A Scottish Murder, part 1.

 I've been reading a book on the Madeleine Smith story (the title of this blog), and in it the author (Jimmy Powdrell Campbell) makes the interesting claim that she was actually innocent. I have no idea if this is true, but he does make some good points, which I'll post, as I continue to read the book.
 In case anyone isn't familiar with the story, a young Glasgow Victorian socialite has an affair with an older Frenchman (Emile L'Angelier), she jilts him, he threatens to tell her family, and she poisons him with arsenic. That she was guilty is the prevailing consensus, because she did act oddly - the houseboy reported her as wanting arsenic as soon as she got the blackmail letters. She claimed it was for cosmetic purposes, but she did get rather a lot of arsenic in the period Emile was dying, and the claim that she did really use it for cosmetic was disputed in court as being quite unusual.
But...
 In the murder trial, it turned out Emile was an 'arsenic eater', someone who consumed small amounts of arsenic in the belief that this promoted good health. And when Madeleine went to buy arsenic, she would go with a friend, and use her real name in the poisons register (a book that you had to sign if you bought poison), indicating that either a) she was careless, or b) not intending to use it for poison.
I will post more on this as I read more of the book! Because it is fascinating - Glasgow in the Victorian period is an amazing time in the city's history. Glasgow in the 19th century was undergoing massive expansion and refinement as a result of empire, world-class education, and of civic pride. There were protests and disorder, terrible poverty and a feeling that things had to get better. On top of this, there was an absurdly-respectable upper class, effectively living in another world. And when this case happened, the world did pay attention - this repeatedly made the international news when it came to court. The book makes a good effort to describe what's happening beyond the particulars of the case, which fleshes out the world that these real people lived in.