New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-07-28

The trial of Miss Madeline Smith at Glasgow for
poisoning, the most prominent details Of which We
have published, adds another to the long catalogue
of peculiar cases. the contributions to which in our
time have already been sufficiently numerous.
Poisoning has hardly been in such high fashion as
now since the days of the Brinvers; and it things
are to 20 on at this rate much longer every man OF
us must become Mithridates upon his own &C
count, and take an antidote or two before ventur'
ing upon bis meals We believe that to Mr.. VIII
liam Palmer must be ascribed the honor Of reviving
the public taste for this fine art. Although his ex'
perments were quite as fatal to himself as to his
friends and although it is perfectly evident that too
practical knowledge of chemistry may lead to the
gallows, yet Mr.. Palmer, il we may credit the
newspapers, left behind him considerable number
of disciples both in England and America.
It having been found with how much
facility people who are in the way in
this world may be put out of the way BY
sending them to another, and there being temPta-
ten also in the apparent protection which Palmers
system Of small doses affords against detection, there
can be no doubt that those who are Of homicdal
propensities win for some time prefer arsenic and
strycbnine to the bludgesn and the dagger There
is something contagious in an unusual aud terrible
crime. The memory Of il, to certain constitutions,
is in the highest degree fascinating. 1t fasten'
itself upon the morbid mind. and finally, by pro-
yokipp strange and ildeiaable curiosity destroys
all moral power, and leaves the intellect at the
mercy of fierce and uncomfortable will. This
spirit Of imitation sometimes sends suicidal and
sometimes hsnicidal epidemic throughout the
country. Just now we believe that there are moro
persons imprisoned in this country, charged with
poisoning, than at any former period.
But these peculiar excitements may, and often
do, lead to the most painful social deusion and in
justice. It used to be standing rule among the
vulgar that every king who died suddenly had been
poisoned by his courtiers. This was compare
lively harmless error. But if people will persist in
believing that every person who is not, as Charles
H. said, "an uncomfortable time DYING has
been helped upon his way BY arsenic in bis broth,
our social relations will become more exciting than
comfortable. Suppose that in some one Of the
rural Districts man has been living upon bad
terms with his wife. One fatal night be eats q
supper which would have baffled the digestive pow.
ers of the ostrich, and goes to bed. He awakes in
pain; he passes through the various stages of the
cholera and dies. Perhaps no medical man has
seen him; perhaps no one has been with him but
the wife. Then the gossps, fresh from reading the
trial Of Palmer, begin to shake their heads.
Soon the whole village rings with surmise. The
man has been buried. They dig him up. The
Coroner makes bis appearance with his band Of
sages. A dozen doctors hold high debate over his
stomach. Six Of them find arsenic and six of them
the remains Of clans or cucumbes. Finally, it is
probable the arsenical gentlemen give in; the skep
tics triumph and the remains of the poor man are
carried back to the sepulchre. But mark our
words If there be in that village husband weary
of bis wife, or q wife weary Of her husband, the
noodles have put strange thoughts into the heads Of
the harassed or the heupecked, and case Of real
poisoning would not by any means be remarkable.
We do not propose to discuss at large the case Of
Miss Smith. The Jury found that the charges
were "not proven" but declined to render YER
dict of "not guilty." which they might, under the
Scottish law, have done. Afew points OF the case,
however, are worth noticing This young woman
returned from finishing London boaroin school
to Glasgow, in 1885, at the age Of IL. Two things
che seemed to have learned in this mandatory of
misses-the art of writing love.letters Of tOrrd
pungeDcy ard the art Of using arsenic as cosmetic.
This was, indeed, an opulent stock of inftrmasion
with which to start upon "womau's mission.
For our own part, We must confess that we have
never before read anything like these letters OF Miss
Smith to LAngelier. In the copies which We
have sten the worst has been expurgated, but what
remains is in all conscience bad enough. Those
Of our readers who are fresh from "Tbe PROBES
sor" will remember two or three Belgian school
girls, whose portraits are painted with almost the
finest force of Charlotte Bronte, aud it seems TO
US that these letters might have been written by
either of those promising young women. They are
not merely coarsely sensual but they seem to us to
oversboOt the mark, and to be arti6cally aud
feisnedly so. They are so extravagant aud absurd
that we were at frat inc ined to consider them
quite compatible with that innocence which the
world regards as the most important, bpt the ad.
missions of the prisoners advocate forbid us "a
think 90.
How far las this practice Of using arsenic extend
ed among our women' Perhaps our apoth. aries