the cat, her anxiety to prevent her mother from eating the food prepared for her father, or using the vessel for drink which he had used, and her charge upon her neighbors of having given her poisoned milk, were facts tending strongly to implicate her as the criminal; and, notwithstanding her sex, and her relationship, if instead of the usual feeling of a child towards a parent, instead of the tender affection of a daughter, or even the usual kindliness, of a female, the jury should see exhibited in her a life of violence, a breast of passion, and a heart of malice, they would naturally expect from her that deed of worse than blood, which a female fury, whose love was turned to hatred, would be the first to commit. He conceded that the corpus delicti must be incontrovertibly proved; but, he contended, that when the death was proved, and there was evidence tending strongly to show that it was caused by poison, her conduct, her threats, her purchase of the corrosive sublimate, and all the facts tending to show her guilt, were also evidence bearing upon and strengthening the evidence that he died by poison. Unless this were so, many cases might be supposed, where a murderer could escape, and he referred to the case of Dr. Webster, and other cases, as sustaining his views. On the subject of her insanity, he said, he had little to say. The books speak of it as a defence, in cases of poisoning, almost as an impossible defence, inasmuch as it requires that deliberation, contrivance, and that knowledge of the distinctions between right and wrong, which are at war with the idea of a moral and legal unaccountability. In the case on trial, the evidence was peculiarly strong against that defence. Her appearance before the jury, the coolness and skill of her cross-examination of witnesses, all tended to corroborate the testimony of the witnesses, and to show that she had not only the unshrinking hand and the determined will, but also the diabolical skill to perform the deed, with as judicious regard to the means of concealment, as was ever exhibited by a person of the clearest

reason.

It would not become him, in the face of the medical evidence, to claim that she had not been subject, at times, to mental hallucinations; but how far it was insanity, in the proper sense of that term, which is a legal excuse for crime, or that other state of mind, which has been honored, improperly as he thought, with the name of moral in

sanity, was worthy of consideration. The jury ought to place great reliance upon the medical testimony. He respected those witnesses, as men of candor and talent. He appreciated the progress of modern science, though he had no great respect for that science which led a witness to doubt that potions of a most acrid poison, administered in chronic doses, producing a most excessive salivation of an old man of eighty-three years, and preventing him from the use of solid food, and his accustomed sleep, for the space of fourteen days, was the cause of, or had contributed to his death. The jury would remark upon the cautious testimony of Dr. Bell, as to the connection between the hallucinations of the defendant, and the crime. In order to acquit, the disease must have been upon her at the time of the act; and more than that, there must be the proof that the act was the result of the hallucination. The physicians do not point out the connection between the disease and the act. They see that she regarded him as one of her enemies, but they do not see any evidence of an apprehension of danger, or any delusion which would. naturally lead to the act. The case was with the jury. The government did not wish an unauthorized conviction; but if she had, in fact, committed this act, the improvements of modern science did not require that she should be turned loose upon the community.

The prisoner had listened with profound attention to the remarks of counsel on both sides, only once attempting to interrupt the District Attorney, who with his accustomed bonhomie, said, "Wait a little, Adeline, and you shall have your chance presently." Upon this assurance she remained quiet. She had taken occasion during the trial to approve the gentlemanly course of the government in abstaining, as she said, from "trying to make her out insane," and had taken her own counsel to task for not imitating the government in that respect. After the closing argument for the prosecution, being asked whether she had any thing to say before the case should be given to the jury, she made an address, of which a brief abstract is annexed, taken from one of the newspapers which reported the trial. It is to be regretted that a verbatim report was not made of this very remarkable address. It was delivered with great self-possession, with a clear and agreeable voice, the speaker obviously giving a part of it from memory, and other parts extempore. Some of the phrases

were apparently from books; as, for instance, when she informed the jury that "the daughter of the deceased gentleman was now before them on trial. At another time, when about to comment on a particular fact, she checked herself, and inquired of her counsel, "Was evidence of that fact allowed to be given?" The counsel said that it had been ruled out. "Then," said the prisoner, "I have nothing to say on that point, as I have no right to comment on evidence not before the jury." It was observed that she did not put her defence on the ground of innocence, but rather on the insufficiency of the evidence to show her guilt. It is safe to say, that the prevailing sentiment among all who heard her, was astonishment at the self-possession, the clearness, and the logical force with which her arguments were put, and the facility with which her thoughts seemed to clothe themselves in appropriate language. It is believed that she received no assistance whatever in the preparation of her address, other than what she might have derived from general conversations as to her case, and from a book of criminal trials, including the Donellan and the Chapman trials, which while in prison she had studied with great care.

