The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1877-11-29
Presidential Poisoning.
Washington Cor. Chicago Times.

W klO1 OOF. OllCaGO llIneS.
Among the more prominent of
the Nationals late arrivals are Sen
ator Ben Hill and wife, of Georgia.
They occupy the suite of rooms
known as the Presidential parlors.
If the walls had tongues they might
discourse of people prominent in
the past, and, perchance, tell tales
of private life never suspicioned.
But the tall maAtel looks blank
under its modern ornaments, the
brass mountings of the fender re-
fleet new faces, the heavy curtains
shut IN the secrets never voiced,
and in the room sits a little, dark
eyed, prim woman and a blue-eyed
man ''from away down South in
Georgia. man mild as May, vel
vety, broad-faced and unassuming
as field dandelion. These rooms
where Senator Hill now lives, on
that fatal 4th of March which wit
messed Buchanan's Inauguration,
were occupied by the new Presi-
dent. Twelve hundred guests were
crowded into the house. In the
evening nearly all were seized by
similar symptoms of poisoning, and
thirty or more died. The dead
bodies lay in rows in the parlors,
the sick and dying were moaning
In the halls; gloom hung over the
city, and extended to distant homes,
from whence had come guests to
witness the Inauguration The
house had, just previous to this,
been entirely refurnished. 1t was
the grand hotel of the capital, and
was built in style Of magniflcence
rare in those times. The National
Hotel poisoning is remembered with
horror by old people, but many of
the younger ones have never heard
of it. The affair was Investigated
and the house examined. No pos
sible clue has ever been found.
Some said defective drainage, some
poisoned rats in the wells, some
that the sugar had been poisoned
to ruin the business of the hotel. 1t
Is generally believed now, think,
that the poison was mineral poison,
and was in the sugar-for the rea-
son that persons not stopping at
the house, who took fancy drinks
at the bsr, were also seized by
cramps. Doubtless the new Presi-
dents death was meditated, but
Buchanan never touched sugar, nor
ate it in anything, so that he almost
alone escaped the peril Some of
those besides His Excellency, who
escaped, have been interrogated,
all those whose address could be
found after the lapse of years, re-
piled that they did not partake of
sugar, even in coffee. The house
was closed, and the splendid furni-
ture was sold at auction. For years
the hotel was uninh abited. People
looked at the barred windows some
thing as visitors now pause before
Ford's theater, where President
Lincoln was assassinated. Stran
gers stood in front of it and related
to each other sad incidents of the
ineXplicable death which had over
taken thirty persons in a night.
Some years ago "a gentleman from
New Hampshire, visiting In WASH
ington, asked to go through the
house. People had been afraid to
enter its walls after the panic. The
gentleman, after examination, i'm
mediately leased the building, threw
open the windows, had the house
cleansed, one hundred and fifty
loads of dirt taken from the cellar,
put 100000 worth of furniture in
the hotel, and was called crazy by
his friends. In December every
corner was filed by guests, and the
quaint low rooms, where had danced
the bellies of a quarter century be
fore, were again filed with life and
beauty.