New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-01-29
gptaI gutelIMente.
MYSTERIOUS POISONING AFFAIR
Twenty Men and Three. WSo1neE,
the Nictims-L
ALL VERY SICK but 1NrRovIN'

Yesterday morning, at the Seamens Home, cor
ner of New Levee and Suzette streets, all who ate
corn bread for breakfast were very soon taken
violently sick, and very soon after this it was found
that the sickness proceeded, Enthusiastically, from
the corn-bread.
Twenty sailors and three servant women, who
had eaten of the bread were thrown into the most
terrible convnlsions of vomiting and purging. A
wholesale case of poisoning being apparent the
sufferers were removed to Charity Hospital as
speedily as possible. Meantime, the Mayor and
Chief of Police being apprised of the fact, sent
the Special Police to the Seamen's Home to lnves-
tigate matters. The officers did Investigate, and
arrested Charles Peterson, the baggage master,
and Hannah Dougherty, the cook as the persons
most intimately connected with the poisoning
Both the prisoners solemnly declared their inno-
cence, though both freely admitted their agency
in the use of the poison. Petersons statement
was, that few days ago, he found on his desk, in
the clerks office, at the Seamen's Home, box OF
yeast powders, or what appeared to be such-tor 1t
was genuine yeast powder box, with the printed
label on top etc. Not suspecting anything wrong,
he took the box to Hannah, the cook, and offered
it to her. saying that there was box of yeast
powders that she could if she had use for it ;
and she took the box and put it away. Peterson
is an honest looking young man. who has been en-
| ployed as baggage-master at the Home, sometimes
acting as clerk, for the last four or five months.
| Hannah Dougherty, the cook, is an 1rshwoman
some 35 or 40 years of age, and has been employed
! at the Home for some months. Her story is, that
she received the box of (supposed to be) yeast
powders from Peterson, and put it away. In mix
ing up the dough for corn bread yesterday morn
| ing she exhausted the yeast powder box that she
| had previously been using, and, wanting little
! more powder, opened the box that Peterson had
| given her. and took out spoonful of the powder
and mixed it up with the other powder in the
dough for the corncake. This was at in the
morning. Size baked the dough into long and
broad square cake, which was cut up into chunks
and distributed on plates over the table for break
fast. which came off at O'Clock.
The violent and wholesale sickness of all whC
partook of the corn bread, and the arrival of the
police as well as investigations within the Home
| led to the discovery that the box which Peterson
gave the cook contained, not yeast powders, bu
arsenic Peterson accounted for not eating any o
the corn bread by statement, which he says hi
can prove, that before breakfast he was sent dowl
to the Government Wharf to collect some none.
from person who had not settled and was abou
to leave. Hannah the cook stated that she did no
eat any of the corn bread because she had neVe
, been in the habit of eating corn bread.
The box containing the remainder of the bogu
yeast-powder, and the uneaten portion OF tn
deadly corn bread, were taken by the police Oft
, GERS, and are at the Chiefs office. Peterson, VIII
, gave the box to the cook declares that he has n
iaea who left the box his desk, and does nc
know whom to suspect, unless it be some of th
sailors who were recently discharged from th
1 Hom,. ~. .nEonncss and disorderly conduct.
At Cler!., hospital, last evening all twent
three of the sufferers were il fair way of reco
0 cry. 1t seems that they had taken not too lit
:, poison, but, happily, too much or rather so mut
as to pass the fatal point and defeat the deadlyd
e sign of the unknown miscreant, by bringing on t
IS violent elections which overdose of poison me
generally creates.