The Sun.
London, England, 1848-06-12 00:00:00

ALLEGED MURDER.

During the last fortnight Mr. W. Carter, the coroner
for West Surrey, has been engaged investigating, at the
Old King's Inn, Bebbington Corner, situate between
Mitcham and Carshalton, a most remarkable case of al-
leged secret poisoning, by which the lives of no fewer
than seven persons were placed in imminent peril, and
one of whom has since died. The unfortunate person
was a lady named Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson, aged 62, who
resided with a Mrs. Cook on Bebbingtor. Common, She
appears to have possessed property : hut of this or her
relatives not the least tidings could be elicited. Mrs.
Cook, who is the widow of an officer, took the house in
question last Michaelmas ; the deceased lived with her,
also Mrs. Cook's daughter, two female servants, and a
footboy. A young man named George Chamberlain
frequently visited the house as a suitor to Miss Cook,
greatly to the annoyance of the mother, who disapproved
of his visits. On the 12th of this month some angry
words arose between Chamberlain and Mrs.
Cook, in consequence of his proposing to take her
daughter to Brighton. The journey was persisted in,
and the young man went to Brighton with Miss Cook
and one of the female servants. During their absence
Mrs. Cook, the deceased, and the remaining servants
ate their dinner, which included some apple pudding,
and they afterwards drank tea, the sugar for which was
taken from a basin on the table. They were then taken
violently ill. A surgeon was sent for, and he was un-
able to account fur the cause of illness, and the deceased
died a few days afterwards. When Miss Cook returned
home, she and the maid servant were similarly attacked
after drinking something sweetened from the same sugar
basic. An inquiry was then instituted, and it was dis-
covered that the sugar and basin had disappeared;
whether they had been intentionally destroyed it was
impossible to say. A post mortem examination of the
deceased took place, but no truce of poison could be
found. The coroner and jury had but one opinion as to
the cause of death, but in the absence of direct testimony,
an open verdict was returned. The police were instructed
to continue their investigations. Some of the sufferers
have not yet recovered.

SUPPOSED MURDER at BRISTOL.
On Friday the coroner's in quest was resumed on the
body of Maria Hill, who, with two of her children, had
died under circumstances that gave
d rise to suspicions of
ref to them
obtaining
hus-
band
sad father, with a view
poison having been administered
abylarthgee
of money for which he had effectede sumhis wife's life, and the premiums an insurance upon
be-
lieved he was not in a Condit' upon which it was
person subsequently put ion to pay. The suspected
and an account of the i an end to his own existence,
lished in The Sun, nquest upon his body was pub-
Mr. W. Herapath, the
after noticing the 'celebrated analytical chemist,
&c., and detailing thestate.
caution with which he had made
he had 3'ilia'
and narrating a variety of madeexperi-
ments
on different parts of the viscera,
without success
took s for some time,thatat length be
about d said
dissolvedthem " of the intestines of Maria Hill and
in hydro-chluric acid, boiling, and con-
centrated the whole of it down to about two or three
ounces; he then introduced a slip of bright metallic copper,
and kept it boiling some time, and believed he discovered
metallic arsenic upon it. He then dissolved the whole
of the remaining intestines in the same way, and treated
it with the same test—polished copper. He then ob-
tained undoubted traces of metallic arsenic. Mr. Hera•
path produced to the jury a slip of copper so treated,
immersed in water to preserve it, as arsenic did not
oxydise in water. After the above experiment he treated
another piece of copper the came way, scraped the sur-
faces, and heated the scrapings in a small crooked tube,
when he found white crystals of arsenious acid sublimed.
Those were dissolved in a small quantity of pure water
boiling, and tested, first with ammoniacal sulphate of
copper, which gave Scheele's green; awl then with sul-
phuretted hydrogen, which gave him sulphurate of
arsenic. The quantity was exceedingly minute: not
more than the hundredth part of a grain was taken frt m
several pounds. As to the cause of death, he could
only say that, from the inflammation and from the pre-
sence of arsenic, he had no doubt that arsenic was the
cause of death, but that the principal part of the poison
had been removed by sickness or evacuation. It
should be understood the arsenic was detected in the
integuments themselves not amongst the food, buy
in the substance of the intestines. The body of Maria
Hill presented two of the appearances which followed
taking arsenic, viz., inflammation of the surface and pre-
servation of the viscera. Mr. Herapath then gave a
description of solutions of arsenics, which, he said,
he had known disappear in twenty- four hours, ex-
cept in the liver. In the solid form it remained longer,
in proportion to the activity of the operation; but it was
considered by the first forein practitioners, that where
a person lived fourteen or fifteen days after swallowing
'ramie, all traces would have. left the system. the
e