AND TIMES OF JOHN OSBORNE 75 



assured a jockey that his other filly, Staffordshire Nan, 

 could not lose — a trick which provoked from the 

 peppery little artist of the pigskin the remark that 

 'Nothing else might be expected from a damned 

 poisoner/ Rumours of his nefarious practices with 

 strychnine as a means of getting rid of his victims were 

 very rife in the district at the time ; but so detemiined 

 a man, and so popular with the lower orders was 

 Palmer, that no one liked to throw the first stone at 

 him, and this forbearance, no doubt, caused an increase 

 in his victims." 



Now, in his quiet, undemonstrative way, John 

 Osborne tells us that Palmer w^as a " nice, agreeable 

 sort of man to talk to." The preceding outline of the 

 poisoner's career has been excerpted from an old 

 Sporting Magazine issued in '56, the year that Palmer 

 was hung for his crimes. Further, the record states that 

 Palmer's general character among sporting men was 

 that of a good-natured, jolly fellow, and so eager to 

 back his horses that, provided a man would only lay him 

 a big bet, he did not care two straws about the price, 

 and would frequently take 5 to 2 when 4 to 1 was the 

 price. Generally he was of a taciturn disposition. His 

 brandy and water he had the singular habit of drinking 

 at one gulp, and he recommended all his friends to adopt 

 the same plan ; but one of them — whom it w^as strongly 

 suspected would have been his next victim, and who 

 was a celebrated pugilist — flatly refused him to drink 

 it so, adding that he had drunk brandy and water his 

 own way for the last twenty years and was not going 

 to alter it now. After his wife's death from the poison 

 the recreant administered to her, he was always so 

 nervous he could not sleep in a bed by himself, and a 

 well-known turfite generally thereafter occupied a 



