children, one of whom died that year and another in 1879, leaving
two daughters and a poor cripple boy of eighteen. He was partially
paralyzed, and had a malformation of the spine, so that he was
an object of great commiseration. He was of a kind and cheerful
disposition, and, excepting his spinal affliction, in good health. He
seems to have been loved by everybody. His playmates wheeled him about
in his chair so that he might enjoy their pastimes, and even carried
him up and down stairs. One of this boy's sisters married a Mr.
Chapman; the other married a man who was a doctor, or passed as one,
of the name of Lamson. He was a man of idle habits, luxurious tastes,
and a wicked heart. He was in debt, had fraudulently drawn cheques
when he had nothing at the bank to meet them, and was so reduced
to poverty that he had pawned his watch and his case of surgical
instruments.

By the death of the brother in 1879, the two sisters received each
a sum of L800. This boy, Percy, received the like amount, and if he
should live to come of age would have a further sum of L3,000; but if
he died before that period, one-half would go to Mrs. Chapman and the
other half to Mrs. Lamson, the doctor's wife.

Lamson had bought a medical practice at Bournemouth in 1880, but very
soon after writs and executions were issued against him.

For three years before Percy's death he had been at school at Blenheim
House, Wimbledon.

It appeared from his statement while dying that he felt just "the same
as I did once before, when I was at Shanklin with my brother-in-law,"
the doctor, "after he had given me a quinine pill." "My throat is
burning, and my skin feels all drawn up." This pill, however, did not
kill him, but it showed, as subsequent events proved, the murderous
design of Dr. Lamson.

On December 3 the boy, being still at school and in good health, was
amusing himself with his schoolfellows when his brother-in-law, the
prisoner, called. Percy was taken into the room to see him. "Well,
Percy, old boy," said the doctor, "how fat you are looking!" The
doctor sat down, and Percy was seated near him. The visitor then took
out of a little bag a Dundee cake and some sweets, and cut a small
slice of the cake with his penknife. About fifteen minutes afterwards
he said to Mr. Bedbury, the master, "I did not forget you and your
boys: these capsules will be nice for them to take nauseous medicines
in;" and he took several boxes of capsules from th