unconscious of any whatever. Not only is it stated by her to have been undiscoverable in the room, but there is no one word of her statement, whether on oath or otherwise, relative to the medicine or its presumed effects, that can in the slightest degree affect the value of the remarkable circumstance thus ascertained, that the breath of the dying gave no symptom of the presence of that powerful and strongly-scented poison in the stomach.
The empty bottle (which was dry when examined,) though it bore on its label the words "Hydrocyanic acid," ceases to be a proof of her having taken any, when it is found thus held in her hand; and when other circumstances, ascertained beyond question, and of still greater significance—that especially, of the absence of all effluvia—concur to negative the assumption. The label, although undoubtedly in ordinary cases,
"the title-page
That speaks the nature of a tragic volume,"—
something that too fearfully denotes a foregone conclusion,—tells no conclusive story under circumstances such as these, and would be rejected as evidence by any coroner's jury in this country.
How many thousands of persons have at times kept medicines in bottles, from which the labels of their previous contents had never been removed? Not bottles that had contained Prussic acid, it may be objected! But is it certain that L. E. L. was aware that Hydrocyanic acid meant Prussic acid? We can only say that Mr. Maclean was not. Explaining an apparent discrepancy in his statements—that he never knew his wife to take Prussic acid for spasms, and yet that he had seen her use the medicine in this bottle, and had threatened to
