POISONING BY CYANIDE OF POTASSIUM. 
43 
lations of the deceased, and Mr. Macdonogh, Q.C., represented the firm in whose esta¬ 
blishment the mistake occurred. 
The first witness called was Mr. Edward Sadlier, clerk to the Messrs. Burke, wine 
merchants, 16, Bachelor’s Walk. He deposed that on Saturday, the 5th of June, the 
deceased gentleman, who had an office in the same house, came there ; on the previous 
day he told witness to send the two empty bottles that were on his desk to Oldham’s, 
to have them filled with the same mixture that had been in them before; witness sent 
the bottles by one of the porters, named Lynham; when witness came to the office 
on Saturday morning he found two bottles papered up, sealed and directed to the de¬ 
ceased ; later in the day he saw the deceased with a bottle in his hand, which he held 
up to the light, and said, “ This is not the same they gave me before; what I got be¬ 
fore was brown; I am sorry I did not show it to Dr. Bourke before he went.” He then 
opened the bottle and put it to his mouth. Witness said to him, “You had better not 
take it, take care.” Soon after he left the room and went into his own, and the de¬ 
ceased went out of the office, and came back in, perhaps, half an hour ; the deceased 
then had a bottle containing a brown fluid in his hand; he said, “ They have given me 
another bottle.” The bottle containing the brown fluid was a different one from that which 
he had at first. Witness then went into his own office, and deceased soon came in, and 
went to the opposite side of the desk at which he was standing, and said, “It is choking 
me ! it is choking me !” He made a peculiar moan, as if his throat was affected. Mr. 
John Burke came in from the store at the moment, and witness said to the deceased, in 
his presence, “ Take care ; have they given you poison ?” He then went into Mr. 
Burke’s office ; Mr. John Burke came running in, and said, “ Run for Dr. Bourke! 
Witness ran to the stores, and sent a vanman for the doctor ; witness went to Butler’s, 
in Sackville Street, and brought one of the gentlemen from that establishment. When 
they came back, the deceased had been brought into a back room, and he found that he 
was dead. 
Dr. W. M. Bourke said he had known the deceased from his childhood, and was his 
medical adviser. On the 25th of May had prescribed for him a strengthening mixture, 
which was prepared at Oldham and Co.’s, in Grafton Street. He had been in a low, 
weak state, and suffered especially from a weak action of the heart. 
Mr. Edward Long, a member of the firm of Hamilton, Oldham, Long, and Company, 
explained the circumstances under which the mistake had occurred. It appeared from 
the evidence of this witness, and that of the porter, George Hudson, that it was the 
practice of the firm, in replenishing bottles from the stores, to have a double check 
against mistakes, by requiring that the empty bottles should be filled in the presence of 
two persons. In this instance, however, the rule had been departed from. The assis¬ 
tant, Mr. Swayne, finding the carbonate-of-ammonia-bottle empty, gave it to George 
Hudson, the porter, to be filled, but did not see it filled. The porter found a stone-jar 
at the top of the stairs, containing a white salt, which he thought was carbonate of 
ammonia, and with this the bottle was filled. The jar had no label to it, and proved to 
contain, not carbonate of ammonia, but cyanide of potassium. This was used by the 
assistant in preparing Mr. Guinness’s medicine, which should have consisted of infusion 
and tincture of bark, cinnamon-water, and carbonate of ammonia, to be taken with 
lemon-juice. The dose taken by the deceased contained twenty grains of cyanide of 
potassium. It was stated that Mr. Swayne, the assistant, was busily engaged in dis¬ 
pensing, and was therefore unable to accompany the porter in filling the empty bottle;, 
also that the bottle into which the cyanide of potassium was put, retained sufficient am- 
moniacal smell to disarm suspicion which would have arisen from the absence of this 
character. On the explanation of these circumstances, Mr. Swayne, who was previously 
in custody, was set at liberty before the conclusion of the inquiry. 
The jury, after a lengthened investigation, returned the following verdict:— 
“We find that Frederick Darley Grattan Guinness accidentally came by his death, on 
Saturday, the 5th day of June, 1869, from a dose of poisonous medicine, compounded by 
mistake at the establishment of Messrs. Hamilton, Oldham, Long, and Company, No. 
107, Grafton Street, and we consider that there was not sufficient circumspection taken 
there for the public security, on which account we strongly urge the necessity of strict 
precaution being observed by the firm, against whom we feel obliged to record our deep 
censure.” 
