The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-11-16
Three Men Drank
Poison For
Wine.
ALL WENT BLIND
AND PASSED AWAY
PunchbowI Portuguese Colony
Stricken in Curious
Manner.
August Medeiros. Joaquin Silva and Joe
CabraI, the Victims Of Fatal
Indulgence.

Death came to three men in the past |
thirty-six hours in mysterious guise, |
attacking them in the very presence OF
the corpse of a friend they mourned
and striking them down almost before
they realized they were the objects of
| the fiend's hatred.
While sorrowing for the death of
| their old friend, Joseph Silva. August
| Medeiros, Joaquin Silva and Joseph
| Cabral partook of deadly poison
which they mistook for wine of home
manufacture. They were warned not
to drink the liquor but despite these in
functions, copious draughts of it were
swallowed.
August Medeiros died at o'clock
| Wednesday afternoon after short ILL
ness which was at first attributed to
heart failure.
| Joaquin Silva, wellknown in Homo
lulu as Hotel joe passed away at
to'clock yesterday morning.
Joe Cabral, foreman for H. H. Will
liams, the undertaken, died an hour
later.
I Four others were reported to the
Board of Health as being ill from the
effects of the same liquor and one lay
in a precarious condition yesterday.
Two of them were men, one woman
and the fourth was a fourteen-year-o -old
son of August Medeiros. DR.. Camp; is
/ attending the patients and states that
: none of them is in danger.
A fourth victim of the tragedy may
, be added to the list. j. j. Silva, of
Kauai, was one of the mourners. He
y was drunk when he went to the de-
p ceased Silva's house and drank more of
7 the LIQUID than the others. He left for
u ! Kauai on one of the steamers Tuesday
o afternoon and the next steamer from
S the Garden Isle is expected to bring
S news of his sudden death.
e A curious - chapter of incidents is
: woven around the story of the tragedy
s the house of old man Silva on Punch
d bowl street nearly opposite the Nor
5. mon church. He and some friends were
Y, in the house and to them he offered
wine of his own making. "Silvas wine
II is well-known to the denizens of the
e slopes of Punchbowl.
ri The grapes of his own vineyard are
If pressed to bring out the juice which i:
u made into wine. 1t is sourish but !:
3 palatable to the Portuguese who were
;t
h One of these was a Russian Finr
named wilhelm. He drank severa
= beakers with Silva on Monday. Silvs
took much of it also.
II drank his wine,'' said Wilhelm
yesterday as he watched the coffin o
Medeiros borne to the hearse, "but i
hasn't harmed me. 1t could not hav,
been his wine which caused these mel
to die. Silva / know made a cordial o
his wine and used methylated spirit
=. for that purpose. He made a larg
quantity of wine and to this he woul,
!, add a small amount of the methy1ate,
liquor to make it cordial.
THE old man also made a mixtur
A for killing insects on the flowers an,
vines. 1t was ant poison, / think
!, Probably these dead men got hold of
!, bottle of that poison and drank it. /
they did it would surely cause thei
death.
: This old man was a florist and
Q was natural for him to concoct mix
o lures to kill the insect pests whic
g would destroy his flowers and plants
9 He had some powder and with wood al
cohol mixed 1T to make an ant poisor
v This he kept in these square face bot
:. ties which formerly held gin. The con
d tents were red in color, something lik
y whiskey, only little lighter. 1t was
e medicine for the flowers.
We'll when his friends began t
/ gather to mourn at his bier the me
a went about the house and helped them
n selves to whatever liquor they coul
e find. They got hold of this poison in
/" stead of his wine.
a Yesterday afternoon. that's Wed
IS nesday, when came home from wor
l heard that Medeiros was dead. Whe
e I heard that / felt rather queer. Th
u sudden death of Silva and then
n Medeiros startled me for they WEI
, both my friends. / went to the hous
e and true. I found him stretched OF
IS cold in death. They told me that tn
: doctor had said he had been drinkin
Is something with poison in it..
! THAT evening Joaquin Silva came ii