The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1899-01-04
Her Kiss was Death.

| 1ut aTt vi pOIeCuthgs ~ VIC "'0 w
believe an eminent authority, must be
reckoned among the lost arts. 1t IS
not because we are less coarse than
our ancestors, and carry our refine
ment even into our crimes we are
less unscrupulous or cruel than our
forefatbers were. Though the toxi-
cology Of the ancients were necessarily
incomplete, there is every reason to
believe that antiquity was acquainted
with the use Of arsenic, opiums hen
baue and prussic acid. The oldest
poison in use was probably an impor-
tation Of serpent-venom. Theophras-
tus speaks Of poison made from
aconite, with rapid or slow effects in
accordance with the operator s wishes.
During the empire the removal Of In
convenient people by means of poison
had become SO common that the em-
perors had number Of men in their
service, whose duty it vas to taste all
dishes pnt upon the imperial table,
| and no dinner was partaken Of With
out one Of the court physicians being
present. Que Of the most notorious
pcisoners of the day was Locusta. the
mu. dererof Claudius and Britannicus.
About t year 33l B. c., large num-
bers Of women, belonging to the higher
classes Of Roman society, we're indics-
ed for poisoning their husbands "a
modern instance Of the epidemic oc-
Cured Of late years in Hungary
One hundred and seventy were con-
,victed and condemned.
The sixteeth and seventeenth CEN
turies were the halcyon days Of poi
soning. There is nc doubt that La
Spara, and the, if possible, still more
! wretched bag, La Toffania, were as
bad as you make them. The latter is
said to have caused the death of over
600 persons. She used preparation
Of arsenic, which she sold under the
name Of s'Acqua Toffana.' It was a
slow poison, the victim growing daily
weaker and gradually dying from ply
sical exhaustion. In France the most
notorious female poisoners we're Nine.
de Brinvilliers (who was taught the
secret of the succession power" by
Ste. Croix, which she successfully
administered to her father and broth
Eers,) aud the still more notorious
Lavoisin and Lavigoreux, who, being
ostensibly midwives, carried their
poisops to high and low-marri~d
couples anxious to hasten the dissolu-
tion of the irksome tie or needy heirs
wished to accelerate the departure OF
rich relatives. A veritable mania for
poisoning appears to have set in to-
ward the middle of the seventeenth
century.
In England poisoning was declared,
by an Act passed in the reign Of
Henry VIII, to be high treason, and
those guilty Of it were to be boiled
alive. The most notorious case Che
poisoning Of James I, by Bucking
ham, is only surmise,) Of poisoning
was that Of Sir Thomas Overb"ry, in
the year 1913. He had incurred the
displeasure Of Lord Chester and his
wife, and they had both vowed to be
revenged on him. So after they had
got him committed to the tower, they
set themselves to poison his food by
mixing arsenic and catharides with it.
For many months. though, suffering
intensely, he appears to have fingered
on. At last a stronger dose than US
ual put an end to his miserable exist
ence. The guilty couple, to the king $
everlasting disgrace, were released
after five years Imprisonment.
One of the most curious points con-
nected with poison is the fact that
nations and individuals have been
known to thrive on it. Mithridatcs,
the king Of Pontus, had poison for his
daily food. In the Gesta Romanorum
We read that "the queen of the north,
having heard Of the great proficiency
which Alexander the Great made in
learning, under the tuition of Aristo-
tie, nourished her daughter, from her
cradle, Gu a certain kind of deadly
poison, and when she grew .p she was
considered SO beautiful that the sight
of her alone affected many with mad
ness. The young lady was sent to
Alexander, who, Of course, fell madly
in love with her. Aristotle, who
krew of the plot, warned the king,
who, thereupon, commanded a crimi
nal whom he had condemned to death
to kiss the girl. Scarcely had the
man touched her ruby lips before "his