The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-07-09

From Our os,n Correspondent
NEW 1oRK, July ., 1871.
RelsonInR by Preaorintian.

II
isfactory to ones heirs. But probably the
quickest and lesst-expected method is that of
being offieinally murdered, poisoned by pre-
scription, as has been the fate of TOO many in
valids in New York within the past few years.
Early in the week. for instance, lady residing
in Brooklyn died from the effects of prepara-
tion of laudanum different from that called for
by the prescription written for her by her ply
sician. The preparation which she swal-
lowed was compounded for her by a
druggists clerk, who, according to the evidence
at the trial, was on duty eighteen hours out of
the twenty-four, and slept, the remaining six, on
sofa on the premises. The prescription, like
all prescriptions, was written in Latin, and was
taken to the store at midnight, at which hour
the tagged clerk was reused from his first deep
slumber. The question as to which deserves
the most bame-the wretchedly overvorked
clerk who compounded the potion, or the cruel
and criminal proprietor who committed such i'm
portant trusts to the hands of fedglng to
whom he denied the first conditions for render
ing good service-is one that will easily be
answered by all who sympathze with moderate
hours for work and liberal hours for rest and
recreation. The latest case of pharmaceutical
maDsaughter occurred yesterday and bears
equally hard both upon the keeper of the drug
store and Tie patient who sent for the medi-
cine. women sent by her young child a
verbal message for a grain of quinine. The
child asked for grain of morphine,
which the druggist sent and the woman
swallowed. Proper antidotes were applied in
time, and fortunately the woman recovered
no thanks to her own common-sense or the dis
creton of the druggist. The frequency with
which these drugstore disasters occur eXcites,
upon the part of the nervous patient, trepida-
tion more than sufficient to counterbaance the
of ha
him to be so fortunate as to have it sent him.
One goes to get a prescription prepared at a
drug store, nowadays, with something of the
same apprehension with which one enters q
train Of cars for q distant journey. Death
equally lurks in the palace-car and the pill-boX,
the express and the elixir, aud there is no cer-
tainty in what shape you will continue to exist
after having done with either. These harmless
looking sleeping drops in which l place my
faith may be so many drops of death. This
gentle Alternative may produce in double-quick
time the alteration of the grave. The skull and
cross-bones rattle behind the pestle and mortar,
and through the perfumed air of the apothe-
cary's shop tioats the miasma of the tomb
s'Tam Brown.''
Mr.. Thomas Hughes better known as the
author who inserted into ''Tom Browns School
Days" the very bone and marrow of healthy and
natural boy hood, is expected to be in this city
within three or four weeks. lie is a man whom
it will be impossible to lionize, because of the
heartiness, the freshness, the unassumingness of
his sentiments, and because of the direct antago-
nsm which the whole tenor of his life and
writings has put him into with everything that
is merely fashionable and fleetingly popular. 1t
is by the middle.class homes and hearth-stones
of New York and American, but principally of
Philadelphia, society that Mr.. Hughes will be
most enthusiastically welcomed; for Phiadel-
phia disinctivelya city of homes, is Just the city
to most cordially appreciate the beauty and
goodness of the fireside teachings OF his books.
Among the chief objects OF his visits will be the
public schools of the principal American
cities, and am sure there is not United States
school-boy that has read Tom Brown" that will
not wish to treat his eyes to sight of the
originator OF the gentle and the strong charac-
tiers with which that work is filed.
Captain Mayne Reid.
The readers of Captain Mayne Reid books
for Juveniles will be sorry to hear that this vol
luminous author is at present patient in st.
Luke's Hospital, and that the nature OF his
malady is such as will subject him TO painful
and perhaps dangerous operation. Captain
Reid is unfortunately one of that numerous class
of gifted men who, by the time they reach the
meridian Of life, find that they have run through
as much money as would have kept them with
little outstanding, luXurlOusly until Jne END.
He has exhausted at least one very comfortable
fortune. and has saved little or nothing at all
of the very large sums he realized from
the sale of his novels and adventures
composed for the young. In appearance and
manners he obeys the rule which so many
celebrities do-that of being exactly the reverse
from what the Imagination would naturally pic
ture them. He is about the medium height, and
rather spare, has a norid complexion, silver
grey hair, a nervous manner, is fluent in speech
and is abundantly conscious of being Captain
Mayne Reid. He is young enough to write
several works equal in popularity to The
Young Marooners,' and ought to have learned
by this time lessons sufficiently bitter to teach
him to lay up for the rainy days that come TO
all of Us sooner or later.
MIR. j. w. Lingard.
The unknown body that was washed ashore
on Thursday, and which no one was found to
identity, is discovered to be that of Mr.. j. w.
Lingard, formerly partner with Mr.. g. L. Fox,
the pantomimist, in the New Bowery Theatre.
1t is supposed that on Wednesday evening, upon
leaving the restaurant where he had been writing
to his wife, he repaired to the foot of Broome
street and threw himself into the river. 1t
has been enormously stated that he had squan-
dered several fortunes-a statement that is
untrue from the simple fact that he never
had several to squander. About ten years ago,
when he was about thirty-fve years of age, he
was worth upon his own acknowledgment
$S0,00O and presume had the sum been more
he would not have concea ed that fact At the
hour of his suicide he was suffering from the