THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL
Gentlemen, it seems that as early as the year 1853, Palmer had got into pecuniary difficulties-he began to raise money on bills. In the year 1854, his circumstances became worse, and he was at that time indebted to different persons in a large sum of money. He then had recourse to an expedient which I shall have to bring before you, because it has an important bearing on this case. Gentlemen, let me make a preliminary observation. I must detail to you transactions involving fraud and, what is graver, forgery-circumstances and transactions reflecting the greatest discredit on those connected with them. Yet while I feel it absolutely necessary to bring these circumstances to your notice for the elucidation of the truth, I am anxious that they should not have more than their fair and legitimate effect. You must not allow them to prejudice your minds against the prisoner as regards the real matter of inquiry here today. A man may be guilty of fraud, he may be guilty of forgery; it does not follow that he should be guilty of murder.
Among the bills on which Palmer raised money, in the course of the year 1854, was one for two thousand pounds, which he discounted with Mr Padwick. That bill bore upon it the acceptance of Palmer's mother, Mrs Sarah Palmer. She is a woman of considerable wealth; and her acceptance, being believed to be genuine, was a security on which money would be readily advanced. Palmer forged that acceptance, and got money upon it; which was, if not the first, at least one of the earlier transactions of that nature-for there are a large series of them-in which money was obtained from bills discounted by Palmer, with his mother's acceptances forged upon them. I shall show you, presently, how this practice involved him in a state of such peril and emergency that-as we suggest, but it is for you to form your own conclusions-he had recourse to a desperate expedient in order to avoid the imminent consequences.
By the summer of 1854, he owed a very large sum of money. On the 29th of September his wife died; he had an insurance on her life to the amount of thirteen thousand pounds-and the proceeds of that insurance were realized. Palmer used the thirteen thousand pounds to pay off some of his most pressing liabilities. With regard to a part of these liabilities, he employed as his agent a gentleman named Pratt, a solicitor in London, who is in the habit of discounting bills, and whose name will be largely mixed up with the subsequent transactions I shall detail to you. Mr Pratt received for him a sum of eight thousand pounds, and disposed of it in the payment of various liabilities on bills which were in the hands of his own clients. Mr Wright, a solicitor of Birmingham, who had also advanced money to the prisoner, received five thousand more, and thus thirteen thousand of debt was disposed of; but that still left Palmer with considerable liabilities. Among others, the bill for two thousand pounds, discounted by Mr Padwick, remained unpaid.
This brings us to the close of 1854. Early in 1855, Palmer effected another insurance in his brother Walter's name, Mr Pratt acting as his agent; and that policy for thirteen thousand pounds was immediately assigned to Palmer. Mr Pratt paid the first premium for him, out of a bill which he discounted at the rate of sixty per cent, and afterwards proceeded to discount further bills, the insurance policy being held by him as a collateral security. The bills discounted in the course of 1855 reached a total of £12,500. I find that two, discounted as early as June, 1854, were kept alive by being held over from month to month. In March, 1855, two further bills of two thousand pounds each were discounted; and with the proceeds Palmer bought two race-horses, called Nettle and The Chicken. These bills were renewed in June; they became due on the 28th of September and 2nd of October; were then renewed and became due again on the 1st and 5th of January, 1856. On the 18th of April, 1855, a bill was discounted for two thousand pounds at three months, which became due on the 22nd of July, and was renewed so as to become due on the 27th of October. On the 23rd of July, a bill for two thousand pounds, at three months, was discounted, which became due on the 25th of October. On the 9th of July, a bill for two thousand pounds, at three months, was drawn; renewed on the 12th of October, it became due on the 12th of January, 1856. On the 27th of September, a bill for one thousand pounds was discounted, at three months, the proceeds of which went to pay the renewal on the two March bills of two thousand pounds, due at the close of September, and the bill of the 23rd of July, due on the 12th of October.
Thus, in the month of November, when the Shrewsbury Races took place, the account stood as follows. There were in Mr Pratt's hands a bill due on the 25th of October for two thousand pounds; another due on the 27th of October for two thousand pounds; two bills together making one thousand five hundred pounds, due on the 9th of November; a bill due on the 10th of December for one thousand pounds; one on the first of January for two thousand pounds; one on the 5th of January for two thousand pounds; one on the 18th of January for two thousand pounds: making in the whole £12,500. In July, it seems, Palmer contrived to pay one thousand pounds; thus in the month of November bills amounting to £11,500 remained due, and every one of them bore the forged acceptance of the prisoner's mother! You will therefore understand the pressure which necessarily arose upon him, the pressure of enormous liabilities which he had not a shilling in the world to meet, and a still greater pressure arising from the knowledge that, as soon as his mother should be resorted to for payment, the fact of his having committed these forgeries would at once become manifest and bring on him the penalty that the law exacts.
Now, the deceased Mr Cook had been only partially interested in these transactions. I should mention, before I go into the further history of the case, that Walter Palmer, the brother, died in the month of August, 1855. His life had been insured for thirteen thousand pounds, and the policy had been assigned to the prisoner-who, of course, expected that the proceeds would pay off those liabilities. However, the insurance office in question declined to pay; consequently there was no assistance to be derived from that source.
