The record-union., 1893-08-14
EPIDEMIOS OF POISONING.
A Crime in Which Women Have BE
come Wholesale Participants.

III AD1hA1OO VI S4OO4N11N6.
A Crime in Which Women Have Be-
come Wholesale Participants.
About 1850, says the st. Louis Globe
Democrat, a poisoning society of wives
was discovered in Rome. Great numbers
of young widows were arrested and put
to the torture. They disclosed the secrets
Of their conspiracy and acknowledged
that woman named Hicronyma Spara
supplied them with poison. For a year
the courts were busy trying the cases;
IA women were hanged, 10 committed
suicide either in prison or to evade arrest,
nearly 100 were publicly whipped
through the streets, nearly 300 fled from
Rome and Italy to avoid punishment, and
about 100 more, against whom the evil
dence was not strong enough to secure
conviction, were ordered out of the city
and forbidden to return.
One of the most demoniac poisoners Of
modern times was the infamous Nine.
Brinvilliers, who, between 1866 and pol
1876 poisoned her father and her two
brothers in order to secure to herself the
family estate, and, finding it easy, she
proceeded to destroy number of other
persons to crafty personal pique. Like
Cleopatra, she experimented with poi
sons, carrying poisoned biscuits and
dainties to the hospitals Of Paris and Civ
ing them in apparent charity to the pa
tients. a number Of these unfortunates
were thus destroyed, but no suspicion
fell upon her with regard to their death,
nor was she suspected until the death of
number of other persons whose lives
stood between her and the coveted in
heritance aroused inquiry. She was put
to death, with horrible tortures in 1876.
The two most popular French poison
ers Of the seventeenth century were two
French women, Lavoisin and Lavigor-
eux. They had given sense of humor.
They called their poison by facetious
names. Sometimes it was succession
POWDER" because by its aid an heir could
quickly enter on an estate; sometimes it
was called peace POWDER" because it in
duced harmony between jarring couples
They were both arrested, tried, convicted
and burned alive in the Place de GreVe in
1850, and from information given by them
over fifty French widows who had dis
posed OF their conSOrts, and nearly forty
sons and daughters who had murdered
their parents were convicted and exc
cuted. Most of those who were punished
were of the middle and lower classes.
The wealthy and noble escaped. over
5000 poison cases were tried by the courts
in four years. After the execution of the
hags who furnished the powders nearly
1000 men and women were punished by
whipping, branding, imprisonment or
exile, and thus ended the most noted
French epidemic of poisoning.
Cesar Borgia was the most accom-
plished poisoner of any age. He poi
soned Zizim, the brother OF Bajazet H.,
i'll order to possess himself of his prop
erty. Giovanni Battista Ferratta, the
richest and most influential dignitary of
the Papal court, was his next VICTIM
Borgia administered the poison to him in
a friendly glass of wine, and after his
death seized on his possessions. Soon
after this he attempted to poison his own
har Giovanni Rnrnia hat
proving slow, Caesar had him stabbed
After many other crimes of this character
he formed the bold design of poisoning
four of the richest Cardinals in Rome and
seizing their estates. By accident the
poisoned wine was administered to him
self and his father, Pope Alexander vi.
Caesar was saved, having taken but little
wine, but the Pope died few days later
and Caesar promptly seized all the papal
wealth and held Rome with body of
hired troops. He is believed to have
secretly poisoned 600 or 700 persons, many
of them of exalted station, and it was
often prophesied that he himself would
die by poison. This, however, was not
the case. lie was killed while storming
the castle of Viana. He was the original
of MachiavellTs Prince"
At the beginning of the eighteenth cen
tury husband poisoning conspiracy was
discovered in Naples by the bungling
husband. She was put to torture aud
confessed that she had received her poison
from an old woman named Toffania. Tof-
fania was arrested and placed on the
rack, but the most exquisite tortures
failed to make her divulge the names of
her customers. Her servants were not
so stubborn, and d list of the women fre-
quenting her house was obtained. Naples
stood aghast, for among the number were
many of the best known women in the
city. Thousands OF arrests were made
among the number being princesses,
dCchesses, countesseS and others of no.
bic rank, besides great numbers of wives
of bankers, merchants, tradesmen and
gentlemen. For three years the courts
were busy with poisoning cases; 200
nearly hundred, in consideration OF
their rank and families, were privately
strangled in prison, and nearly two
thousand were whipped, imprisoned or
banished. Toffania admitted having
been party to over six hundred murders
that she knew of, and how many more
she could not tell, for her poison, under
the name of aqua posana, or mamma of ST.
Nicholas, was sent in walls all over Eu-
rope. 1t was believed to be a prepare
ton of arsenic, was colorless, almost
tastelesS and from four to six drops
formed fatal dose. The barbarity with
which the crime of poisoning was, on
this occasion, punished by the Naples
authorities put a stop to poisoning in
Italy for long time.