The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-04-13 00:00:00

POISONING AT WOOLWICH.

Mtich-excitement prevailed in Wool wleliOn Tlfuriday;
and the Police court was crowded, in consequence
of a report that one of the arillerymen was to be
brought up on a charge of having admitiisered poison to
a girl named Ellen Smith. A little after four o'clock,
George Heatherley, aged thirty two, a gunner and driver
in the Royal Artillery Barracks.- was placed at the bar
before Mr, Trail, charged on suspicion of administering
poison in some beer to a girl of the town named Ellen
-Stn; Os. Ellen Malloes deposed that she wee ati nnfortnnata
girl, and that last Sunday fortnight she was in companywith
Smith and the prisoner at the Alma beerhouse. The tao
appeared as if they were quarrelling: Thl talked about
poisoning; prisoner said he had put many .a brighter girl
than !for under the turf; and said, he could put it in at
orange or a cake. He did not appear much in liquor, but
he had been drinking. She did not -see him give her
anything; since then (on last Tuesday week) she became
ill. On the &sr before Bmith was taken ill, prisoner and
the x.l were both in the same room together. R. D.
Walker, M.D., said he was called in last Monday to attend
Ellen Smith. He found her in ti very lOw state. It
was named to him that poison had been adminis-
terqd to her, and she Was labouring under symptoms
of having taken poison. She had a tingling of the skin,
or itching, and vomited, and now remained in the same
state. He thought it would be important to take the
girl's evidence, as he considered her life in danger; she
was fast sinking. His Worship, having disposed of the
other remaining cases, adjourned to tha residence of the
girl, accompanied by the medical gentlemen, the clerk of
the court, a reporter, two or three officials, and the
prisoner, who was placed at the b atom of the bed. The
woman appeared in an emaciated and exhausted state,
and immediately upon catching si4ht of the prisoner, she
caled cut loudly, plining, "Tha,.'a the young man."
As soon as her excitement was over she said her name was
Mura Bassam, and that she was married. Upon being
asked her husband's name, she became so visibly affected
that no answer could be got from her. After a time
she said that she knew the prisoner well ; , she had
seen him in the London Hospital in the Mile end road,
four years and a half ago. She bad met him at
the Alma beer house sevetal times. They were
there one night when Eliza Mal:oes was there, and
had some words last Sunday for tnighE. He
was in liquor. I s lid to him "Be quiet, or I
shall say things you don't like to hear. He said, I'll
cook your goose before another week;'' he said he would
knock my brains out. He asked me to drink out of his
pot, which I did; and the next night after that I saw him put
something into a pot of ale down stairs. That was the Monday
night. I drank some of it, and so did he. Here the witness
became confused and exhausted. She afterwards said she did not
know there was anything in the ale ; she said she afterwards
found bad effects from taking it on Thursday week, bat did
not know the cause. At this point she evidently became un-
conscious, and apparently swooned 'away. The magis-
trate found that there was no coherence in her answers,
and that she now became perfectly insensible. Some
stimulant was administered, bu' she did not revive. The
doctor gave his opinion that she :was getting from bad 'o,
worse. As the examination could not be continued, the
prisoner was taken back to the court and remanded till
Saturday, to wait the issue of the 'Woman's illness. OA
leaving the house it was asserted by some person present
that the prisoner and the victim were man and wife.