The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-02-05
THE FINE ART OF MURDER.
1t LIS Not Exemplified by the BrOmO-
SeItzer Case in New York.
CoIIinr,r

1t LIS Not Exempltfied by the Bronco
Settler Case in New York.
Golfers Weekly.
The Cornish bromo-seltzer case is triply
suggestive. First, because there is a mys
terry in it. Second, because behind that
Borglas and the Medicis, and finally, be-
cause it involves the whole subject of muir
is used for the reason that De Quincy so
catalogued it. He had pretext Had he
wished he could have had text Once
upon time people who made. themselves
Objectionable were dosed with hemlock.
Death came very agreeably. 1t neither
conVulsed nor distorted. 1t left the beauty
of the victim unmarried, the features I'M
contracted the mouth half-cloSed 1t left
no trace, either. There is art. Whose says
art says Greece. In Greece murderers were
artists. That is a number of centuries ago.
In the days that succeeded them art per-
sisted but methods changed. In Rome
lady named Iocusta discovered way of
turning mushroom into a real chef
d'oeuvre. With dish of them Nero elm
mated his brother With another Agrip-
pima got rid of her husband. with a third
Domtian's father disappeared What the
ingredients were one may surmise yet never
and as such reserved exclusively for the
purple. Patricians, in their inability to OBJ
tain 1T, invented needle and ring. The
FORMER had poisoned tip. Those who
liked gave a little prick to those they did
not like and the latter fell dead. Lampridus
or Spartan, or whoever the brute may have
''Scriptores Historae Augustae described
the process and the result. Edgar Poe took
the idea and made a story of it at which
physicians laughed. But at the time they
were unfamiliar with the past and unac-
quainted with the present. A needle dipped
in hydrocyan1c acid will do as we'll to-day
Moreover as was the case with TIC
patrician toy, it viii leave no scar and no
trace. There is art in that, also. Samples
Of the rings, recovered from the ruins at
Pompeil, any one may examine at Naples.
They suggest nothing so much as vipers of
gold. A receptacle, moved by a spring, con-
tanned poison which eXuded at a touch. At
table, in the animation of small talk the
artist had but gesture to make. On the
food of his neighbOr drop would fall The
IS not now the sole depository of
these playthings. In this city
which a jeweled snake resting for second
on a glass of champagne, is believed to have
occasioned. The belief may be unfounded,
yet even so, the possibilities in it are ornate.
Possibilities not similar but cognate were
thoroughly appreciated during the renais-
sance. That was the age when murder real
~ fouriShed. There were sixty recognized
modes Of eliminating, without fuss or scan
dal people who made themselves disliked.
It would be fastidious to describe them all.
The most fashionable was aqua tofana,
which remained in vogue UP to the begin
ming of the present century and of which
now we only know that II was without color
and without smell. Adopts used to smear Ii
on one side of a gold blade, with which they
would then cut a peach, and, after giving
the poisoned half TO the person 10 be elm
mated, eat the other half in his presence.
1t is difficult to regard that otherwise than
as artistic also. There was another prepar-
alton still more so. 1t acted not at once but
years later. The victim became toothless,
bald, desiccated, and expired after an agony
relentless and prolonged. Jean Richepin
took the idea, as Poe had the earlier one.
and made from it an effective story. Effee-
tive, too, were the poisoned candles. pois-
oned gloves, poisoned flowers and poisoned
kisses with which, under the Borgias, death
was distributed In Italy and which the
Medicis introduced in France. Effective,
also, was a knife, thin as a darning needle
and long as q dirk. which. properly nnanipu-