AS SAINTLY DOES
THEY HANGED MY SAINTLY BILLY, by | Robert Graves; Cassell, English price 21/-. ) HE subject of this biography, Dr William Palmer, was hanged in 1856 -publicly, of course. His trial for the murder by poison of a boon companion was disfigured by the prejudice against him of the Lord Chief Justice and by the weakness and inconsistency of the Crown’s medical evidence. In fact, Palmer had a grossly unfair trial; it is not a happy page in the annals of British justice. But that does not in itself make him innocent; as Graves seems to contend. Robert Graves has written a very skilful pastiche of the style of mid(continued on next page)
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(continued from previous page) Victorian journalism. His account of the life of this indefatigably lecherous young doctor who abandoned medicine for the delights of racehorse-owning and spending money is told with zest and in gratifying detail. It is a little reminiscent of Frith’s Derby Day, a crowded canvas, every bit of it attractive, but the whole effect perhaps a trifle busy and distracting. Palmer was about as saintly as Nero, except that he remained on good terms with his disreputable mother: it is her words which make the ironic title. Palmer had already defrauded an insurance company of £13,000 by insuring the life of a drunken brother and then finishing him off in short time with the most readily available of all poisons, alcohol-to give his actions the most innocent interpretation. He had a strong motive for destroying his friend, Cook (for whose murder he was hanged), as
he had just defrauded him of considerable sums. But the source of the prejudice against him which invaded even the highest judicial circles was his conduct on the racecourse: he thought nothing of poisoning the horses of rival owners. Wasn’t that reason enough to hang the pestilential fellow?
David
Hall
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 942, 30 August 1957, Page 17
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313AS SAINTLY DOES New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 942, 30 August 1957, Page 17
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