The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1875-09-02
Danger of Arsenical Poisoning.

Arsenic is getting to be throughout the
world almost as common as dirt. We
doubt very much whether it would not be
impossible at the present day, In any
country, to convict on chemical evidence
before any jury the most bungling arsenical
poisoner if she or he had q legal defender
who would make use, as he might, OF the
argument furnished him by the almost
universal distribution of the venomous
element throughout our most familiar
walks of life. We have received medi.
cines ourselves from drug stores wrapped
in arsenical papers, put up in Paris-green
paper boxes, with arsenical paper caps
tied over the corks, etc. We have often
seen confectionery exposed for sale to
young children wrapped in the deadly
green paper. We have often found young
children sucking toys painted with the
horrible stuff, and with their mouths
stained throughout with the venom. The
Paris-grccn paper is one of the commonest
in use for binding school-books, and we
have more than once taken such books
away from our own young children, which
had been given them by their teachers.
Numerous deaths of children are known
to have been thus occasioned. No country
can he called civilized in which such sui
cidal ignorance, such stupid slaughter OF
the innocents, is common. One more Illus
tration only. 1t is very common to see
lawyer or his clerk put into his mouth, to
moistcn the gum side of it, a beautiful
green paper disk with scalloped edges, to
attach to some document. These things are
found in every lawyers office in the land,
and used constantly. They are seldom
made of any other than the Paris-green
paper. Can this be ignorance, or are our
lawyers all fatalists, and believe they can
only "die when their time comes"? In
commencing to write we had in our mind
to refer to some of the wonderful facts de-
velopcd of late, in Great Britain especial
ly, of open carts loaded with white arsenic
passing in open day through the country
in some districts, with drivers sitting on
the top Of the hideous heap; such carts
being then exposed all night open to the
rain; of strongly-arscnical waters flowing
from mines and metallurgical works into
streams of water atterward drank by large
populations, and so on. These are facts.
Everybody will remember the cargo of salt
and arsenic together shipped 80 us from
Europe few months ago, which got a
little mixed during rough passage. This
particular mixture was discovered. The
water we ourselves drink comes from a
stream on one of whose tributaries is a
large chemical works, which so contain
mates the said tributary with arsenic that
cattle drinking it have been poisoned to
DEATH These things, we say, are facts on
both sides of the Atlantic; but really,
while we wrote the first part Of this article
especially, when We thought of the reck.
lessness of the public press, which has
actually recommended their rural readers,
| in many cases, to pile on the Paris green
on their potato patches with perfect
looseness, these other things seem trit1es,
and flat and stale as they certainly are I'm.
profitable, and our enthusiasm and zeal
for the cause of humanity seem to wilt
down into sort of sentimentality, which
is certainly ludicrously lame and i'm
potent, if not downright sickly.-Gas.
| LiQht Journal.