Weekly News. — 1892-05-19 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

PURE HENBANE" SOLD AS CELERY  SEEDS. AN ALARMING STORY.  A correspondent of the Timm writes —Last Friday night my wife and I began our dinner with some clear soup which the cook, as we afterwards ascertained, had flavoured with celery seeds bought hi a bottle from a greengrocer. About ten minutes afterwards I began to feel quite dizzy, and could hardly swallow the food I was eating, which tasted as if it was nothing but dust and ashes. At the same time my wife became so faint that she asked me to help her up to her room at once. This I did with soiii.! difficulty, having to hold on to the banister with one hand while I supported her with the other. At the same time, also, our sight became blurred, our mouths and throats parched, and we both begs,. to feel cold. I tiied in vain to get arm by sitting over the drawing-room fire, but only felt intensely drowsy. I then rang for the parlourmaid to ask her to send for the doctur ; and it then appeared that both she and the cook had tasted the soup and been seized uith the same symptoms as in the eases of my wile and myself. When Dr. Martin, of Sinter '8- place, arrived shortly afterwards I had great difficulty not only in getting up to receive him, but in making him croierstand what had happened, so indistinct was my articulation. However, from the dilation of our eyes, the parched condition of our tongues, and state of our pulse (my wife's having gone up to 140), he, of course, saw that we had been badly poisoned, and prescribed drastic remedies, which saved us probably from very serious consequences; for even the next day our sight was still defective, and my wife's hands were Mighty paralysed. The bottle of celery seed was then taken by Dr. Martin to Messrs Hogg, who carefully analysed it and discovered that it was not celery seed at all, but pure henbane. Two oth r bottles were procured from the same greengrocer as before and analysed, with the result that one turned out to be pure henhane and the other henbane and celery seed mixed. This deadly poison, which is being sold every day for household purposes, is obtained from a firm oh seeds. men and herbalists, who, I believe, procure it from France wholesale and make it up into the bottles which they sell to the greengrocers. Henbane is about 50 per cent, cheaper than real celery seeds.  The dangerous robber chief, Simic, who recently committed several murders in the province of Slavoni, Southern Hungary, has been shot dead at a farm near Esiegg. One of the pursuing gendarmes, at whom he fired six shots, was seriously wound d.  On Saturday morning, about 6 o'clock, the body of a man was found on the Thames bank near Falcon Dock, Blackfriars. From appeararvtes the body must have been in the river some time. He had on a pair of brown leather gloves, a blue and black suit, and pair of laced boots. The Earl of Ave, eldest son of the Marquis of Dufferin. has resigned his lieutenant's commission in the 17th Lancers, and thus his connection with the army. which he entered in 1886, as a cornet in the 6th Dragoon Guards, is severed. He had previously served in the Bechuanaland Expedition with the Mounted Rifles, and during the operations in Burmah he was employed on the staff as an extra &D.C. to the commander of the expedition, receiving a medal with clan) for his services. _ _ _ . .  A husbiuxl who had incurred the anger of his Wife, a terrible virago, seeks refuge under the bed. "Come out of that, you brigand, you rascal, you assassin!" screamed his gentle companion. "No, madam,- he replied calmly, "I won't come out; I am going to Mow you that I shall do as I please in my own house!"  A birthday gift was given to a wife by her bust*, d arid three children. The youngest, a little ten-year old, was appointed to male the speech of presetrati fl. S' e did it after much preparation for the occa,ion, ae.t this was the form it, took—' Dear mamina, ties rift is pre,ented to %011 by your three childred and vuur one husband. 6