A. I do not know any medicine that smells like it.
Q. Does the smell described by Lady Boughton, something like bitter almonds, convey to you an idea of that mixture?
A. It does, and I have given the laurel water to many people to smell to, and they always described the smell to be something like bitter almonds. I do not exactly know how they expressed themselves, but they meant to say that.
Q. In your judgment is the quantity that one of these bottles contains of laurel water sufficient to take away life from any human creature?
Q. I have now got your opinion upon the subject, independent of any appearances you observed upon the body of Sir Theodosius Boughton. Now are you from these appearances confirmed, or otherwise, in the opinion you have given?
A. Confirmed in it so far as upon viewing a body so long after the death of the subject one can be allowed to form a judgment upon such appearances.
_Dr. Rattray._ Cross-examined by Mr. Newnham.
Q. If I do not misunderstand you, Doctor, the last account you gave in answer to the question, Whether you are confirmed in this opinion by the appearance; you said Yes, so far as you might be allowed to form an opinion viewing the body so long after the death of the subject?
A. Yes; so far as we may be allowed to form a judgment upon appearances so long after death.
Q. By your putting it in that way, do you, or do you not mean to say that all judgment upon such a subject, in such a case, is unfounded?
A. I cannot say that, because from the analogy between the appearances in that body, and those distinguishable in animals killed by the poison I have just mentioned, I think them so much alike that I am rather confirmed in my opinion with respect to the operation of the draught.
Q. Those bodies were instantaneously opened?
A. Yes, so much so that there was the peristaltick motion of the bowels upon their being pricked.
Q. This was upon the eleventh day after Sir Theodosius’s death?
Q. What was the appearance of the body when you first went to Lawford Hall?
A. At the first time I saw the body, what I did see of it was, the face was in the condition I have described, with a maggot crawling over its surface, it was black as I have described, it was quite in the same state; in short, I saw no difference the last day, excepting that the maggot was not upon it then.