The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1875-08-28
The Omnipresence of Arsenic.

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 arsenica! poisoner, if he or she
had legal defender who would make
use, as he might, of the argument fur
nished him by the almost universal dis
| trlbutiOn Of the venomOus element
throughout our most familiar walks of
| life. We have received medicines our
| selves from drug stores wrapped in ar
| senical 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 green paper is one
of the commonest in use Tor 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. Numer-
GUS deaths OF children are known to
have been thus occasioned. No coun
suicidal ignorance, such stupid slaugh-
ter of the 1nnocents is common. One
more illustration only. It is very COM
mon to see lawyer or his clerk put
into his mouth, to moisten the gum side
of it, beautiful green paper disk with
scolloped edges, to attach to some decu-
ment. These things are found in every |
lawyers office in the land and used con-
stantly. 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 commend
ing to write we had in our mind to refer
to some of the wonderful facts developed
of late, in Great Britain especially, of
open carts loaded with white arsenic
passing in open day through the conn-
try in some districts, with drivers
sitting on top of the hideous heap
such carts being often exposed all
night open to the rain !; of strongly
arsenical waters flowing from mines and
metallurgical works into streams of
water afterwards drunk by large popu-
Iations, and SO on. These are facts.
will remember the cargo of
salt and arsenic together shipped to us
from Europe few months ago, which
got little mixed during rough pas
sage. This particular mixture was dis
covered. The water we ourselves drink
comes from a stream on one of whose
tributaries is large chemical works,
which so contaminates the said tribu-
tary 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 espe-
cially, when we thought of the reckless
ness of the public press, which has ac-
tually recommended their rural readers,
IN many cases, to pile on the Paris ,
green on their potato patches with |
perfect looseness. these other things
seem trifes, as flat and stale as they /
are Improbable, and our en- {
husiasm and zeal for the cause of .
humanity seems to wilt down into sort 6
If sentimentality, which is certainly lu- i
licrously lame and important, if not t
downright sickly.-ZHe Gas Light I
Journal I