II 
Kidd V. Royal Agricultural Society of England. 647 
found they were all ill, so that the potatoes given to the third could not have 
made the fourth and the rest ill — that is very certain. 
Mr. Seymour : The mangolds were given twice. 
Mr. Justice Blackburn : I think not. 
Mr. Field : Gentlemen, my friend is in error, the beasts did not have man- 
\ golds at all. It was only the cow, and I say — with the exception of Mr. Holmes, 
; who attributes the illness of the beasts to the taking of the turnips, which they 
■ never did take — nobody doubts for a inomeat that the eating of the cake was 
the immediate and proximate cause of their illness. The only attempt made 
to dispute it is in this way : a question is raised, whether that cake produced 
the effect itself, or whether it was pure, good cake, and the effects were induced 
■>■ something which had happened bcl'ore in the feeding of the animals. Now, 
u iitlemen, you know we have all along said that which I say to-day ; chemical 
analysis is no test at all of the poisonous or injurious qualities of the thing 
; analysed. All seeds and vegetable matters contain the various things that are 
described in this analysis ; tliey all contain moisture, they all contain oil, they 
! all contain albuminous compounds, mucilage, sugar, digestible fibre, &c., &c.': 
be they good or be they bad, be they health-giving or be they death-giving, 
the chemical analysis will show the various proportions in pretty nearly the 
same figures as they exist in the one case or the other. Now, I beg you to 
recollect that, because it is what Dr. Voelcker said when he gave the analysis 
in his Report ; it is what you have heard from all the witnesses on our side, 
and it is what my friend has not ventiu'cd to contradict, 'i'herefore, you 
i know, all my friend's criticisms, if he is going to administer any, upon the 
I various component parts come to nothing if they do not indicate what the 
( quality of the thing is. The illustration given to you by Dr. Voelcker in that 
\ respect was perfect. " Take castor-oil," he said, " analyse it, and you will find 
' so much oil, so much mucilage, so much albumen, &c., exactly in the same 
I proportions as you will find in good olive-oil ; but besides that the castor-oil 
' contains a property which never yet has been traced, or can be traced, as to 
what it is, tor science has not yet gone so far as to enable chemists to find that 
out ; but that it contains a poisonous property is known in the same way as 
' the poisonous property of this cake is known, namely, by the consequences 
' that follow from the administration of it. You may give beasts the same 
identical proportions of moisture, oil, albumen, occ, in the shape of olive-oil, 
' or castor-oil, and, u priori, before the administration you shall not be able to 
tell one from the other, as far as regards chemical analysis, but the effect is the 
test." " By their fruits shall ye know them ;" and if you find that they do 
■ bring forth, as this stuff did, disease and death immediately after administra- 
tion, can you for a moment hesitate or doubt — unless my friend can show 
you some other ground to rest your verdict upon — that it was the cake which 
' caused the mischief ? 
f Now, let us see how that is. I will take first what had been purchased in ■ 
I the previous October. The cattle had been brought up then for the first time 
from grass, and therefore the change of food from that which they had been 
used to, spoken to by the file of veterinary surgeons whom my friend brought 
from Leeds and the neighbourhood, was the most sudden that you could well 
imagine. They were brought from the grass, tied up in stall, and given 7 lbs., 
0 lbs., and 4i lbs. of cake, according to the difierent modes of feeding the very 
first time they were brought up. Did it harm them ? No. They had their 
potatoes in the morning, and the cows had their mangolds, which we hear so 
much about, and they took it and continued to eat that, day by day, and 
^enjoyed it, and were perfectly well and healthy up to the morning of the IGtli 
of Febraary, when they ate this cake. Now, let us see further what hap])ens. 
1 used the word poisonous. I am sure my friend will not raisiuiderstand 
iiie, or will not suppose that I intend to assert thereby the existence of active 
