The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-11-27
POISONED
A FnvOrite Weapon Employed by the
Anarchists.

London Mail.
Those we'll acquainted with court circles
gloves whenever possible. The habit Is not
a mere whim or freak of fancy, but
mas sound reason at its bottom. In a word,
gloves afford an extremely easy way to
assassination. When a person is poisoned
one generally looks for the traces in the
stomach. of the victim. Few physicians
think or looking for the 1ataI
drug. On this account the young Emperor
has been warned by more than one of his
ministers against wearing any gloves that
had not first been subjected to careful tests
Many of those known TO be leaders of the
nihilist movement are living in Italy. nota-
bly, at Milan. which is a hotbed of anarch-
ism and revolution. While there they have,
according to the reports of the secret po-
lice. spent most of their days in the Public
Library of the ancient capital OF Lombardy,
referring frequently to things relating TO
toxicology.
For a long time the works which they APP
peared to favor most were those published
In the sixteenth. seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, when poisoning was carried to
an extent of perfection altogether unknown
in modern times. More than once did the
attendants of the library. who had been
warned by the police to keep an eye on
their Russian readers. observe hat slips of
paper had been left in the books on poison
ing by rubbing a deadly substance on the
inside of gloves, which, penetrating the
open pores of the skin heated by the glove.
produced either slow or instantaneous
death. according to the character of the
poison.
Not much attention was given by the
RUSSIAN authorities to these reports from
Milan until about a year before the death
of the late Emperor. when Count Tcheme-
reteif was killed by a pair of poisoned
gloves. The count, one of the wealthiest
and most powerful noblemen in Russia, was
an intimate friend of Alexander. One day,
in haste to the Emperor, he
snatched up from the side table in the ante
ami his sword. white Astrakhan bon
net and gloves. which, as usual, were laid
out all ready for him.
The gloves were exactly like those he
always wore. even to the extent of being
no longer quite fresh. They had evidently
been clumsily pregnated with poison. for,
while standing before the writing table in
the library talking to the Emperor, he
suddenly fell to the floor with a look of
intense agony upon his distorted features,
exclaiming, My hands. my hands"
The Emperor leaped over the table,
raised the count from the floor and laid
him on a lounge. calling for assistance as
he did so. AT first the physicians believed
that the count had succumbed to heart
disease. but when the Emperor. in describ-
ing the incident mentioned the exclamation
uttered by the dying man, their attention
was drawn to his hands.
When ungloved, the counts hands gave
1orth a strange. pungent, aromatic odor.
and were swollen and discolored.
1T was only then that il dawned upon the
medical men that the count had been as
sassinated by means of his gloves. On be-
ing subjected to chemical analysis it was
shown that the gloves had been impreg-
mated with a poison derived from an Abys-
sinian vegetable substance little known in
Europe.
1t is said that the present Emperor has
had one narrow escape from poisoning by
this means; and the fact that some time
ago two of the greatest European au-
thorities on toxicology. one from Berlin
the Peterhoff palace. on the gulf of Fin
land, gives color TO the story.