The Sun.
London, England, 1848-10-03 00:00:00

THE ESSEX POISONINGS,

The CORONER said, although no poison bad been
discovered, it was possible (he did not say it' was
probable) that death had been caused by that means.
But as it would be necessary, in the event of going
before another jury, to' prove the cause of death,
which had not been done at present (for, elaborate as
Professor Taylor's report was, it failed in proving the
cause of death), he could not therefore advise them
to adopt Professor Taylor's report. He was ready,
if the jury thought proper, to go further into the case,'
but he candidly confessed that at present he thought
it would be useless.

Several jurors expressed their entire concurrence
with these views.

After some conversation the room was cleared,
and the jury, after about half-an• hour's deliberation,
returned the following verdict :—" That the deceased,
Nathaniel Button, on the 28th day of September, in
the year of our Lord 1844, was taken ill with a
violent retching and diarrbwj, of which he shortly
afterwards died, but how such retching and diarrhoLa
was produced there is no evidence before the jury to
show."
The CORONER then took occasion to observe upon
other cases of suspected poisonings, and said that as
some misapprehensions bad arisen it would, perhaps„
be necessary for him to say a few words on the sub-
ject. Ile had taken great pains to make himself
acquainted with the cases which had been brought
under his notice. The conclusion at which he had
arrived was, that at present there was not sufficient
evidence to justify him in goingat once into these cases.
He certainly thought :that there was strong ground
for believing that many of the children had been un-
fairly dealt with, but up to the present time no direct
or positive case had been reported to him. He wished
it to be distinctly understood that, notwithstanding
the result of the present inquiry, he should not be
deterred from going most fully into cases of a similar
description ; for he was determined to do all that *lay
in his power to extinguish the iniquitous system
which there was every reason to believe had been for
some time past prevailing in that locality. He hoped
that every death that might occur without the inter-
vention of a medical man would be most narrowly
watched, and he would also wish that medical men
(and he spoke only of a few) would pay more regard
to the symptoms of parties whom they were called
upon to uttend than appeared to have been the case in
several instances which had come before him in his
official capacity.—The proceedings then terminated.

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MONTHLY MILITARY OBITUARY.
Lieutenant-General—Sir C. W. Maxwell, C.B. and
K.C. 11., 3d West India Regiment, Broadstairs. ".
Major—Carr, 38th Foot, Halifax, United Stites.
Csptains—Hacket, half-pay 14th Foot, Corfu;
Hunt, Unattached; Folkes, half-pay Independent Cos.;
John Campbell, retired full pay Royal Marines; Merckhel,
half-pay Meurou's Regiment; Griffith, Carnarvon Mi-
litia; Fellows, half-pay Ist Prov. Battalion of Militia.
Lieutenants—Turner, half pay 7th Foot; Shelton.
halt-pay 28th Foot; Stokes, half-pay 80th Foot; Mic-
Alester, half-pay 81st Foot; T. S. Perkins, half-pay
Royal Marines; Loftin, half-pay Royal Marines; Arnold,
half-pay Am. Regiment.
Ensigns—Gardiner, 22d Foot, Youghal; Morrison,
half-pay Am. Regiment; Riddle, half-pay For. Veteran
Battalion.
Paymasters—Tod, half-pay 38th Foot; Gem, Warwick
Militia.
Quartermaster—Page, hf.-pay 12th Foot, Birmingham.
Surgeons—Dyce, 48th Foot, Fifeshire; Coates, half-
pay Staff; Sandham, half-pay Staff; M‘Mullen, half•pa,y
Staff.
Assistant• Surgeons Rankin, half-pay 84th Foot;
M'Laine, half-pay 80;1 Foot, Argyllshire.
Veterinary Surgeon—Mellows, half-pay Ist Dragoon
Guards.

QUARTERLY NAVAL OBITUARY.
FLAG OFFICERS.
Admiral—Robert Holly man.
Rear-Admiral—Mauritius A. N. De Starck.
Retired Rear-Admiral—John Duff Markland.
Captains—Frederick Marry at, C. 8., Charles Hallo-
well Carew, Osborne Foley, Thomas Warrand, Thomas
Lyne.

Commanders—John Chiene, Isaac Shaw, Edward
Pius, Thomas Phillip Le Hardy, Alexander M`Leod (a),
James Smith (b), Joh❑ Larobrick, Walter Jameson,
Thomas Ropey, Frederick We!stead, Henry Rice.
Lieutenants—Joseph Williams, Joseph Steele, Timothy
Rt nou, Thomas Dy neck Jones Dabine, Ward E►ans,
Edward Canes, James Crooke, Henry Cranmer Gordon,
John Dawes Haswell, Peter Morris, Sir Nicolas H.
Nicolas, G.C.M.G., Francis Aberd Murray, Henry
Alexander Breedon, John Brunton. Henry Richard
Glynn, Horace Mann Baker, George Hurd Thomas,
Arthur Doyle.
Masters—Thomas Wolfe, George Poynter, Thomas
Bison.

