ACCIDENTAL  POISONING. 
509 
bottle,  and  that,  having  done  so,  there  was  nothing  to  attract 
his  attention  to  it,  he  made  up  the  perscription  in  the  usual  way, 
taking  the  usual  precautions  before  sending  it  out ; — he  hoped, 
if  he  was  able  to  make  that  out,  the  jury  would  exercise  their 
discretion,  and  say  it  was  rather  a  mischance  accident  than  one 
due  to  gross  and  culpable  negligence.    After  carefully  going 
through  the  evidence,  the  learned  counsel  said  that,  supposing 
the  strychnine  had  been  kept  at  Messrs.  Clay  and  Abraham's 
establishment  in  a  crystallized  state,  and  had  been  kept  in  cor- 
rugated bottles,  the  accident  never  would  have  arisen.  There 
was  the  clearest  admission  on  the  part  of  the  prisoner's  su- 
periors that  they  had  not  exercised  proper  precaution,  in  the 
fact  that  since  the  coroner's  jury  had  made  a  presentment  that 
the  drugs  should  be  separated  from  the  poisons,  they  had  been 
placed  in  a  separate  cupboard.    Therefore  the  whole  of  these 
precautions  being  omitted,  the  prisoner  was  not  answerable  for 
that.    He  (Mr.  Liddell)  did  not  ask  the  jury  for  their  sym- 
pathy,— he  scorned  to  ask  for  it  ;  but  he  asked  them  as  honest 
men  and  Englishmen,  when  they  found  that  all  the  precautions 
he  had  alluded  to  had  been  omitted, — if  they  thought  the  acci- 
dent arose  in  consequence  of  it, — he  entreated  them  not  to  visit 
it  upon  the  head  of  the  young  man  who  was  then  at  the  bar. 
The  learned  counsel  called  witnesses  as  to  the  prisoner's  char- 
acter. 
Dr.  Nicholl  said  he  had  always  found  him  an  unusually  care- 
ful dispenser,  in  comparison  with  many  others  he  knew. 
Mr.  Abraham  said  the  prisoner  had  been  two  years  in  his 
employment,  and  during  that  time  he  had  been  one  of  the  most- 
careful,  able,  and  attentive  young  men  he  had  ever  had  in  his 
shop. 
His  Lordship,  in  summing  up,  said  that  if  the  jury  were  of 
opinion  that  the  death  of  the  deceased  was  caused  by  an  acci- 
dent that  might  have  happened  to  any  careful  and  attentive 
man,  it  would  be  their  duty  to  acquit  the  prisoner.  According 
to  the  analysis  of  the  very  scientific  gentleman  (Dr.  Edwards) 
who  has  been  called  before  you,  and  who  gave  his  evidence  with 
a  clearness  and  scientific  precision  which  appeared  to  me  ex- 
tremely deserving  of  praise — if  James's  powder  had  been  present 
it  would  have  been  inevitable  that  antimony  would  have  been 
