Much light may be thrown upon the inquiry by an attentive examination of the weapons found near the deceased; and some interesting cases are recorded, wherein this circumstance alone led to their developement. In the year 1764, a citizen of Liege was found shot, and his own pistol was discovered lying near him; from which circumstance, together with that of no person having been seen to enter or leave the house of the deceased, it was concluded that he had destroyed himself; but on examining the ball, by which he had been killed, it was found to be too large ever to have entered that pistol; in consequence of which, suspicion fell upon the real murderers. The wadding of the pistol has also in several instances offered the means of affixing the accusation on the guilty. The Lord Chancellor, in a debate in the House of Lords, in November 1820, quoted a very curious case in which the wadding of the pistol was found to correspond with a torn letter in the possession of the murderer.
If the body is found in the water, are there any and what reasons for supposing that it was killed by other means, and subsequently thrown into the water?—This question has upon several occasions been discussed with great eagerness; see the Reports of the Edinburgh Colleges in the case of Sir James Standfield, in our Appendix, p. 225; and also Extracts from the medical evidence in the case of Spencer Cowper, Esq. for the murder of Sarah Stout, ibid. p. 230. We have already, under the consideration of the phenomena of drowning, p. 35, endeavoured to appreciate the true value of the several indications which have been received as physiological evidence upon this subject, such as the presence of water[1] in the stomach and*
- ↑ If in addition to the presence of water in the stomach any weeds be found, the presumption is strengthened that the person had been
