508  ACCIDENTAL  POISONING. 
passing  remark,  viz.  that  experience  would  teach  them  that,  in 
all  cases  of  that  kind,  when  preliminary  inquiries  took  place, 
when  the  matter  was  fresh  in  the  mind  of  the  public,  and  when 
the  public  mind  was  a  good  deal  excited  by  sympathy  for  the 
poor  deceased,  there  was  a  natural  tendency  to  fix  the  blame 
upon  somebody.  And  generally  it  very  often  happened  that 
with  that  natural  tendency  upon  their  minds  to  satisfy  doubts, 
it  was  said  "  Oh  !  it  was  so-and-so's  fault,"  and  that  that  some- 
body was  a  subordinate,  and  that  he  had  to  bear  a  great  portion 
of  the  blame  that  attached  to  his  superior.  It  was  so  in  the 
case  of  theEgham  accident,  and  he  (the  learned  counsel)  could 
not  help  expressing  his  surprise  at  reading  the  remarks  made 
by  the  learned  judge  upon  that  case  in  his  address  to  the  grand 
jury.  He  said  that  in  his  opinion  it  was  not  right  to  throw  the 
blame,  when  accidents  of  that  kind  took  place,  on  persons  in 
an  inferior  position ;  and  that  inferior  persons  employed  upon 
the  railway  ought  not  to  be  made  responsible  for  anything  that 
occurred  in  consequence  of  a  want  of  proper  management  or 
proper  arrangements.  Now  he  could  not  help  drawing  the  at- 
tention of  the  jury  to  those  remarks,  which  were  made  by  a 
very  learned  judge.  In  that  case,  when  the  evidence  was  sifted, 
it  turned  out  that  proper  arrangements  were  not  made,  and  the 
prisoners  arraigned  were  acquitted.  If  the  jury,  in  considering 
the  evidence  in  this  case,  should  find  that  proper  precautions 
were  not  taken  to  separate  the  poisons  from  the  ordinary  drugs ; 
if  they  found  that  even  in  the  state  in  which  they  were  proper 
precautions  were  not  taken  to  mark  the  poisons,  not  only  by 
putting  a  label  upon  them,  but  also  to  make  them  distinguish- 
able to  the  touch  ;  if  they  found  the  prisoner  was  a  well-con- 
ducted, careful  person,  bearing  a  high  character  for  his  position 
in  life,  who  had  always  conducted  his  business  in  a  careful  and 
proper  manner,  and  who  had  conducted  his  business  upon  that 
day  in  the  ordinary  manner,  and  had  taken  the  ordinary  pre- 
cautions— there  was  no  suggestion  that  he  was  drunk,  that  he 
was  careless  ;  there  was  nothing  offered  to  show  that  by  any 
act  of  his  he  was  incapacitated  to  do  his  duty — and  then  if  they 
found  that  in  the  hurry  of  his  business,  and  possibly,  in  the 
gloom  of  the  dark  part  of  the  shop,  at  half-past  five  o'clock  in 
the  evening,  by  a  mere  slip  of  the  hand  he  took  down  the  wrong 
