The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1893-07-06
ARour POISONING.
Once Fine Art but Now Easy Of Detec
fion.


once Fine Art but Now Easy Of Detec-
tion
This method OF breaking the sixth
is popular with a GER
tain class Of miscreants. Men OF INFER
nal proclivitics, but weak nerves, resort
TO it as a clean and quiet way OF get
ting rid of uncongenial wives ano
troublesome companions whichinvolyes
no noise. no shedding OF blood and is
supposed TO be a safer way Of putting
out the light of life than such coarse
and abrupt modes Of eXtinguishment as
shooting, throat-cuttirg, aXing and the
like. Women with taste for
homicide, from the time Of Nero's
mother to the present day have
generally preferred poison TO
every other instrument Of murder. In
the days of the Medicis and the Bor-
pias. poisoning rose TO the dignity of a
fine art in Italy. Catherine de Medici,
it is true. was not insensible TO the at
fractions Of emphatic and wholesale
slaughter witness the tragedy Of St.
Bartholomew's gotten up under her
| direction-but she had cultivated the
art of silent murder with great assiduity
and success, and now and then indulged
in little family practice with infinite
! gusto. After leading her son, Charles
the Ninth, by the nose for many years,
she poisoned him through the same
organ All the Borgias were also eX-
perts in this branch Of demonism,
In the middle ages, however, poison
was much safer weapon than It is
now. Then the most accomplished
chemists Of the world manufactured il
for the worst purposes. The man Oh
science who had produced a new and
subtle philter, warranted to kill with.
out convulsing, was sure TO obtain a
splendid douceur for his secret from
some prince or noble or lady of high
degree, who, to use the classic language
Of a modern murderess, wanted to "cool
somebody's goose" But nowadays
these things are not managed as they
were in the Medicean and Borgian eras
There were no post-mortem eXamina
tions in the olden time. All the re
sources of chemistry were then directed
TO the destruction of life, and never, al
at present, to the detection of the meant
by which it was destroyed.
1t is next TO impossible for a modern
poisoner to evade punishment. Tn,
symptoms which follow the admins
tration of all deadly drugs and chemic
ais are familiar to the whole medca
profession. Analysis, like an avengin,
Nemesis, confronts the perpetrato
with the proof of his crime. The stom
ach of the dead victim is a more poten
witness against the criminal than spec
ters were supposed TO be against tn
secret men of blood" four hundre,
wears ago. We need no "choughs an,
magotpies' to bring the deed Of tn
poisonmonger to light. The flesh, no
the ghost Of the dead appears from tn
grave, and consigns him to the gallows
But in spite of the perils, almost ur
= escapable, with which science has SUI
rounded the crime of poisoning, 1t is
, as our criminal records too fearful
show, on the increase. Recently ther
' has been what the police call run
Of it, and we can think of no metho
better adapted to check its progres
q than that of showing it to be, as itrea
= ly is, more easy and more certain of dc
lection than almost any other yariet
= Of murder.-N. Y. Ledger.