The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1839-07-02 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

DETERMINED SUICIDE AND SEDUCTION.—OR Monday afternoon an inquest was held at the Bull Inn, Newton, before John Heyes, Esq., to inquire touching the death of Ann Langan, a young woman, who, since last January, had lived in the service of the Misses Houghton's, in that village. From the evidence of several witnesses who were examined it appeared that •the deceased, who had been considered a very hard working industrious servant, had recently become very inattentive in her duties, and of intemperate habits. On Friday she was intoxicated, and on Saturday morning, about eleven o'clock, she was found by Miss Elizabeth Houghton behind the cellar door, so tipsy as scarcely to be able to . speak. There was a sauce tureen the cellar in which brandy bad been placed, and half a pint was missing from the bottle. The deceased afterwards went up stairs, and on coming down again went out of doors in the direction-of the fish-pond, and on returning was found to be drenched with wet. She had been found lying vomiting on the bank of the fish-pond, and had evidently been in the water. She was assisted home by a railway policeman, and one of Miss Houghton's female servants. Some women living in the neighbourhood were called to her assistance, and after being undressed by the kitchen fire, she was put to bed. She vomited very much, but that was for a time attributed to the liquor she had taken, and the effects of her immersion in the fish-pond. However, shortly after two o'clock, some white powder was found in the top of aso drawer in Mtss i Houghton's bed-room, and some of tin a liquid state had been spilt upon the floor. This led to a suspicion of the deceased having taken poison, and at • half-past four o'clock, Mr. John Barrow, surgeon, of Newton, was called in to attend her. He found that she was in a state of great suffering; her body was icy cold, and she had been vomiting very freely. Her eyes were inflamed and turgid ; her countenance extremely white ; she was fast sinking, and died in a few minutes after he saw her. He administered some oil and mustard, the only emetic at hand. She appeared sensible, and asked for some drink. He questioned her as to whether she had taken poison, but she instantly fell in violent convulsions, and died. Next day he opened the body, which he found to be in an extremely healthy state. She was in the early stage of pregnancy ; and in the stomach he found (at the least) three ounces of white arsenic, in a mass about the size of a hen heg. He was shown the powder found in Miss Houghton's room, and knew it from the experiments he had subsequently made to be arsenic. The deceased died from the effects of arsenic, and in Mr. Barrow's opinion, was a fine, stout, healthy woman of about 25 or 26 years of age. In answer to other enquiries from the coroner and jury, it was stated, that the deceased had been on several occasions visited by a man named " Barney," a labourer at Mr. Muspratt's vitriol works ; that he had accompanied her to the Catholic Chapel, at Ashton, seven weeks ago, and that the deceased stopped out all night, and had since declared she would marry no other man. There was no evidence to prove in what manner the arsenic had been procured. The deceased was only known to have been out once (on a Sunday evening) since the Thursday in Newton race week. The jury returned a verdict to the effect, that " the deceased had destroyed herself by taking poison, while in a:state of temporary insanity, produced by the excessive drinking of ardent spirits, anti tieing itaatatat of intolication.—Mancheeter Charter.