The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1884-05-08
Eating Poison in Court.

the famous criminal lawyer Of Chicago
ate poisoned biscuit before Michigan
jury, and by that act secured the acquit-
tai of woman charged with attempting
the murder of her husband. From that
time until now the story of the poisoned
biscuit has been told throughou out the
Northwest many hundreds OF times by
lawyers and others, and il has seldom
been told correctly. So far as is known
the true version has never appeared in
print. Since the incorrect stnry Of the
matter has received such wide circulation,
a reliable narrative Of the incid eut will
doubtless prove readable to many.
| Somewhere between the years Of l5i0
and 1915 The wife of farmer OF Hills.
| dale County, Mich, baked some biscuits
one Sunday morning and then went to
church, leaving her husband TO take din.
ner alone. AS he sat down TO his meal,
however, q young farm laborcr came to
the house and joined him at his repast
Each ate OF the newly baked biscuits,
but quickly found them uDpaIatab BILE and
put them aside. Neither one had eaten
more than half biscuit. Both were
soon taken violently i'll and displayed
strong symptoms Of arsenical poisoning
The young man recovered from bi. sick
| ness after some days Of intense suffering,
bu. the farmer fingered in dying con.
dition for more than year, and finally
| expired
Sixteen years before this time the
farmer had married his wife fn! her
money. She brought him $1,000. lie
purchased farm with this amount and
in few years lie became quite forch hand. :.
ed. His greatest enjoyment, apparently,
was to annoy his vile in every concciva.
bic manner. His fiyori,e amusement
was to pull their little child out Of bed
in the night and bca, it cruelty. They
finally concluded TO obtain divorce
from each other. The farmer az reed to
give his wife lien on his property for
81 500 for the SUPPORT Of hersclf and
child. The mortgage was made out and
placed in lawyers hands to await the
divorce. The wife, in consideration Of
the mortgage, signed quit-clam deed
to all her husbands property. On the
eve of the granting of the divorce the
farmer secured The mortgage and de-
slroyed it, intending to put the deed on
record after the divorce was granted.
His wife discovered the cheat and stopped
the divorce proceedings. She then
deliberately planned to kill her husband.
She sought reconciliation and went
back to live with him. One day she
disguised in male attire, went to Hins.
dale and purchased a quantity Of rsenic
This she mixed in batch Of biscuits
and left them for her husband to eat.
In short time she was arrested. By
law the woman could not he tried for
murder because her husband had lived
more than year after he was poisoned.
She was indicted for poisoning and put
on trial in Hilsdale. Mr. Van Amman,
then young man with q law office in
Marshall, Mich, defended her. a
young French chemist from Detroit tes.
titled against the accused. He was tho
only Chemist that Detroit afforded, and
he was very incompetent one. This
young man swore to the jury that he
had analyzed several of the biscuits
husbands eating, and had found they
tive analysis he swore positively tn at the
husband had swallowed less than q grain
Of arsenic. The chemist further swore
that a grain of arsenic was n deadly
dose, and TINT even less might be fatal.
There were no railroads in Michigan
at that early day, and there was not
another chemist nearer than Chicago.
Mr.. Van Arman, who had studied chem.
istry in hisyouth, and had even delivered
lectures on the subject, plainly saw the
Frenehman's testimony was woefully
incorrect. Mr.. Van Arman contended
before the jury, that grain Of arsenic
was only medical dusc and that the
defendants husband, therefore, must
have become fatally i'll through some
other agency than poison in the biscuits.
He could produce no expert testimony to
Rubstantiate bis theory because no
experts were within reach. knowing
that grain Of am. uic would not affect
the human system. ho caused numbe.
OF biscuits to be baked by physician of
the town, each of them contain ing a
grain Of the deadly substance. F'ortu.
nately for his client, there were none of
the original biscuits to be had, and the
jury could not murmur against the sub.
stitution of new ones.
Having proved by the physicians who
| made them that the biscuits were proper.
ly poisoned, MIR. Van Arman, near the
beginning OF his closing argu ment,
gracefully ate one of them before the
jury and continued to address them.
lie remained in their sight for several
hours, and took pains to show them that
he swallowed no antidote. The grain Of
arsenic produced no i'll effects on him.
The prosecuting lawyer could not argue
away the plain fact of the harmless,
though poisoned biscuit which the Jury
had seen eaten. When the case was
given TO them they very promptly acquit.
ted the prisoner.
The truth regarding the biscuits OF
which the farmer partook was, that they
contained four or five times as much
arsenic as the young chemist swore they
did.
The commonly accepted version of
this famous story has always been that
Mr.. Van Arman ate one Of the original
poisoned biscuits just as he closed his
final argument, and that, after making
his bow to the jury, he hastened out. Of
the court room and swallowed a vast
quantity of emetics "a SOON US the door
closed behind him. This incorrect story
lie said to be quite annoying to Mr.. Van
Arinan, as 1t represents him resortpg to
disgraceful trick to secure the acquTttal
| of his client,