. The prisoner told him that the deceased was continually vomiting, and that if he got better for a day or two, he always relapsed again, and became worse than before.

Mr. Hawkes, the medical officer to the Saffron Walden Union, who attended upon the deceased during his illness.-I first saw him about the 11th of February, and he complained of distension of the bowels and violent pain in the abdomen, and sickness, and all these symptoms continued for a period of six weeks, when he was somewhat better. The symptoms intermitted constantly, and sometimes they returned with greater, and sometimes with less violence. The case was of such a nature

that I could not form any satisfactory opinion as to the nature of the disease or its cause. All the symptoms, however, were such as would be the result of the administration of small doses of some irritant poison. The deceased also exhibited symptoms of a disease of the lungs, and they continued until his death. About this time I had talked in the village of the necessity of having a post-mortem examination of the body in case death should ensue, and the prisoner came to me in a very angry manner, and said that she had been given to understand that I intended to cut her husband's body open. I told her I hoped there would be no occasion for it, and that her husband would get well. I had sent medicine to the prisoner and to her son, but none of it contained arsenic or any preparation of arsenic. The symptoms I have mentioned continued until the death of the deceased took place. I made a post-mortem examination of the body, and ascertained that the immediate cause of death was disease of the lungs. afterwards removed the stomach and the intestines and their contents, and they were carefully sealed up and subsequently submitted to Dr. Taylor for analyzation.

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Mr. Thomas Brown, surgeon.—I was present at the post-mortem examination of the deceased on the 20th of May, and assisted Mr. Hawkes in performing the operation and in removing the stomach and the intestines from the body, and I afterwards saw them sealed up and delivered to the coroner. I have had some experience in cases of consumption, and I never saw any symptoms of griping and purging in the early stages of that

disease. I should attribute these symptoms solely to inflammation of the stomach and the coats of the intestines, and if I found them intermittent, and returning with increased violence, I should attribute them to some irritating substance being taken into the stomach either in the food or some other way. I observed symptoms of inflammation in the bowels, such as would be produced by an ardent poison.

Superintendent Clarke. On the 28th May I searched the prisoner's house. The prisoner was at home at the time. I first searched the room in which the family lived, and in a kneading trough that was in it I found a quantity of rice. Before this I had taken possession of some bottles and other things. The prisoner made no objection to my doing so. I found the rice in a bag; and when the prisoner saw me take it up, she said she hoped I was not going to take that away, as it was her father's, and she had used some of it for her husband; and she added, that if I took it away, she hoped I would tell her father of it. I told her not to interfere with me, and I should take away just what I thought proper. Two or three times after this she repeated that she hoped I should not take the rice away. I kept the bag and the rice in my care until the 30th May, and I then delivered it to Dr. Taylor in the same state it was in when I took it from the prisoner's house.

Dr. Taylor, Professor of Chemistry at Guy's Hospital, examined. He deposed that he examined the contents of the bladder handed to him by Mr. Lewis, and applied the usual tests to them, and the result was the discovery of the presence of arsenie. He also said that the intestines presented the appear

The

ances which usually accompanied the exhibition of arsenic. whole quantity of arsenic found by him was about the 25th part of a grain, which he said was insufficient to occasion death. It was possible that the arsenic he found was the remainder of a larger dose that had been administered some days before, and he did not believe that it had been administered very recently before death. The symp toms exhibited by the deceased would, in his opinion, be entirely explained by the administration of small doses of arsenic.

By the Lord Chief Justice.Witness was of opinion that the arsenic must have been administered in small doses, not at all calculated to produce death at once, and when the administration of the poison was relinquished for a time the man got better.

By Mr. Bodkin.-The effect of the continual administration of small doses of arsenie would be to gradually cause the powers of the body to languish, and would thus tend to develop any constitutional malady-such as consumptionthat might be in the system. Witness subsequently examined a quantity of rice that was handed to him by Clarke, the police-officer, and he found that it was all over arsenic, and according to the calculations he had made he was of opinion that in the rice, which was about a pound in quantity, there were about sixteen grains of arsenic. Every grain of rice was covered with a minute portion of the poison, and the whole appeared to have been carefully mixed up together, so that every part of the rice was poisoned, and the interior of the bag containing the rice was likewise covered with arsenic. The poison consisted of the common white arsenic, which

had the appearance of flour. Witness was examined upon the previous trial of the prisoner for poisoning her children, and he upon that occasion in her presence described the nature of arsenic and its mode of action. [From this and other circumstances it appeared that this horrible woman had marked attentively the evidence given on her former trial, and had learned from it a lesson in her fear ful practices.]

