The Portland daily press., 1894-06-22
PARIS GREEN IN FLOUR.
1t Was South Limingten VII ere
Alleged Poisoning Occurred.
MRS. ROBINSON AND THE DAYS
INTERVIEW ED.


What the Neighbors Say-Conflicting
Statemcnts-Nobody Dead Yet Appar-
ently-Quarrel About a Trunk.
Especial to the Press,l
| Waterboro Centre, June 31.-Yesterday
| there was an Associated Press despatch
| from Biddeford in the morning papers to
| the effect that MRS. Ellen M. Robinson of
Limerick put Paris green in the flour barrel
to catch thief who had been stealing it.
and few days later whole family named
Day was taken i'll, and their recovery is
doubtful. The doctor says it is a case of
poisoning from Paris green
A correspondent of the PRESS went to
Limerick yesterday. There he met Deputy
Sheriff Beecham. who told him that the
| dispatch was wrong in stating that the
affair happened in Limerick, but that it
HAPPENED IN SOUTH LIIINGTON.
called Nason's Mills. otherwise known as
Hardscrabble. At least, man who came
from there told him that the facts had
occurred as stated.
Your correspondent drove to Nason's
Mills, seven miles distant. He learned that
widow named Robinson, and a family
named Day lived in the first two houses,
just before reaching the little village, that
clusters about the saw mills of Roscoe
Watson, in the midst of the pine forests and
sand barrens and pickerel ponds of that
region. He called first at the house of
James Day, who is stout, pleasant faced
man about 40 years of age, and who was
sitting in the doorway of his kitchen, in
which We're his wife, young man and
woman, little child on the floor and baby
in cradle. The baby was crying very
loudly, and was red in the face. The mother
rocked the cradle to quiet it.
The newspaper dispatch was shown to
Mr.. Day. and the story told Sheriff Beech
man was related.
They all together burst into loud and in
credulous but brief and mirthless laughter.
They all exclaimed
THAT'S THE FIRST I'VE HEA 3D OF TT
and, do we look as if we were poisoned? and
''Do look dead'' or words to that effect.
That is, all but the young man who sat very
quietly and soberly, and whose appearance
was not that of man lin vigorous health.
Mr.. Day asked: ''Do look dead?'' and he
certainly looked very much alive. He said
that his children were at school,
Then he said, II
CIa1NN DC M OWN ELOUh,
Here's barrel here.' and he laid his hand
on an unopened barrel of flour that stood in
the middle of the kitchen floor. He declared
that ne knew nothing about the story. that
nobody had been sick and no doctor had
come there. He didn't know how the story
could have started.
THEY HAD TROUBLE
at the house, he volunteered, and rapidly
changed the subject to this new affair.
which was as follows: A man named Lowell
had come there to board, with his wife,
about the first of March. They left his
house about month ago and went over to
board with Mrs. Robinson. They did not
pay the money they owed him and
HE KEPT THEIR TRUNK.
He wouldn't give it up. The other night
Lowell and another man came after the
trunk, and there quite a row, in which
Day came off victorious, and still retains
the trunk.
If man don't pay you his board you'd
keep his trunk, wouldn'tyou?" said Day.
Mrs. Day broke in and said that when she
found that Lowell and the woman with him
were not married, she wouldn' t.have them in
the house. The woman was a girl from
Bonney Eagle, she said.
Mr.. Day replied to question, that Mrs
Robinson lived in the next house, a few
rods down the street, but that her name
was Cordelia, not Ellen. She was there with
Lowell and the Campbell girl
Your correspondent went down to Mrs
Robinson's house,
SHE IS A THIN, ELDERLY WOMAN,
about sixty years of age. Lowell was on the
lounge and young woman was washing
dishes.
When shown the press dispatch and told
the story as told to Sheriff Beecham. she
evinced surprise, said she didn't under
stand and handed the paper to Lowell, and
said that, perhaps, that young man could
answer the question for she didn't know
what was meant. Lowell read the dispatch
and -said that it was queer. Mrs. Robinson
could not apparently see what connection
the story, had with her. But she admitted
that she was the only widow of that name.
in the place; but her first name was not
Ellen, but Cordelia.
The story told Sheriff BAecham was that
she lived alone and worked for the neigh
bors, leaving her house closed and that then
the flour was stolen. She declared that
SHE HAD NEVER LIVED ALONE
i n her life, that her two sons lived with
her and there were the two boarders
AS to the poisoning case she didn't know
anything about it. Il don't have anything
to do with newspapers" she said, apparent
ly meaning that she didn't put the story in
the paper, upon which statement no CON-
ment is necessary. She reiterated that she
never lived alone and that she didn't know
anything about it. She said that she'd had
family of six or seven all the week, includ-
ing the two children of her boarders,
NOBODY HAD BEEN SICK
in the Day family. She could prove that
doctor hadn't been there. She declared that
DR.. Moulton of South Limington, was her
doctor, and had he been there she would
have known it.
When asked if the Days had stolen her
flour,
SHE DID NOT SAY NO,
but hesitated moment and then said. that
she hadn't seen the Days go out of the
house for a long time. AS to how such a
story got started, she didn't know. She
might have enemies. Perhaps somebodv
wanted to injure her. All her conversation