The Manchester Examiner. — 1848-09-16 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

MYSTERIOUS POISONING.—On Monday last, an inquest, which had been commenced on the previous Friday, terminated at Filkins, Oxfordshire, before Mr. J. Westall, coroner for the western division of the county, touching the decease of Harriet Kitchener, an interesting young woman, wife of the tollkeeper at the adjoining parish of Broughton Pogis, and who, it was alleged, had come to her death through poisoning. From the nature of the evidence, it is not unreasonable to believe she had fallen a victim to the injudicious practice of allowing the keepers of "general shops" in the country, though totally unacquainted with chemistry; to retail drugs of a deadly description, the testimony of the medical men clearly showing that, on making a post mortem examination, and subjecting the contents of the stomach to a variety of tests, the result proved the presence of a large quantity of arsenic, which arsenic, it was proved, had been most reprehensibly supplied in the manner above noticed to Mary Ann Batten, an intelligent child, ten years of age, who purchased it for the deceased at the shop of a Mrs. Smith, at Filkins, though this was attempted to be denied by the shopwoman, Ellen Wroe, who served it. It was stated by one of the jurors that another child had bought precipitate of mercury at the shop on the same evening, and this was subsequently proved to have been correct, a little girl named Harriet Cook having purchased some, with other articles, for her mother. The i coroner, n summing up, commented in strong terms on the unsatisfactory. nature of the evidence adduced by Miss Ellen , Wroe, who either could not or would not remember what ' had taken place, and had accordingly given them vague statements totally different from those addluced by other witnesses. The question the jury had to decide was, whether the deceased had taken such poisort by mistake or intentionally. If they arrived at the first conclusion, their verdict would be one of accidental death; but if they considered that she had committed suicide, they must pursue a further inquiry, with the view of ascertaining the state of mind in which she was at the time. After consulting for a short time, the jury returned as their verdict "That the deceased died from swallowing arsenic, but whether designedly or by mistake there is not sufficient evidence i to i show."—To the particulars which we have thus given t s necessary to add but a few words. Although, perhaps, from the intricate circumstances by which the case was surrounded, and the complicated nature of the evidence adduced, it was difficult for the jury to arrive at another conclusion than that which they unanimouery came to, yet one thing disclosed at the inquest is certain. Two little children of tender years go to the "general shop" of a country village, where it would appear that drapery and drugs, provisions and poison, are indiscriminately dealt out to purchasers, and, without any question being asked of them, they receive, upon paying their penny, enough poison to produce death. Surely this is an evil that requires a remedy. Either ignorant persons should not be permitted to retail poisons, or such things should only be sold to grown-up people, and then never without the purpose for which they were recinired being distinctly aseertained.—=l37lB(9/ afinvr.