PALMER, THE MURDERER.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 556, 30 March 1876, Page 3

PALMER, THE MURDERER.

The prospect of punishment naturally leads to the concealment of crime and the avoidance of justice. Therefore, so often as these are manifested, they are evidentiary facts generally having reference to guilt. The case of Palmer is an evidence of the enormous incubus that weighs a prisoner down when he is shown to have tampered with evidence of the crime. It will be remembered that evidence was adduced of his attempting to bribe the coroner by a present of fish and game, and writing to him a confidential letter, to the effect that he had seen it in black and white that no strychnia, prussic acid, or opium had been found by those conducting the chemical examination in London, anl expressing his hope that a verdict would be given on the next day to which the inquest stood adjourned, to the effect that the, death of Cook was due to natural causes. He had previously persuaded the postmaster at Kugeley to betray to him the contents of the scientific report while on its way to the attorney at llugcley employed in the enquiry, The prisoner was also shown to have pushed against the medical men engaged at the post mortem examination, so as to shake a portion of the contents of the stomach into the body. The jar was covered with parchment, tied down and sealed, and placed aside ; and while the attention of the medical men was still engaged in examining the body, the prisoner removed the jar to a distance near a door, not the usual way out of the room ; and it was found that two slits had been cut with a knife through the double skin which formed the covering. Further, the prisoner, having learnt that the jar was to be sent to London the same evening, offered the driver who was to carry the persons in charge of it to the railway station £lO to upset the carriage and break the jar.