The places in which arsenic was found were open and accessible to every one in the house, and no person gave any evidence that he or she had ever seen it in the house before these two women found it after death.
As regards the black powder (arsenic mixed with charcoal) and the two solutions of arsenic produced by Mrs. Briggs and Alice Yapp, Mr. Davies, the analyst, gave evidence that, when analyzing the contents of the various bottles, he had searched diligently and microscopically for any traces, and could find no trace of charcoal having been introduced into any of them. So this circumstantial evidence may be eliminated.
As regards white arsenic, also produced by these women, it must be observed that not only was it not shown that Mrs. Maybrick had purchased any, but it is submitted that the judge _ought to have pointed out to the jury_, as the fact is, that it would have been almost impossible for her or any woman to have obtained any white arsenic at all. No shopkeeper dare sell it to any one except to a medical man, and even then under the stringent restrictions of the Sale of Poison Act.
At the trial a wholesale druggist (Thompson, of Liverpool) gave evidence that James Maybrick constantly visited his cousin, who had been in his employment at his stores, where he could have obtained white arsenic from him without any difficulty; and it will be observed that it was found in his hatbox.
It is a remarkable thing in this connection that, while Edwin Maybrick called the police in on Sunday night, and gave them the black solutions and white solutions which Mrs. Briggs had found on the Sunday morning, he did not give them the black powder which Alice Yapp had found on the-night before; and, in fact, that Michael Maybrick did not give it to the police until Tuesday, the 14th.
It is also a remarkable fact that, although these black solutions and that white solution of arsenic and that solid arsenic which Mrs. Briggs had found, were not handed by the police to the analyst until several days afterward, and were therefore _not known to be arsenic by anybody, yet Mrs. Briggs was able to inform Mrs. Maybrick on Tuesday, the 14th, as was testified to, that these bottles contained arsenic_.