ic belief in Baltimore that
General Ketchum had been poisoned. The false analysis remained
for months uncontradicted, and backed up as it was by the whole
intellectual and moral force of the University of Maryland, it could
scarcely happen otherwise than that public opinion should become
so set and hardened that no testimony at the trial could affect it,
especially as local pride and local prejudice came to its support
when experts from other cities questioned the work of the Baltimore
physicians.

Mrs. Wharton's servants were first accused, but after a few days she
was arrested, and with her daughter--who has clung throughout to her
faith in her mother's purity and goodness--was thrust into a common
felon's cell, with only the grated bars between her and the lowest of
men in every stage of drunkenness and delirium. After nearly two weeks
her lawyers obtained her removal to one of the better rooms of the
jail, but it was months before anything was said in her favor.

The trial opened on December 4, 1871, at Annapolis, and lasted nearly
two months. The circumstantial evidence certainly went no farther than
to render it probable that if General Ketchum died of poison it was
administered by Mrs. Wharton. The State attempted to prove as a
motive that Mrs. Wharton owed the deceased money. They were signally
unsuccessful in this, however; so that a very intelligent member of
the jury said to the writer since the trial, "Whether Mrs. Wharton
did or did not poison General Ketchum, certainly the State completely
failed to prove a motive." The defence admitted that Mrs. Wharton
had bought tartar emetic near the time of the alleged poisoning,
but proved that she was in the habit of using it externally as a
counter-irritant, and that it was purchased in the most open manner,
through a third party, not with the secresy that marks the steps of
the poisoner.

Thus the whole case centred in a rather remarkable degree upon the
expert testimony, and the very point of it all was the chemical
analysis. This is not the place to follow out in detail the scientific
testimony, but only to point out some peculiarities of it. Almost
all the medical witnesses for the prosecution were colleagues of
Professor Aiken, none of them men of eminence in toxicological
science--surgeons, physiologists, obstetricians, the whole faculty,
trying apparently to hide the nakedness of their colleague. Never
was strong language more justifiable than that of Mr