The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1894-04-20

dents of their danger. You will ring the
bell at every private house and insist upon
seeing the responsible member of the fam
lily, in order that the information you i'm
part shall reach the ears of people who
will appreciate its gravity and act upon it
at once. / have just wired the informa.
tion to police headquarters, and SGpScin-
tendent Byrnes will doubtless act upon it
Immediately"
Superintendent Byrnes sat in his office
and was just lighting a cigar when his
most trusted sergeant entered with dis
patch that had just been received from the
Tenth precinct acquainting him with the
fact that a woman, name unknown, resi-
dence unknown, description unknown, had
secured possession of an ounce of arsenic
for purposes unknownl
Briefly the dispatch recounted the facts,
without, of course, referring to the agony
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 a 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 "a 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
cident sensational headings that added
greatly to the general alarm and threw
several feeble minded people completely
off their mental balance.
Meanwhile 1 had not ceased in my ef-
forts. Finding a job printing office on
had 1000 large posters printed bearing the
fearful and startling heading, "Your life
is in dangerW At the bottom of the fam
ing announcement was this concluding
line: "You are about to diel"
Visiting several theaters, 1 finally found
bill poster who undertook to post 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 pharmacyp
AT the end of the third day ambulance
calls were quadrupled in number, coming
from people who believed they had been
poisoned, and insisting upon being taken
to public hospital.
The practicing physicians of the city
were greatly overworked. 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 men,
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 arsenicl"
During all these days 1, the innocent
cause of SO much human misery, hardly
slept or ate. For more than week 1 new
er had my clothes off. l actually forgot
Emily
Womanlike, reading of the notoriety in !
to which had suddenly sprung. she call
ed at the store to see me- She even spoke
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. felt that the strain could
not much longer continue.
My worst premonitions were verified. I
fell very Ill and was taken from my cold
and cherries hall room-where, in my de-
lrium, l 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, l
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:
"Ize found her, cullyp'
HWhere2n / literally shrieked sitting