As I was saying, gentlemen, Mr Cook had been, to a certain extent-but only to a very limited extent-mixed up with the prisoner in these pecuniary transactions. It seems that in the month of May, 1855, Palmer was pressed-by a person named Serjeant, I believe-to pay a sum of five hundred pounds on a bill of transaction. At that time, Palmer had in the hands of Mr Pratt a credit balance of three hundred and ten pounds; and asked him for an advance of one hundred and ninety pounds to make up the five hundred. When Mr Pratt refused this advance, except on security, Palmer offered him the acceptance of Cook, representing Mr Cook to be a man of substance; accordingly, the acceptance of Mr Cook for two hundred pounds was sent up, and on it Mr Pratt advanced the money. This appears to have been the first transaction of the kind in which Mr Cook figured, and though not knowing whether it has any immediate bearing on the subject, I am anxious to lay before you all the circumstances which show the relation between Palmer and Cook. Palmer having failed to provide for that bill of two hundred pounds, when it became due, Mr Cook had to provide for it himself, which he did.
In the August of 1855, a transaction took place to which I must again call your particular attention: Palmer informed Mr Pratt that he must have one thousand pounds more by the next Saturday. Mr Pratt declined to advance the thousand pounds without security; whereupon Palmer offered the security of Mr Cook's acceptance for five hundred pounds, again representing him as a man of substance. But Mr Pratt still declined to advance the money without some more tangible security than Mr Cook's mere acceptance. Now, Palmer explained this as a transaction in which Mr Cook required the money, and since I have no means of ascertaining how the matter stood, I will give him the credit to suppose that it was so, and that he had Mr Cook's acquiescence for the proposals he was making to Mr Pratt. Mr Cook was engaged upon the Turf, sometimes winning, sometimes losing; and purchasing horses. It may perfectly well be that he then required this loan of five hundred pounds, as Palmer declared.
Since, as I said before, Mr Pratt declined to advance the money except upon more available security, Palmer proposed an assignment by Mr Cook of two race-horses-the one called Polestar, the horse that afterwards won at Shrewsbury Races, and the other called Sirius-and, as Mr Pratt agreed, this assignment was executed by Mr Cook, in Mr Pratt's favour, as a collateral security for the loan of five hundred pounds. Now Mr Cook was entitled to as much money as could be realized upon this security; the arrangement being that Mr Pratt should give him a sum of £375 in money and a wine-warrant for £65 which, with discount for three months at £50, and expenses at £10, made up the total sum of five hundred. But Palmer contrived that the £375 cheque and the wine-warrant should be sent to him, and not to Mr Cook; for he wrote, desiring that Mr Pratt should forward them to him at the Post Office, Doncaster, where he would see Mr Cook. He could not, in fact, see Mr Cook there, because Mr Cook did not visit Doncaster; but by these means Palmer got the cheque and the wine-warrant into his own hands. He affixed to the face of the cheque a receipt stamp, and availed himself of the opportunity, now afforded by the law, of striking out the word 'bearer', and writing 'order'. The effect of this was, as you are all no doubt aware, to necessitate the endorsement of Mr Cook upon the back of the cheque; but since Palmer did not intend that these proceeds should find their way into Mr Cook's hands, he accordingly forged the signature 'John Parsons Cook' on the back of that cheque. He then paid the cheque into his banker's at Rugeley: the proceeds were realized, paid by the bankers in London, and went to the credit of Palmer. Mr Cook never received the money, and you will see that at the time of his last illness this bill, which was a bill at three months, in respect of these transactions of September 10th, would be due in the course of ten days; when it would appear that Palmer had forged Mr Cook's endorsement on this cheque and pocketed the proceeds.
Gentlemen, I wish that this were the only transaction in which Mr Cook had been mixed up with the prisoner Palmer; but there is another to which I must refer. In the September of 1855, Palmer's brother having died, but the profits of the insurance not having been realized, he induced a person by the name of Bate to insure his life. Palmer had succeeded in raising money on former insurances and, I have no doubt, pressed or induced Mr Cook to assist him in this transaction; his object was, by representing Bate as a man of wealth, and producing a policy on Bate's life, to get further advances upon this collateral security. I put it no higher, nor do I suppose Mr Cook would have been a party to any other transaction. It seems that, on the 5th of September, Mr Bate, the prisoner, and Mr Cook were together at Rugeley. Mr Bate was a hanger-on of Palmer's, a person who had before been better off in the world, but who had fallen in decay and was now compelled to accept employment from Palmer as a sort of superintendent of his stables. He had run through everything, and had nothing left; though he remained a healthy young man. Palmer proposed to insure his life, and handed him that common form of proposal with which we are all familiar. Mr Bate, however, said: 'No, I do not want to insure my life,' and declined the notion of such a thing. Palmer pressed him, and Mr Cook interposed with: 'You had better do it, Bate; it will be for your benefit; you are quite safe with Palmer.' They pressed him to sign the insurance proposal, which Cook attested and Palmer filled in, for no less a sum than twenty-five thousand pounds. In it Palmer was described as the medical attendant, and his assistant, Thirlby, as the referee and friend who would speak to Bate's habits; and these proposals were sent off, I think, to The Solicitors' and General Office. That office not being disposed to effect the insurance on Bate's life, they sent up another proposal for ten thousand pounds to The Midland Office, on the same life. In each case, further information was required as to Bate's position; but instead of it turning out that he was a gentleman of responsibility and means, it turned out that he was a mere labourer in Palmer's employ. The office was not satisfied, and the thing dropped.
