The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-04-06

of mind Under which 1, poor drug clerk,
lived, moved and had my wretched being.
Captains and sergeants of police do not
possess the romantic qualities in highly
developed degree and cannot be expected
to supply nerve tingling romance to their
associates. Their lives contain much trag-
edy and comedy, and with them everyday
existence is so essential that their keen
sense of the dramatic in life grows dull.
A general alarm was sent out to each Of
the 81 precincts, and within three hours
every member of the force on duty was
engaged in house to house canvass for
"the woman with the ounce OF arsenic"
In five hours time the entire city was
in commotion. Thousands of men and
women had visited the pharmacies and
the all night dispensaries to have their
medicines examined, in order that they
might be assured as to their character.
Hundreds of pounds of harmless baking
powders, soda, borax and other arsenical-
like salts were consigned to the sewer, in
order to render assurance doubly assured.
Many nervous and hysterical women pass
ed the night in sleepless dread and fear.
When the morning opened, of course the
papers were filled with the startling an
nouncement. Several of them gave the in
StliSdulOldl ucdulllSS u4oI cooCN
greatly to the general alarm and threw
several feeble minded people completely
off their mental balance.
Meanwhile / had not ceased in my eff
forts. Finding a job printing office on
Sixth avenue that was open all night.
had 5000 large posters printed bearing the
fearful and startling heading, "Your life
is in dangerl" At the bottom of the fam
ing announcement was this concluding
line: "You are about to dep
Visiting several theaters, finally found
bill poster who undertook to post 1 900
of these notices during the next two days
and nights. At the end of that time the
appalling information that death was loose
in the town and stalked among us in in
visible presence was encountered on every
dead wall and glared at me from many
shop windows. The theatrical managers
hastily got together and gave the use of
every billboard they owned or controlled
in the entire city The elevated railroad
advertising company generously permitted
the use of two OF its most prominent spaces
at each station. The drug stores even
consented to display the alarm circular in
their windows, always adding line that
was very humiliating to me-"This never
could have occurred in our pharmacy"
At the end of the third day ambulance
calls were quadrupled in mber, coming
from people who believed they had been
poisoned AMI insisting upon being taken
to public hospital. ~
The pYacticing physicians of the city
were greatly ove1worked Anybody who
suffered from a pain in any part of his
body instantly imagined that he had swal-
lowed some OF the deadly salt, and that
nothing stood between him and eternity
but the highest medical skill
On the following Sunday nearly every
preacher in New York and Brooklyn refer
red to the impending calamity, for as the
days heightened out assurance increased
that the calamity would far exceed all an
ticipated proportions. Why this was no.
body could explain, but the entire commu-
nifty OF greater New York felt that it was
living over loaded mine liable to be eX-
ploded at any moment.
So great was the suspense among mem
bers of the newspaper profession that one
city editor went crazy, and another shot
himself out of sheer chagrin that he could
not discover "the woman with the ounce
of arsenic:"
During all these days I, the innocent
cause of SO much human misery, hardly
slept or ate. For more than week l new
er had my clothes Off. / actually forgot
Emily
sVomanlike, reading of the notoriety in
to which l had suddenly sprung, she call
ed at the store to see me. She even spoke
Z of me with sympathetic kindness and left
a word of greeting and hope with the boy
who delivered the prescriptions.
My nervousness continually increased.
When l looked at myself in the glass,
was shocked to see how pale and thin !
had grown. I8felt that the strain could
not much longer continue.
My worst premonitions were verified. l
fell very ill and was taken from my cold
and cheerless hall room-where, in my de-
lirium, I raved and bemoaned my fate
to the home of Emily's mother. There she
and the faithful girl nursed me back to
life. But as reason fully returned the old
distress re-entered my mind, and in my
weak and feeble condition, when alone,
would burst into tears and bemoan the
carelessness that had brought me so much
wretchedness.
One cherries afternoon relief came.
was cured in an instant.
The little colored boy at the pharmacy
came rushing into the house, coatless
breathless and hatless, having run the en-.
tire distance from the drug store. He in
sisted on seeing me, and although against
the DOCTORS orders pushed his way into
my sickroom. In accents that were almost
inaudible, because of his shortness of
breath, he exclaimed
''I'ze found her, cully"
"Where?" I literally shrieked, sitting
up in bed, for I knew as well as if he had
talked an hour that he referred to ''the
woman with the ounce of arsenic"
"W'y, she's de wife of de janitor on our
top fioor"
''Not over the drug storel'
'Cert''--
Emiiys mother was not quick enough
to catch me, for l fell back in dead faint.
Within an hour had revived, and weak
as thought had been had found strength
to rise, dress myself and go to the old
store, where, two steps at jump, I climb
ed the five flights of stairs that led to the
janitor's apartments.
There I saw the woman and regained
possession of the package with feelings of
infinite relief
She had not opened it!-Joseph Simp-
CON in TOndoD Tit-Rits