The Daily Times. — 1860-05-18 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

POISONING BY MEANS OF SALTPETRE.  The Scotch newspapers record the trial iu the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh, of Elizabeth Smith, or Walker, for the murder of her son, under the following singular circumstances :—The prisoner's child, born in 1857, was placed by her, in April, 1858, in the hands of a Mr. and Mrs. Innes, Greenside Edinburgh. She herself went into service as 4 nurse, and remained as such until January last, when she came to stay with the Inneses. She lived with them until her eon's death, on Thursday, the Bth of March. It appeared that she did not take kindly to her child, nor it to her. Up till the day of his death—indeed, till within three hours of it—the boy was in good health, romping and running about the houses of the neighbours. At five o'clock on that Thursday afternoon, the prisoner, her son, Mr. and Mrs. Innes, sit down to their tea, and shortly after the meal is over, Mrs. Tunes draws attention to one side of the child's face being flushed. The prisoner, who had never before done so during the whole of her stay, proposed to take it out for a walk. The child is dressed, and she and it leave the house about twenty-five minutes to six. About twenty minutes past six they return, the child vomiting violently and nearly rigid with cold. In her declaration, given subsequently before a magistrate, she says the child was with her during the whole time they were absent. The child gets worse, and Mrs. Lines proposes to send for a doctor, a proposal which is resisted by the prisoner. Between eight and nine the child, which meantime has been put to bed, is discovered to be dead. She next applies to two medical men for a certificate of the cause of death, but is refused. Meantime information is lodged at the police-office, the result of which is that the prisoner is apprehended, and Dr. Littlejohn makes a post morteN examination of the body. On the opening of the body, the stomach presented unequivocal indications of irritant poisoning. An analysis of the contents of the stomach and of the different internal organs, conducted by Dr. D. Maclagan, establishes beyond a doubt that the child had been poisoned, by what ? Not by arsenic, nor pruzsiz acid, nor corrosive solalimati, nor, in fact, by anything which his hitherto been known as a poison, but 137 a substance which is in daily use for the coxing of beef and ham, or for the manufacture of match=paper or gunpowder. In point of fact, this is the first case on record in this or any other country of even alleged criminal poisoning by saltpetre. Writers on toxicology do refer to cases of poisoning from its accidental administration, but they are few in, numbers. Now the evidence of the medical men regarding the properties of this salt is of the greatest possible importance, for it 1 appears that, while it is so common an article of demand that it is sold by nearly every drysalter, victualler, and grocer, as weli as by druggists, it is so cheap that a fatal dose may be purchased for one halfpenny. When administered in sufficient quantity, it begins to show its effects in an unusually rapid manner—generally in five or ten minutes; and, after but a short and painful illness, hurries its victim to the grave. The jury found that the charge was "not proven ;" but the facts of the case, so far as they are ascertained, should yet not be without their value to the publio.