The Warwickshire Herald. — 1892-10-20 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

BITS FROM BOOKS.  DNATONA POISONING BY THUGS.  "There was • Jain temple at Pendooke, near Bahugulpore, in Bengal. The two servants of it were discovered one morning, now kicking about on the ground, now lying about as if intoxicated and pdyel or mad-like, while the bead priest or Poeldres himself was nowhere to be seen. Three days subsequently his corpse was found in a pit or dry well, about half a mile distant from the temple. The medical evidence pointed to poison as the probable cause of the mates death, but, as in all cases of vegetable poisoning, the venom was not discoverable in the contents of the stomach. The two drugged servants—who recovered—were, with two others, charged with the murder, but wMP acquitted. In their defence they attributed the deed to two pilgrims who bad slept, they declared, at the temple that night—that they had not only poisoned them. but were also the murderers of the priest. And there the case bad for some time been left. In the course of Mr. Belly's inquiries into the cases of poisoning so prevalent at that time in that direction a man named Phoolchund was arrested as one of a gang of professional poisoners charged in several other cases of murder. He confessed, and included in his confession his complicity in the murder of the priest; and, in the list of his accomplices, he gave the name of a man, one Phodoo it Napit (barber caste), who was thereupon arrested, and both he and the other were formally admitted as approvers. According to them the case happened in this wise. They and some others (of whom one. Gopaul, was the personal friend f the priest) together proceeded by concert one evening. ensue in a bullock cart, others on foot, to make an offering to the Theikoor 'ot idol in the temple. Some sweetmeats were purchased for the purpose, which, being brought to a garden in the neighbourhood, were divided into four parts, and placed in four Moos (a kind of box formed of leaves, in which sweetstuffs meant for presentation are usually carried). The man Gopaul now mixed some powdered datoora seed or bookni, in the meats in one of those receptacles, and handed it over to the head man of the gang, one Chutturdhind, as the proposed offering. The latter, accompanied by Gopaul and another named Juggurnith scaped into Nipal), tendered it to the priest, who lirecented it in due form to the idol, and then, as was usual, began to divide it among the three. they persuaded him to keep the whole of it for tiimself, as they had three other ditOnas for themselves. The priest thereupon ate some of the drugged sw,,,tmeat,and,going into the other courtyard, gave ,etne of it to the two temple attend Ws. This at tbrut seven o'clock the same evening: and the tioitioners lingered in the precincts of the temple on the pretence that 'they would wait to hear the fliakoor's evening hymn.' In the darkening gloom, just before the night lamp was lighted within the inner shrine, an aged woman, almost the last act of I. %%Alen of the closing day, crept in to be advised by the priest, and as silently stole away, and a lame old man struggled up to offer to the idol his obeisance and salutation, or duration, and slowly limped out again. All then became silent and was • 'Re glic•rlo, from the uncertain ninht light within the innermost recess of the idol's sanctum. And now soon the priest became insensible —and as the two drugged attendants were lying in .he outer court under the same influence, and the :ix° ir three other usual servitors had gone away 1. t distant butt-meta or charity fair, the lurkine wretches decided to kill the priest outright and plunder his wealth,stowed away, as the man Gopaul knew, in a nuilkhdort or secret treasure-place within a certain inner loom, and thy proceeded to carry art their fell purpose accordingly. The unconscious priest was lying inside of the inner courtyard, under the verandah of the shrine itself. One scoundrel clutched and squeezed his throat, anothei sat heavily upon his chest, a third held his hands, while a fourth horribly trampled where of itself a rata] result might be reckoned upon: 'The priest did not speak, but flapped about his hands and feet. end that was why his hands were held.' The helpIvs victim became convulsed and died. Four others f the gang then lifted away the corpse, while the others plundered the treasure."—"Some Record ot ,'rime: being the Diary of a Year, Official and Particular, of an Officer of the Thuggee and Dacoitie Police." By General Charles Hervey, C.B. 'London: Sampson, Low, Marston, and CO.)