648 Kidd v. Royal Agricultural Society of Enyland. 
poisons ia the cake. We do not assert that there is any mineral poison, but 
we do assert that there are narcotics or other vegetable matters arising from 
these seeds ; and when I use the word, I mean the effect produced on the 
animals. Now recollect, first of all, with regard to the number of animals — 
you have 52 individual beasts who suffer at once from the administration of the 
cake. Was it because they had been off their feed for a length of time ? Was 
that the cause of their illness ? No ; those that had been oft' for five days 
only, suffered the most. The cow was one of those that had been oS' its food for 
five days, and it died. Was it position ? They are in two different positions 
one from the other. Was it system of feeding ? The system of feeding is 
different at the different places ; in the one place they have their cake in the 
afternoon, in the other place they have their cake in the morning. Was it age, 
or a structural injmy ? No ; we are able, on account of the loss of the cow, 
to give you, by Professor Simonds, the state of the animal tbat suffered m'ost, 
and he tells you clearly and distinctly — and my learned friend will in vain 
endeavour to get rid of it — that there was no trace of any structural or organic 
disease wliatever, and that all the intimations he found there were intimations 
of blood-poisoning, arising, not from the administration of direct poison to the 
blood, but by the impossibility of the blood getting decarbonized, in conse- 
quence of the impairment of the functions of the nerves of the rumen — it being, 
therefore, directly attributable to the deleterious matter which was found in 
this cake. Is it likely to be so ? Why, Gentlemen, one of the veterinary sur- 
geons who was called on the part of the plaintiff, expressly pointed to the 
deleterious articles as being the cause of the tympanitis or hoven, of which we 
have heard so much. I forget his name, whether it was Mr. Freeman or who 
it was, but you will recollect it by and by, when I call joiw attention to the 
circumstances — he distinctly said, after going into the question of over-dosing 
and gorging and that sort of thing, that articles foreign to food, such as pins 
and needles, and bits of wire, and things of that sort, were the cause in one of 
the cases of hoven that he met with — pointing to the identical thing which is 
suggested here, and I think proving to you in this particular case that our sug- 
gestion is correct. 
Well, then, it is said the class of food was the cause. Is that true ? No : it 
is equally unfounded with the rest. Mr. Holmes placed great reliance on the 
mangolds being the cause, and although my learned friend never asked any of my 
people any fiu'ther question than this, " Were they exposed to wet ? " they told 
him no, that they had been carefully piled and thatched, and then taken into 
the shed, and from thence taken to the beasts. He never asked whether they 
were sprouting, or moist, or growing, in the way that Mr. Holmes suggested; 
and you have no evidence whatever from which to infer such a thing. But 
Avhat does my friend say as to those twentj^-four beasts who had no mangolds 
at all ? If therefore the sprouts and the sugar in the mangolds are to account 
for it, how does he account for those who never had any — the beiists at 
Booth Ferry or the beasts at Airmyn Pastures, which had no mangolds? 
What had they then ? Because, of course, my friend says potatoes^ and turnips 
are just as bad. But what had they ? They are divided into two classes ; at one 
■|ilace, at Booth Ferry, they had a bushel of potatoes or turnips at half-past .seven 
in the morning and they had no cake till two, and the scientific witness called 
by niy friend, wlio had heard all the evidence, and asserted that the feeding 
was the cause of the evil, gave to my Lord four hours as the maximum time 
diu'ing which by possibility the cake could operate on the turnips and the 
potatoes. Half-past seven — say eight o'clock — eight and four \vould be twelve. 
, Gentlemen, they did not have any cake till two, and therefore his theory is 
out of the question. But what will my friend say to the beasts at Ainuyn 
Pastures They had their cake at half-past seven in the morning byjtself, 
and at a ([uartrr to (dght they were down moaning and distressed. What is 
