The daily national Whig. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1847-1849, 1849-05-05
Major A. j. DoNELsoN, SC.
POISONING.

young Rlrl, IN new boston, MaSSacnu-
sets, an adopted child, indicted for admins
tering poison (morphine) to several members
Of the family that shielded and protected
her, by which one child lost its life, has been
convicted Of the crime Of murder aud sem
fenced to be hanged some time in August
We suppose il very doubtful matter
whether this capital sentence will ever be
really carried into execution. The sex, the
youth, and the beauty Of the criminal--for
she is said to be both young and pretty
will, doubtless, produce a strong effect on
the popular mind, resulting in call for some
Communication of punishment, which will be
yielded to. But, in the meanwhile, her
case is considered very extraordinary one,
no sufficient motive--nor any motive-being
discoverable for such unnatural and whole
sale attempts at murder; which the Court,
in fact, when booming her to death, declared
could not be accounted for "upon any salts
factory principles of human action"
II is, perhaps, only wonderful that with
such views existing on the bench, the girl
did not escape conviction on the ordinary
plea Of insanity. With anexperience Of the
latitude Of argument allowed TO counsel fol
defence, nothing would have seemed more
obvious than, from the absence Of natura
motive, to assume the existence Of the so.
called moral monomania, or weakness Of the
moral sense, which we are too easily dis
posed to confound with moral idiotcy--i
restitution Of the knowledge Of right ans
wrong. To assasslnate--to rob--to burn
to commit any crime without an object ap.
pears an infatuatlon which we mistake fo
faulty. We assume, as a matter Of course, al
absence Of common sense, or those ordinary
intellectual faculties by which man is const
ted a rational being. In all this, however
we err.
| Human nature is bundle of contradic.
tons and mysteries. And however inexpl
cable it may seem, nothing is better sustain
ed by experience than theiact that the crimi
nal propensty-the inclination to commi
crimes almost without purposes per
fectly compatible with good sense, and ever
high order Of shrewdness and intelligence
And this fact is especially true Of the erin,
Of poisoning in which, we are sorry TO say
history furnishes many illustrations Of tn,
most inconceivobly deliberate, cold-blooded
systematic, olt-repeated assassinations an'
st il more sorry are we TO say that the prin
cipal criminals ofthis kind have always beef
4 women
The case Of the New Boston girl is but
revival on small scale o. the Locustas o
ancient times, the Tofanas Of two centurie
since, and the Schonlebens and the Colt
irieds Of our own recent days. Classioa
readers will remember the account given b,
the old Roman historians Of the extraordi
nary poisoning plague, as il might be called
which occurred during the consulship o
Narcotics and Valerius, when the alarming
mortality Of the supposed disease was sud
denly discovered to be owing TO poison ad
ministered by the Roman women; Of whom
Livy says, although with some hesitation
as if he deemed the account too horrid fol
belief, that no less than one hundred anc
seventy were convicted Of the crime, after
twenty others had died from being compell-
ed to swallow their drugs in the public
forum Tofana, the Siciian female poi