Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1864-09-09 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

TUE SALE OF POISONS.—Dr. Alfred Taylor, commissioned by the Privy Council, has sent in a report on the means of committing murder by poison which, are allowed to exist in England. Ile says that poison enough to kill two adults can be purchased anywhere for threepence ; and that the careless dispensing of poisonous drugs is the cause of most frightful accidents. As to laudanum, it appears to be sold wholesale, single shops often in the Marshland supplying three or four hundred customers every Saturday night. Retail druggists often dispense 21filbs. in one year, and one man complained that his wile had consumed £l.OO in opium since he married. It is a mistake to consider the practice confined to the marshy districts. We do not believe there is a town in England where some one chemist does not on Saturday night load his counter with little bottles of laudanum ; and we were assured by a wholesale druggist that lie could and did sell it in the eastern counties to the extent of some thousands of pounds weight in a year. This gentleman, an old and keen observer, declared that the demand bad sprung up shortly after the introduction of teetotalism, and that it would be found to vary every. . where in accordance with the progress or decline of 1 the system of total abstinence.—.`sjicelirtor. V Md. ABLE DISCOVERY OF MINERALS AT RANKINNTN, AlltsHlßE.—lt may be interesting, says the /Am, err, for the mining world to know that the lands if Rankinston, the property of It. Sahnond, Eq , in the parish of Coylton, have been for NOIIIO time subjected to a ri4id examination by Mr Lumsden, pract,cal minieg engineer, and with singular success. lu a bore about eighty fathoms two blackband iron. stones have been discovered—the first 3 feet 6 inches thick, the second 2 feet 6 inches thick, with a stratum betwixt the positions of 6 feet 8 inches. The first of these seams has been tested from the calcined stone, anti three feet of it yields 1;3•3 per cent, of metallic iron—the remaining cleave of six inches yields 48 per cent, of metallic iron. The second seam is the iifoot position, and it is well known in the district Jo a different part of the sanie property aim her blackbawl has been discover,d, eighteen inches thick, and a brown stone, tiOit inches thick, at a depth of ten lath 1111 l s. These have not been tested, but the samples eromise weli Other minerals are plentiful on the estate, such as hematite ironstone, yielding 60 per cent of metallic iron ; limestone, producing 10 per cent, of metallic iron ; and coal for any tnarketahle purpose-. namely, house coal, smithy coal, furnace coal, blind ,cal, sod gas cal—he gas coal yieldin., 10.500 cubic feet ter ten of volatile matter ; also shale, of which . there is a large field, produeine 43 inwerial g' hots of I pfif Olin oil per tint. It may bi ferther stated that .caiiipies of art!',,,. eons, CalCatt',,,, and niussel hat-1 been in, 1. %via on the t•i rty as unveils*, i yielding from 30 to 40 per cent. ot metallic km  A farmer named Rolfe, whom when a child Sir Joshua Reynolds took aa .h^ model of " The infant Heroines," is still livin.4 at Beammfield.  Twenty thousand pprsons o f E”glish origin left the conntry in the cows.. 4 the last winter. or dic.B twelve thousand went to the Uuited ht tool.  M, J. G. Hubbard, il. li.. has contrit.uted the sum of t,OOO towards the restoration of the parieh  church of Buckingham.  Salmon fishing for England and Wales, except by angling, has closed. The fence time commenced on the same day partridges came in aeason—uu Sept.