126 THE ROOT OF WATER HEMLOCK. [June, 



THE EOOT OF WATER HEJlILOCK. 



"A most distressing case of poisoning, by which the lives of 

 two line young men have been sacrificed, has occurred in the 

 pretty little \-illage of West Boldon, near Sunderland. John 

 Snowdon, a farmer's son, and William Ridley, a labourer, went out 

 on Wednesday morning to clean a hedge and ditch belonging to 

 the father of the former, adjoining the Newcastle road, and 

 about noon the same day they were found lying paralyzed and 

 speechless in the field, close to the ditch where they had been 

 employed. There was a mark of blood on E-idley^s face, and a 

 black mark was forming round Snowdon^s eyes. A carter saw 

 them first, and imagining they had been fighting, gave an alarm, 

 and assistance was brought to them. They were removed in a 

 cart to the tillage, and medical aid was summoned, but both the 

 poor fellows expired shortly after they were got into a house, 

 and their bodies blackened all over. The medical men gave it 

 as their opinion that both the unfortunate young men had died 

 from the efiects of a vegetable poison. A quantity of the Water 

 Hemlock {Cicuta virosa) grew in the ditch where they had been 

 employed. One of them at least had been in the habit of eating- 

 some simple roots; and, from the fact that the root of the 

 Water Hemlock was subsequently found with teeth-marks in it 

 near to where the men had been laid after losing their conscious- 

 ness, and that another piece of the same root was found in Rid- 

 ley's pocket, there is no doubt whatever but that they were poi- 

 soned by eating the root of this plant in mistake for some other. 

 Snowdon was only eighteen years of age ; Ridley was thirty-five, 

 and has left a widow, with a small family, but meanly provided 

 for." — From the ' Times ' of April 13, 1857. 



Is a general knowledge of the poisonous plants superfluous in 

 common life ? 



It is now upwards of twelve months since a similar distressing 

 case of accidental poisoning happened at Tain, in Ross-shire, 

 through the mistaking of the roots of Monkshood for Horse- 

 radish. Few plants are more unlike than those just named. 

 Our correspondent asks a very plain and important question, 

 which every one is quahfied to answer. 



Ignorance of common things is not confined to the labouring 