Hannah Phillips, the wife of a labouring man at Clavering, proved that she knew the prisoner before her former trial, and remembered her coming home after it was over. Witness was passing by her cottage some time afterwards, when she called her in, and began talking to her about her children being poisoned, and she said that she did not poison them, but that some one else had done so. She mentioned the name of the person, and said that he had given the children a halfpenny a piece to take what he gave them. The prisoner then mentioned arsenic, and witness told her that she must not talk to her about arsenic, for she did not know what it was, and the prisoner then said there was very little difference between the look of arsenic and a little flour. She also said that the arsenic she had had before she was sent to Chelmsford for trial she had hid under a stump of a tree in a lane at Clavering, and when she came back she took it again, and she said that was the poison she had intended to poison the woman with, but had not the opportunity, and that she poisoned the child first. She mentioned the name of the woman whom she meant to poison. The prisoner did not tell her all this at one time,

but upon several different occasions. Another time the prisoner told her that she had bought some liver and lights and made a mince pie of them for her husband, and she advised witness to make one too, and said that if she did not know how to "season" it, if she brought it to her she would season it for her, and she added that it would be no more harm to kill such a man as her own or witness's husband than it would be to kill a mouse. Witness had had a quarrel with her husband a short time before, and had told the prisoner of it, and she said that her husband would not dare to hit her, and if ever he did so, she would put him under the bricks. On the Tuesday after the death of the deceased the prisoner came to her, and said that her mother-in-law had heard what she had been saying about the poison, and she asked witness not to say any more about it; and she added that her trouble was great. Shortly after this request the prisoner came to her, and thanked her for what she had said before the coroner, and began to abuse her; she replied that she had not said so much but what she could say a good deal more; and she then called the prisoner Sally Arsenic, and told her that she might have had her husband alive as well as other people, if she had treated him properly.

Caroline Cole, a neighbour of the prisoner, deposed that, while the deceased was ill, she had some conversation with the prisoner upon the state of her husband's illness. The prisoner afterwards said, "If I have poisoned my children, I have not poisoned my husband;" and she then began to abuse the witness Hannah Phillips, and said

that if she had an opportunity, she should like to season a pie for her, and make her a "croaker."

The prisoner, when called upon for her defence, made a long rambling statement, in the course of which she asserted that she was innocent, and declared that if her husband had been poisoned, the poison must have been taken in some of the things which people were continually sending to him while he was ill.

The jury almost immediately returned a verdict of "Guilty;" and the learned Judge passed sentence of death.

The prisoner did not betray the least emotion during the learned Judge's address; and, when he had concluded, she walked with a firm step from the dock.

She was executed on the 25th of March, with Thomas Drory, convicted of the murder of Jael Denny; but, unlike that criminal, remained hardened and impenitent to the last.

Jael Denny, was the daughter of Louisa Denny, who had subsequently married one Thomas Last. She was a young woman of remarkable appearance, much exceeding the common height, good looking, and of fine figure, about 21 years of age. At the time of her murder she was living with her step-father and her mother at Doddinghurst. Thomas Last and his family had been living as farm servants at the "off-hand " farm of Mr. Drory, senior; the prisoner living in the same house, and managing the farm for his father. A short time after the family went to live at this farm the deceased went into service, but seems to have remained but a short time in any situation. On most occasions she returned to her parents at the farm; sometimes, however, she lodged elsewhere. On these occasions she employed herself in needlework and stay-making, her parents assisting her when these were insufficient.

It was stated that she always conducted herself quietly and respectably-conduct, however, which did not seem to strike the witnesses as being incompatible with her receiving the frequent visits of the prisoner and of another young man. In fact, while residing at the farm, an improper intimacy had taken place between her and Thomas Drory, which had been continued for eighteen months, and she was now more than eight months gone with child by him. Thomas Last had left the farmhouse in September, and was living with his wife and family in a cottage at Doddinghurst. The poor girl's intimacy with the prisoner seems to have continued. The circumstances immediately pre