"2 ashgill; or, the life 



been hung, considered that the rolHng motion of his 

 body and head as he tripped along the corridor to his 

 doom was the " natural language of love of approbation," 

 and that his tripping on the toes with a cat-like motion 

 was the result of a very large secretiveness. Palmer's 

 winnings commenced in " The Dutchman's " year, and 

 Doubt was one of his first racehorses. His dovx'nward 

 career began with the defeat of Hobbie Noble, and it 

 is chronicled that from the Derbv dav his sorrows be^an 

 and his crimes accumulated. 



" Palmer's experience," says an old writer, " as a 

 medical student at St. Bartholomew's gave him a 

 scientific knowledge of the deadly properties of 

 strychnine with which he operated upon the liver 

 of his victims. From his earliest years he evinced 

 a deep passion for the Turf, and with that passion 

 grew a stronger one for gambling. Success 

 smiled upon him so abundantly that in a brief 

 space of time from being a penniless student he rose 

 into a position of affluence, becoming the owner of a 

 Chester Cup winner and a favourite for the Oaks. 

 Sporting men in his own neighbourhood and elsewhere 

 would be proud of the slightest mark of recognition from 

 him, and treasure up a hint as a junior barrister would 

 an expression of encouragement from a Lord Chancellor. 

 Upon his return to Rugeley he scraped sufficient money 

 to buy a colt called Ferry Hill (by Plenipotentiary out 

 of Memphis), which Avon him two races. He won £500 

 over The Flying Dutchman at Liverpool, and following 

 Lord Eglinton's horse up at Doncaster won a stake 

 large enough to purchase a few steeplechasers to amuse 

 himself with in the winter. 



" In 1851 he came out with Doubt, with whom he 

 won the Leamington Stakes at Warwick of the 



