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

RACING FIXTU

Egham .. l6
Dover
Oxford .. 18
Yarmouth
York August a.'

SEPT:

Weymouth
Baden-Baden
Warwick September 6
Bridgwater
Leicester ..
Doncaster

OCT

Brecon ll. 19
Richmond
Royal Caledonian Hunt 21
Monmouth 22
Manchester Autumn
NewmarketFirst October 27

Bedford
Edinburgh and Lothians
Club
Newmarket Second Oct lO
NoTE:

Lincoln
Kelso ....
Gloucester
Newmarket Hong on 24

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

Leamington &War. Hunt 22

IRISH.
.SEP TEIMER.

Curragb 6, 7, 8

0 CTO3IIII.

Curragh lB, 19, 20

STEEPLECHASING FIXTURES FOR 1864.

NOVEMBER.
Leamington and Warwickshire Hunt 22

Sixty Children Poisoned at Liverpool,—One

Death,

(From the Liverpool 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 rumour 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 scme females.
The child was in great suffering, and the surgeons
of the hospital were infermed that she had 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, brought
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 to save him. This is the only case, up
to the present, whercra fatal result has oczarred, 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. The 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 stupitying 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
eases 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 ouly
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
got the beans, it appears that about 11 o'clock in the fore-
noon a cart, belonging to some person at present unknown,
deposited a lot of rubbish on some vacant ground belonging
to the corporation, adjoining the schools connected with
Great George-street Chapel, in Greenland-street, Some
children began to scrape amongst the rubbish, and found a
quantity of large, oily-looking beans. The little things, in
their ignorance, ate some of the beans, as they had not an
unpleasant taste. The news of the discovery quickly spread
among the children in the locality, whose parents gene-
rally belonged to the poorest class, and a number joined
in the search and partook of the beans, with the re-
sults already stated. Inspectors Moore and Southwell,
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 be 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 " Physostygonia vene-
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 bo
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 WITCII.—An amusing instance
of the belief in witchcraft which still prevails in
some of our rural districts occurred recently in the parish
of Fearn. A woman, well known in the parish as "Neil's
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
appeeeed, armpa with his awl and an
hear his doom. This raised the birse of the man of leather
and Its immediately
old shoe upon which he had been operating, and, seizing
the hag by the throat, laid her at his feet in a twinkling.
She found it rather inconvenient either to vanish or assume
the form of a hare, and the trusty broomstick was not at
hand; so, 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-
mile in his eyes as another woman.—lnvergordon Times.
Sir George and Lady Otway have left town on
a visit to Lord and Lady Clarence Paget at their seat in
Anglesey.