The following abstract of her remarks is taken from the Springfield Republican.

"May it please your Honors, and Gentlemen of the Jury:

The prisoner at the bar is before you to be tried for her life. She is charged with the crime of murder, and it is for you to determine whether or not she is guilty. What constitutes this crime? (Here the prisoner laid down the law of murder very correctly, defining it as the killing with malice aforethought, and illustrating her position by examples, and then proceeded.) The fact that the crime has been committed must be established beyond a doubt. If the prisoner had opportunities to commit the crime, this is nothing. If she had motives, it is of no consequence. It is the right and duty of the government to prove that the crime has been committed beyond a doubt. So long as there is a doubt, there is no moral certainty.

The most important evidence of poison is by chemical analysis. Has the government produced even the result of a post mortem examination? Where life is depending, we ought to have the opinions of distinguished medical men. We have brought some, and if they had been pressed they

would all have agreed with Dr. Deane. And I would say here to the District Attorney who has spoken of Dr. Deane as disposed to favor me, being my physician, that Dr. Hovey is my physician, and not Dr. Deane.

Look to the great authorities in medical science - Orfila, Berzelius, and others. They have declared that there was no such thing as discovering poison without analysis. No poison produces symptoms which may not be caused by natural causes.

The government relies upon two physicians whose practice is limited to a town, and one of whom has varied his evidence, and has said upon this trial that the symptons might have been caused by tobacco, bad spirits or bad cider. I think the prisoner was wronged in not having a post mortem examination. If the body had been examined, traces of poison would have been discovered in the body or the food. If poison was found in the food of the stomach, they could not charge it upon the prisoner, who was ten miles off in jail.

The doctors depose that the poison was given in small doses. Now the question is, whether it was given before or after the prisoner was in jail. The physicians have not given their opinion whether any of the poison was given after the prisoner was in jail. This is highly important for me. Suppose you lived in a family, and the folks conspired against you, and charged you with giving a man poison, and you are lodged in jail, and after the man is dead they take care of the body. You can do nothing. After commenting on the testimony and character of Mr. Darling, she continued: The first question is, did the deceased die by poison? Where is the proof? He died ten days after his daughter was lodged in jail. The justice who made the complaint was coroner. His associate justice lived within 200 rods. The body was taken in a clandestine way and buried before people knew he was dead. There was a tomb to deposit bodies in in cold weather. Why was the ground broken for that body? As soon as I heard of it, I sent for my counsel. He came to see me, and left immediately for Washington, and I was left in the gloomy walls of a prison. I knew if the body was examined, I should be found innocent, and if any one else had given him poison, it would be found. I call upon the selectmen to have the body examined.

You nor I do not know of what that man died. The

body lies within ten miles of us, and that would tell whether poison was administered after I was put in jail. Where could we find two physicians who would take the responsibility of cutting the thread of life unless influenced by revenge or hate?

The prisoner here, by way of contrast, related the course. pursued by Orfila, Dr. Hunter, the greatest physician of Europe, and other eminent physicians, when called into court. After arguing that there was no satisfactory evidence that a murder had been committed, that the deceased was an old man and had the frailties of old people, and might have died of natural causes, she continued: The government relies upon certain circumstances which were recounted by the prosecuting attorney in his opening address with gross exaggeration and signal ability. We are here to consider the credibility of the witnesses. I need not argue how little confidence is to be placed in those witnesses. They all come from a bad neighborhood.

Here prisoner demanded of her counsel why witnesses had not been called to show the bad character of the neighborhood. She asked if the doctors, the justices, and the neighborhood might not have it in mind to destroy that woman, and then came down upon the neighborhood with a long bloody-bones story. She thought her brother and Darling might have conspired against her, because she had turned one of them out of doors, and threatened to prosecute both.

After recapitulating the questions involved in the case, and making some remarks upon the danger of wrong convictions, she seemed some what exhausted; and after a little conversation with her counsel, sat down.

She spoke nearly forty minutes, rather fast, and in quite an oratorical style."

His Honor, Judge DEWEY, gave the case to the jury with an analysis of the evidence as it bore on the causes of death, and some suggestions as to the weight to be given to medical opinions both as to the death and the alleged insanity.

The jury went out in the evening, and at the coming in of the court on the next morning, had not agreed. The court reinstructed them, at their request, on the inferences which they would have a right to draw from some portions of the evidence. They again retired, and shortly came