The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-13 00:00:00

:Ml3 ER.

IBER

RACING FIXTU:

Egham
Dover
Oxford .. 18
Yarmouth
York August 2:.2

SEPTE:

Weymouth 1
Baden-Baden
Warwick September 6
Bridgwater 8
Leicester 8
Doncaster

OCT

Bedford
Edinburgh and Lothians _

UST.

Brecon l9
Richmond
Royal Caledonian Hunt 21
Monmouth 22
Manchester Autumn
NewmarketFirst October 27

Lincoln
Kelso .. 19
Gloucester
Newmarket Houg on 24
:MBER.

Club.- .. 5
Newmarket Second Oct. 10

NOYE.

Worcester Autumn .... 1
Shrewsbury Autumn .. 14

Leamington &War. Hunt 22

IRISH.
SEP TEMIIER.

Curragli 6, 7, 8

OCTOBER.

Curragh lB, 19, 20

STEEPLECHASING FIXTURES FOR 186 k.

NOVEMBER.
Leamington and Warwickshire Hunt 22

Sixty Children Poisoned at Liverpool.—One

Death,

(From the Itverpool Mercury o:yesterday,)

About one o'clock yesterday the greatest excitement pre-
vailed in the neighbourhood of Parliament-street and
Greenland-street, in consequence of a tumour being preva-
lent that upwards of sixty children had been poisoned by
eating some obnoxious beans. Unfortunately the rumour
proved to be too well founded. It appears that between
one and two o'clock a little girl named Mary Ann Foster
was taken to the Southern Hospital by acme females,
The child was in great suffering, and the surgeons
of the hospital were informed that she bad been eating
some beans which she had gathered from a heap
of rubbish that had been thrown from a cart on
some vacant land in Greenland-street. Dr. Cameron and
Drs. Wollaston and Evans, the resident house surgeons,
immediately attended the child; but before they had time
to administer the remedies considered necessary for her
about 20 other persons arrived with children in their arms,
suffering in a similar way. The medical gentlemen seeing
that the case was an urgent one, and that the children
were evidently suffering from an irritant poison, bruught
into requisition the whole resources of the institution, and
antidotes were applied to counteract the effects of the dele-
terious stuff which the children had taken. The operating
room at this time presented a heartrending appearance. The
poor children seemed to be suffering accutely from pain,
and many of them were retching violently, while their
mothers or friends were crying most piteously. From
one to half-past three o'clock about 40 children were taken
to the hospital. One of them, named Michael Russell, six
years of age, who resided with his parents in New Bird..
street, died about 10 minutes after he was admitted, although
all means were taken tb save him. This is the only ease, up
to the present, where a fatal result has occurred, but several
of the children are not by any means out of danger. The
consequences would no doubt have been much more serious
had it not been for the prompt medical assistance that the
children obtained. The remedies applied were the stomach
pump, emetics, stimulants, &c. h
T
--3 symptoms which the
children exhibited were somewhat peculiar, although they
showed that the sufferers had taken some poison of a deadly
nature. The children were pale, very sick, and exhausted,
and when they attempted to walk they staggered about as
if they were drunk, although they had the use of all their
senses, the poison which they had taken evidently not pro-
ducing that stupiiying effect which results from the taking
of opium. Their pulsation was at first very low, some of
them became feverish and drowsy, and their eyes were bright
and protruding from the sockets, and in some of the worst
cases the pupil of the eye was contracted. The quantity of
the beans which the children stated they had eaten pro-
duced somewhat different effects. In one case, where a girl
had eaten 12, her recovery was easily accomplished, whereas
in the case of another child who stated that she had only
eaten two beans it was for some time feared that fatal results
would follow. The child who died eat, it is stated, only six
of the beans.

From inquiries made by the police as to how the children
go: the beans, it appears that about 11 o'clock in the fore-
noon t: cart, belonging to some person at present unknown,
depositea .a lot of rubbish on some vacant ground belonging
to the corpootion, adjoining the schools connected with
Great George-str.'et Chapel, in Greenland-street. Some
the rubbish, and found a
children began to act ,70 amongst
quantity of large, oily-loLking beans. The little things, in
their ignorance, ate some 01 the beans, as they had not an
unpleasant taste. The news of tie discovery quickly spread
among the children in the locahq, whose parents gene-
rally belonged to the poorest class, a:ld a number ,joined
in the search and partook of the beans, with the re-
sults already stated. Inspectors Moore and Southweil;
hearing of the occurrence ordered the rubbish on the ground
to be taken charge of by a number of policemen. Subse-
quently they caused it, to ba riddled, when upwards of a
bushel of the beans was obtained. The master of the St.
Barnabas School, which is close by, also took a large quan-
tity of beans from some of the children attending the school.
The bean is known by the name of " Physostygowa vane-
rosa," or Calabar bean," is said to be used for dyeing or
tanning purposes, and is a deadly poison. The rubbish
from which it was obtained in so large a quantity by the
unfortunate children is said by some to be ship sweepings
and ballast taken from a vessel which has just arrived from
the West Coast of Africa, while by others it is alleged to be
the sweepings of a warehouse floor—but from the nature
and appearance of the rubbish the former seems to be the
most likely supposition.

" CROSSING" A WITCH.—An amusing instance
of the belief in witchcraft which still prevails in
some of our rural districts occurred recently
in the par
of Yearn. A woman, wt:11 known in the parish as "Neil's
ish
wife"—a reputed witch—underwent the ordeal of cross-
ing at the hands of a worthy cobbler whom she had
threatened with the evil effects of her craft. Mrs, Neil,
returning home one evening, denouncing in no measured
terms the Road Trustees for having made the road too
narrow by half, determined, in passing, to settle an old
score with the cobbler, and summoned him outside to
hear his doom. This raised the birse of the man of leather
and he immediately appeared, armed with his awl and an
old shoo upon which he had been operating, and, seizing
the hag by the throat, laid her at his feet in a twinkling.
Sloe found it rather inconvenient either to vanish or assume
the form of a hare, and the trusty broomstick was not at
hand; 50, despise all her struggling and threatening, the
cobbler drew the awl twice across her forehead in opposite
directions, drawing blood, of course ; and Neil's wife be-
ca.ne in his eyes as another woman.—lffvergordoit Times.
Sir George and Lady Otway have lett town on
a visit to Lord and Lady Clarence Paget at their seat in
Anglesey.