LORD CAMPBELL: Whatever you have stated so far bears on the question the jury are to try. I suppose that this will have the same tendency?
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: If your Lordship trusts me, I will take care not to state anything that is not important.
LORD CAMPBELL: By our law we cannot allow one crime to show the possibility of another, but whatever may bear on the charge to be tried is strictly admissible.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I trust, your Lordship will give me credit for the greatest anxiety not to bring forward anything unimportant. This seems to me a matter which may have a most important bearing by and by.
Gentlemen, the prisoner's attempt failed; and no money could be obtained on the security of that policy. The affair may be important in more ways than one, but it is important in this respect: that it shows the desperate pecuniary straits to which he had by that time been reduced.
Now we go back for a moment to the insurance on the brother's life. I find by the correspondence between Palmer and Mr Pratt, which will be produced to you, that Mr Pratt, having applied to the office at which the insurance on Walter Palmer's life had been effected, experienced difficulty in getting the money, and thereupon began to press Palmer for immediate payment of his bills. These letters are here in my hand; and before reading them, I will state what I shall by and by prove-that Palmer had the Postmaster at Rugeley completely under his influence, and that the letters addressed by Pratt to his mother, Mrs Sarah Palmer, were intercepted in the Post Office and handed over to Palmer himself.
***
The learned Attorney-General then read extracts from certain letters that passed between Mr Pratt and Palmer in September and October, showing the manner in which Mr Pratt was pressing Palmer for the payment of various overdue bills and the interest upon them.
***
Gentlemen, on the 6th of November two writs were issued for four thousand pounds, one against Palmer, the other against his mother. Mr Pratt wrote on the same day, informing Palmer that he had sent these writs to Mr Crabb, but that they would not be served without further direction; he therefore strongly urged Palmer to raise the money, and also to visit him in London and make an arrangement regarding a bill for one thousand five hundred pounds, which would fall due in three days' time. On the 10th of November, the day to which Pratt had said he would delay the service of the writs, Palmer visited London and paid Mr Pratt a sum of three hundred pounds which, with two sums of two hundred and fifty pounds, already paid, made up a total of eight hundred pounds, Mr Pratt deducted two hundred pounds from this, for two months' discount, thus leaving six hundred pounds to the credit of the two-thousand-pound bill falling due on the 25th of October. On the 13th of November, which is a very important day, for it is the one on which Polestar won at Shrewsbury, Mr Pratt writes a letter referring to The Prince of Wales policy, and saying that steps will be taken to enforce its payment by the company.
That, gentlemen, was the state of things in which Palmer was placed on the 13th of November. You will find from this correspondence that Mr Pratt, the agent through whom this bill had been discounted, held at that time twelve thousand five hundred pounds of bills in his hands, minus the six hundred pounds which had been paid off on this, the whole of which bore the forged acceptances of Palmer's mother: acceptances either forged by him or by some one at his desire, and for which, in consequence, Palmer was criminally responsible. You will also find that since The Prince of Wales Office declined to pay the sum for which Walter Palmer's life had been insured, namely thirteen thousand pounds, Mr Pratt, who held that policy as a collateral security, would not have been justified in further renewing these bills. He had therefore issued writs against the mother, which were forthwith to be served in case Palmer could not, at all events, discharge part of his debt.
Now we come to the races at Shrewsbury. Mr Cook was the owner, as you are aware, of a mare called Polestar, which he had entered for the Shrewsbury Handicap. She was very advantageously weighted. The race was run on the 13th of November, the very day on which Mr Pratt's last letter was written, which would reach Palmer on the next day, the 14th. Polestar won the race. Cook was entitled in the first place to the stakes, which amounted to £424, subject to certain deductions, leaving a net sum of £381.19s. to Cook's credit. He had also betted large sums upon the race, partly for himself and, I am told, partly on commission. As a result, his betting-book showed a winning which amounted, together with the stakes, to two thousand and fifty pounds. Cook had also spent the previous week at the Worcester Races, and by the end of the Shrewsbury Meeting had a sum of seven or eight hundred pounds in his pocket, mainly from bets paid there on the course. Other bets, which he was entitled to be paid at Tattersall's, on the ensuing Monday, amounted, as we shall afterwards find, to one thousand and twenty pounds. He would receive the stakes through Messrs Weatherby, the great racing agents in London, with whom he kept an account, as many betting men do.
Now, within a week of that time, Mr Cook died, and the important inquiry of today is how he met his death; whether by natural means, or whether by the hand of man; and, if the latter, by whose hand?
聚合中文网 阅读好时光 www.juhezwn.com
小提示:漏章、缺章、错字过多试试导航栏右上角的源