ROYAL MARINES.
Captain—John Campbell.
First-Lieutenant—Walter Burnett Haber&ld.
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MEDICAL OFFICERS.
Deputy Inspector of Hospitals— William C. Watt,
M.D., Thomas Miller.
Surgeons—James Lambert, Richard Davis Pritchard,
Dodwell Brown Whipple, Richard Webster, John Ed-
wards, John Callan, Henry Ellis, William Jones.
Assistant-Surgeon—John Speer.
Paymasters and Pursers—George Brodie, Arthur
Dawson, Thomas Kerrigan, George Simmonds, James
William Noble.

A REBUICE.—Ilonour to the people of Liverpool,
who have shown themselves both " merry and wise,"
both " just and generous!" In subscriptions they have
raised the munificent aggregate of 6,0001 towards the re-
lief of the suffering passengers of the Ocean Monarch.
Nineteen out of every twenty of these miserable emi-
grants are Irish, n, women, and children, and have
no more claim on the people of Liverpool than they have
on any other section of the universal brotherhood of hu-
manity. Yet how nobly has that claim been allowed!
Meanwhile how have the gentry -and shopkeepers of
Dublin been engaged? They have been ravished with a
fantasia by Grisi or a serenade by Mario! To our ever-
lasting shame, up to this moment, not even a penny sub-
script►on has been set on foot to assist and comfort the
live debris of the Ocean Monarch.—Dublin World.

MATH&
On the 19th ult., in Grosvenor -square, Viscountess Ebring-
ton, of a daughter.
On the 29th ult., the lady of Captain Kuper, C. 8., R.N.,
of a son.
At Edinburgh, on the 29th ult., Lady Buchan Hepburn,
of a daughter.
On the 30th ult., the lady Agneta Bevan, of a son.

MARRIED.
On the 29th ult., in Norwich Cathedral, the Hon. William
Wells Addington, eldest son of the Right Hon. and Rev.
Viscount Sidmouth, to Georgiana Susan, eldest daughter of
the Hon. George Yeller, D.D , Dean of Norwich.

DIED.
On the 30th ult., in Upper Seymour-street, Portman-
square, Lieutenant• General the Hon. George Murray, second
5011 of David, second Earl of Mansfield, aged 69.
On the 21st ult., Catherine Ann, unly surviving daughter
of Rear-Admiral Henry Bourchier.
On the 2d inst., at his residence, Doris-street East, Lam-,
both, after a long and severe illness, Mr. Frederick John
Duparcq, aged 48 ; for many Years engaged upon this jo.urnal.
On the 29th ult., aged 69, diehard Aldridge, Dalston-:
place, Dalston.

- - -
London: Printed and Published by MURDO YOUNG, .at
No. 112, Strand, Printer, at The Sun °thee, No. 112,
Strand, in the Precinct of the Savoy, in the-county of
Middlesex, Tuesday, October 3, 1848.

RAMSEY, ESSEX, Moswsr.—The adjourned hives.
tigation into the mysterious circumstances attendant
upon the death of Nathaniel Button, whose body was
recently exhume i in consequence of the reports
which had been circulated with reference to the sys-
tem of poisoning which has prevailed in this part of
the country, was held this afternoon at the Nelson's
Head, Ramsey, before William Codd, Esq., the Co-
roner for the Northern Division of Essex.
Mr. CODD opened the proceedings by remarking
that, in accordance with the wish of the jury, ex-
pressed on the last assembling of the inquest, the
whole of the viscera of the deceased man, Nathaniel
Button, had been taken by Mr. Bird to London, for
the purpose of being analysed by Professor Taylor,
whose report would be read to them.
The first witness called was
Mr. John Bird, surgeon, of Harwich. He deposed
as follows:—On Thursday, the 21st of September last,
I delivered to Professor Taylor, at his laboratory at
Guy's Hospital, the contents of the stomach of the de-
ceased, Nathaniel Button. They were contained in
four jars and three bottles.
Professor Taylor, of Guy's Hospital, submitted a
report of his analysis of the various portions of the
intestines, but the result of his experiments was, that
no trace of arsenic existed in any part of the body of
the deceased. The conclusions to which Professor
Taylor arrived were, that, although he had not suc-
ceeded in detecting the trace of arsenic, that poison
might originally have existed in the body. The pro-
duct of putrefaction is ammonia, and arsenic in all its
for Ms is readily dissolved by it, and the poison might
easily have been drained away and lost. The chemical
examination of the viscera afforded no ground for
supposing
that death had been caused by poison, and
from their present decomposed state it was impossible
to say if inflammation had existed, or to account in
any other way for the death of the deceased. Pro-
fessor Taylor reviewed at some length the symptoms
of the disease from which it was said the man had
died, and in doing so gave it us his opinion that, in
the absence of the most material proofs which che-
mical analysis should furnish, English cholera in a
violent form might he sufficient to account for the
symptoms immediately preceding death.
Several witnesses were examined, whose evidence
seemed to corroborate the suspicion that poison, as at
first supposed, had been administered.
A juryman said it appeared to him and his brother
jurors that the cause of death was by no means satis-
factory. By Professor Taylor's report it was per-
fectly clear that arsenic might have been at one time
in the body, but lost from putrefaction, caused by
long interment. They did not therefore feel justified
in coming to the conclusion that the deceased had
died a natural death. They would like to return a
verdict which would leave the case open, in the event
of the coroner being able to obtain any further
evidence.