The law is that if a man deliberately or designedly administers, or
causes to be administered, a fatal poison to procure abortion, whether
the woman be pregnant or not, and she dies of it, the crime is wilful
murder.

"You have been asked to form a bad opinion of this deceased woman, but
she had brought up her children respectably on her slender means, and
there was no evidence that she was a loose woman. It more than
pained me when I heard the learned counsel--_instructed by the
prisoner_--cross-examine that poor little girl, left an orphan by the
death of the mother, with a view to creating an impression that the
poor dead creature was a person of shameless character.

"Again, counsel has commented in unkind terms on the deceased woman,
and said the prisoner _had no motive_ in committing this crime on a
woman whom he valued at half a crown.

"He might not, it is true, care half a crown for her. It is not a
question as to what he valued the woman at; we are not trying that at
all; but it showed there _was_ a motive.

"I have not admitted a statement which the woman made while in her
dying state, because she may not fully have realized her condition.
Probably you will have no doubt that, by whomsoever this fatal dose
was administered, there is only known to medical science one poison
which will produce the symptoms of this woman's dying agonies. One
thing is surprising at this stage--that immediately after death the
door of the house was not locked, and while the body was upon the
bed a paper of no importance was found, and that afterwards several
relatives went in. The object of the cross-examination was to show
that some evil-disposed person had entered the house and placed things
there _without any motive_. But whoever may have gone into that house,
there was one person who _did not go_--one who, above all others, owed
deceased some respect--and that is the prisoner; and unless you can
wipe out the half-crown letter from your mind, you would have expected
a man on those intimate terms with the poor woman to have gone and
made some inquiries concerning her death. He did not go; he was at the
Falcon Hotel at Huntingdon, and a telegram was sent telling him to
fail not to be at the inquest.

"At the inquest he told a deliberate lie, for he swore he had never
written to the woman, or sent her anything, or been on familiar terms
with her. He had written to her, and if his letter did not prove
familiar terms, there wa