Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

The clerk to the magistrates took down the story, which the dying woman told with surprising distinctness and coherency. She was then in a state of collapse, her face was pinched and deadly pale, her wrists were pulseless, and her extremities cold. In the intervals of her story she tossed restlessly upon her bed and snatched convulsively at the coverings. Her voice was remarkably clear, and her sentences coherent, or we should certainly have looked for instant death; as it was, we feared it from minute to minute. Every now and then she buried her face in the pillow and groaned to herself, “Oh, I am dying, dying!” or again, “Save me, save me, doctor, if you can, but I know you cannot.” Such sentences she frequently repeated, and was not only conscious of imminent death, but hysterically dreaded its approach. Yet, under such dreadful circumstances as these, the law could not take the deposition unless the young woman would calmly announce her own end! In spite of her frequently repeated interjections it was necessary to have a catechism after this fashion: “Now, young woman, do you know you are going to die?” “Oh no, I don’t know, I must not, cannot die. Oh, no, no! You must save me;” clutching my hand until she forced her fingernails into the flesh. “Now, young woman, pray don’t excite yourself; that does no good, you know. I want to know whether you are aware you are going to die.” More passionate dread and entreaty follow from the poor girl, while the lawyer impassively arranges his papers and renews the inquiry. At the end of each outburst the girl turns her head aside and gasps, “But I know it must be so;” only, this not being a direct reply, the catechism recommences, and so on until the lawyer is wearied and gives it up. How sincerely she believed death to have been at hand was clear enough from her agony next day, when she had rallied somewhat, and had recovered a little hope; she then cursed herself for telling the story which covered her with shame. “Never would she have breathed a word to any one had she not felt certain she was going to die and be forgotten.” And so these important depositions, accusing a notorious midwife who has but too often escaped her desserts, were waste-paper, because a young woman abounding in life and beauty, but not abounding in virtue, is suddenly brought face to face with the grim spectre, and cannot calmly point to his approach! Can anything show more ignorance of human nature, and a blinder adherence to routine?

Comment

Comment

Wikipedia:

In the law of evidence, a dying declaration is testimony that would normally be barred as hearsay but may in common law nonetheless be admitted as evidence in criminal law trials because it constituted the last words of a dying person. The rationale is that someone who is dying or believes death to be imminent would have less incentive to fabricate testimony, and as such, the hearsay statement carries with it some reliability.

Laura Eliza(beth) Thurkill/Thirkill died aged 21 and was interred on 30 December in Beckett Street Cemetery.

Sarah Barrett, the midwife, was acquitted by the jury at the spring assizes (Bradford Observer 1869/03/30). The date I’ve taken – 20 December – is based on that article and Allbutt’s testimony.

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Original

DYING DEPOSITIONS.
LETTER FROM DR. T. CLIFFORD ALLBUTT.
[To the Editor of the Medical Times and Gazette.]
SIR, I am very glad to see you have taken in hand the matter of dying depositions, and have drawn attention to the case of Regina v. Barrett. I have now seen several such depositions made, and I was present during the deposition of Eliza Thurkill when she accused Sarah Barrett of procuring abortion upon her. I was called in by Mr. Joseph Teale and Mr. Heyward to see Thurkill during her fatal illness, and my first visit was at the time of the deposition. Nothing could have seemed to me more unreasonable and more painful than the whole business. The clerk to the magistrates took down the story, which the dying woman told with surprising distinctness and coherency. She was then in a state of collapse, her face was pinched and deadly pale, her wrists were pulseless, and her extremities cold. In the intervals of her story she tossed restlessly upon her bed and snatched convulsively at the coverings. Her voice was remarkably clear, and her sentences coherent, or we should certainly have looked for instant death; as it was, we feared it from minute to minute. Every now and then she buried her face in the pillow and groaned to herself, “Oh, I am dying, dying!” or again, “Save me, save me, Doctor, if you can, but I know you cannot.” Such sentences she frequently repeated, and was not only conscious of imminent death, but hysterically dreaded its approach. Yet, under such dreadful circumstances as these, the law could not take the deposition unless the young woman would calmly announce her own end! In spite of her frequently repeated interjections it was neccessary to have a catechism after this fashion:-“Now, young woman, do you know you are going to die?” “Oh no, I don’t know, I must not, cannot die. Oh, no, no! You must save me;” clutching my hand until she forced her fingernails into the flesh. “Now, young woman, pray don’t excite yourself; that does no good, you know. I want to know whether you are aware you are going to die.” More passionate dread and entreaty follow from the poor girl, while the lawyer impassively arranges his papers and renews the inquiry. At the end of each outburst the girl turns her head aside and gasps-“But I know it must be so;” only, this not being a direct reply, the catechism recommences, and so on until the lawyer is wearied and gives it up. How sincerely she believed death to have been at hand was clear enough from her agony next day, when she had rallied somewhat, and had recovered a little hope; she then cursed herself for telling the story which covered her with shame. “Never would she have breathed a word to any one had she not felt certain she was going to die and be forgotten.” And so these important depositions, accusing a notorious midwife who has but too often escaped her deserts, were waste paper, because a young woman abounding in life and beauty, but not abounding in virtue, is suddenly brought face to face with the grim spectre, and cannot calmly point to his approach! Can anything show more ignorance of human nature, and a blinder adherence to routine? I am, &c.
T. CLIFFORD ALLBUTT.
Leeds, April 12.

576 words.

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• Abortion (4) ·
• Allbutt, Clifford (1836-1925) (22), Dewsbury-born physician (Leeds Infirmary 1861-89), inventor of the clinical thermometer, Regius Professor of Physic at the University of Cambridge 1892-his death ·
• Capital punishment (7) ·
• Death (10) ·
• Dying declaration (1) ·
• Hanging (24) ·
• Hearsay in English law (1) ·
• Joseph Teale (3) ·
• Leeds City Police (6) ·
• 📌Leeds (235) ·
• Midwife (1) ·
• Unsafe abortion (1) ·

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Similar

• 27 April 1924: In a letter to Edmund Gosse, Clifford Allbutt recalls the Brontës
• 14 April 1792: The ballad of Spence Broughton, hung this day at the York Tyburn for robbing the Sheffield and Rotherham mail
• 2 October 1893: Clifford Allbutt, late of Leeds, now a Cambridge professor, explains to Yorkshire College medics why university life is superior to a purely technical education
• 19 October 1909: Opening a nurses’ home in Dewsbury, Clifford Allbutt describes their predecessors in the Leeds fever hospital in the 1860s
• 23 January 1888: Dr Henry Arthur Allbutt of Leeds launches a crowdfunder against being struck off for the affordability of his obstetrics and gynaecology manual for women
• 9 July 1903: Clifford Allbutt, late of Leeds, tells a Bradford sanitary congress to reject the view that (preventive) medicine is antagonistic to the survival of the fittest
• 15 April 1924: Writing to The Lancet, Clifford Allbutt tells how a nursing hack eliminated (typhoid) thromboses in the Leeds fever hospital in the 1860s
• 22 October 1674: Barbara Lee dies and – says her epitaph – is then buried upright under the fireplace of St James’ church, Norton, Sheffield
• 14 January 1867: Clifford Allbutt of the Leeds Infirmary writes to the Medical Times praising his five-minute Celsius pocket clinical thermometer
• 19 October 1808: William Perigo of Bramley finds that Mary Bateman defrauded him in promising to cure his wife Rebecca’s palpitations, and suspects she died of poisoning