Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-12-14
SECRET POISONING.
Awful Grimes of Borgias Recalled b.
Hungary's Horror.
NURDEROUS NOSTRUMS OF OLD.
Terrible Women Who Divorced Themselves
by Deadly POtions. :
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. TGLLERS


Caucasian played Out2'' The question was
asked years ago by cynical American hu-
morist; but from time to time occasions
arise, and events occur, SO utterly at vari-
ance with what might be properly expected
to be the result of continuous progress and
enlightenment that we can scarcely refrain
from asking ourselves whether we are really
living in an age Of widespread philanthropy
and practical piety-an age, too, Of rail
roads and steamboats,, Of gas and electricity,
of newspapers and schools for everybody.
Ancient history is full of appalling
stories of secret poisoning, says writer in
the London Telegraph. Who has not read
of Phrasyas of Mantinea, who invented a
poison which could be moderated in such a
manner as to have effect in two or three
months, or at the end of year or two years,
and the more lingering the death the more
miserable it was? This poison was pre-
pared from aconite, plant which on that
account people were forbidden to have in
their possession under pain of capital pun
ishment. Yet, notwithstanding the prOhi-
bition, the deadly potion was extensively
used in Rome about two centuries before the
Christian era. As several persons of dis
tinction died within the same year and of the
like distemper, an inquiry was made into
the cause A maid servant gave evidence
against some ladies of the first families who,
she said, prepared and distributed poison;
and above 150 of them were convicted and
punished.
THE HUNGARIAN HORROR.
One would think that such horrible GRIM
inality as the wholesale poisoning of inno-
cent people belonged wholly to Pagan times;
but, unfortunately, the annals of toxicology,
down to our days, are replete with histories
of indiscriminate poisoning. The latest of
these tragedies is reported to have occurred
in Hungary, where the Assize Court of
Grossbecskerek is about to try hideous,
but, unfortunately, by no means unprece-
dented case of poisoning en- masse. 1t is
stated that no fewer than 80 women of the
Servo-Magyar village Of Melencze are ac-
cused of having poisoned their husbands
and other near relatives, and that they pro-
cured the deleterious stuff from two profess
sional fortun-etellers'named Sophia IYano-
witch and Anna Minity. who drove regu-
lar trade in noxious drugs. and earned con-
siderable sums of money thereby.
Suspicion was first directed toward them
by the evidence of beautiful young woman
named Draga Kukin, who, so long ago as
1882, killed her husband by poison, but who,
being overtaken by remorse, gave heself up
to the judicial authorities. The two
fortune-tellers were arrested, but they have
since died in prison, and the difficulties of
gathering sufficient body of evidence have
caused the examination of this shocking case
to drag its slow length over a period of nearly
seven years.
ANCIENT SENSATIONS.
Sophia Ivanovitch and.Anna Minity are
the only descendants in turpitude OF the in
famous Tophana or Toffania, woman who,
in the early years of the last century, re-
sided first at Palermo and then at Naples,
where she combined the business of telling
fortunes with that OF selling poisonous drops,
six of which were sufficient to kill strong
man. She distributed her murderous nos
trums in small glass phials labeled ''Manna
of st. Nicholas Of Bari, and it is positive
fact that the reputed saeredness of her wares
enabled them to pass unquestloned through
the italian Custom Houses. Her wicked
ness was at last made known, and Tophana,
after flying from one convent to another,
was at last arrested and thrown into prison.
The clergy raised loud outcry against this
violation of sanctity, but a report having
spread that the iniouitous fortune teller had
poisoned all the springs in the city, public
opinion became too strong for the clerical
protectors of the horrible woman It ssaid
that she was strangled, but the Viceroy of
Naples, with polite desire to conciliate the
ecclesiastical authorities, caused the corpse
of the sorceress to be thrown into the cloister
Of the convent which had been the last 70
give her refuge.
SPARA'S AWFUL CRIMES.
She was not the first, even as she was not
the last, OF the systematic Italian Doisoners.
The case of Hieronyma Spara, who was ex-
ecuted in Rome in 1859, bears even a closer
resemblance to that of the Hungarian poison
witches. In the Pontifcate of Alexander
VII. it was observed In the Eternal CITY
that large numbers of young married women
were left widows, and that many husbands
died who had been notoriously disagreeable
to their wives. Priests also declared, with
out naming names, that several of their pen
itents had acknowledged, under the seal of
confession, that they had been guilty Of
poisoning. The Government used its ut
most vigilance to trace these disquieting
events to their source, and at length sus-
picion fell upon q society of young married
ladies OF distinction, whose President was
an old woman pretending to tell fortunes.
To ascertain the truth a crafty female spy
was sent to sound the old fortune teller,
Spara, whom she succeeded in deluding to
sell her some drops by means of which she
was to rid herself from cruel and tyran-
nical husband. Spara was racked, and
with three of her female accomplices was
afterward hanged, vainly crying on the
Roman princes and barons and the noble
ladies who had been her customers to help
her in her extremity. Some months after
ward several more women were executed for
the like offense, some were whipped and
others banished the papal dominions; but,
notwithstanding the severity of these pun
ishments, the practice of secret poisoning
was not by any means stamped out. As a
matter of fact, the crime seems to be a
chronic one.
A REMARKABLE CASE.
The case of the Marchioness de Brinvil-
liers and her male confederates. which oc-
Cured about ten years after the execution of
La Spara, is too well known to need recapit-
ulation. The Brinvilliers seems to have
worked principally on her own account, or
at least for the benefit Of two or three disso-
lutte adventurers with whom she was con-
nected. There is little reason to doubt,
moreover, that Marie Marguerite d'Aubray,
Marchioness of Brinvilliers, was wholly or
partially insane. In the confession found
among her effects she acknowledged that she
mad begun her career of guilt at z years of
age; that she had set fire to many houses,
and that she had caused the death Of several
persons before she learnt the art of poisoning
from an Italian charlatan.
of ho n0 NJ
Intellectual to suppress the practice of secret
poisoning. Numbers of people continued
to die from time to time under most suspi-
cious circumstances, and the Archbishop of
Paris learned from the cures Of different
parishes that poisoning confessions were
still made, and the crime was still prevalent
alike in rich and poor families.