ACCIDENTAL POISONING. 
129 
tube; steam is admitted into the tube until a uniform temperature of 212 degrees is ob¬ 
tained. It is kept in this condition and continually agitated for about four hours, when all 
impurities having been thrown off, it is allowed to cool, assisted by the fans, which bring 
every portion in turn into contact with the air. At the end of eight or ten hours it is 
sufficiently cool to be drawn off into the filters, which are on the lower story. Each 
filter contains five tons. Having passed through the filter, the oil, fully refined, is 
pumped into appropriate tanks to be ready for barrelling, and receives the name of 
colza oil, on account of its illuminating properties ; the true colza being an oil expressed 
from the Brassica oleracea , a variety of the cabbage plant, from whose seeds an oil much 
used on the Continent is expressed. 
Some idea may be formed of the vast quantity of purified rape-oil consumed for lubri¬ 
cating and illuminating purposes, when this refinery alone sends out upwards of two 
thousand tons per annum. A single railway company consumes three hundred tons a 
year, and the Great Eastern requires a thousand gallons for the single voyage to New 
York. Whale, seal, and sperm oils are refined by a more simple process. They are 
simply filtered through flannel bags ; the residue of the common kinds is called foots, 
and is one of the ingredients used in the manufacture of soap. The deposit produced in 
the filtration of sperm oil is called spermaceti, and is very valuable, commanding a ready 
sale at £90 per ton. These oils are used for the purpose of illumination only, with the 
exception of sperm, which is employed in the cotton districts for the lubrication of 
spindles. Large quantities of olive oil are imported from Spain for lubricating ma¬ 
chinery, and immense quantities of American lard are imported, pressed, and filtered for 
obtaining the oil known as lard oil, which is considered a good lubricator, and certainly 
has the quality of cheapness to recommend it.— Mechanics' Magazine. 
ACCIDENTAL POISONING. 
LIVERPOOL SUMMER ASSIZE'S.—CROWN COURT.—(BEFORE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE 
COCKBURN.) 
Richard Poole surrendered upon an indictment, charging him with having, at Liver¬ 
pool, feloniously killed and slain one John Lingard, on the 11th of April last. Mr. 
Aspinall, Q.C., and Mr. Samuell appeared for the prosecution; the Hon. Mr. Liddell, 
Q.C., and Mr. Potter for the defence. Prisoner pleaded not guilty. 
It will doubtless be in the remembrance of our readers that the prisoner, a young 
man about twenty-five years of age, was a dispensing assistant in the establishment of 
Messrs. Clay and Abraham, chemists, Bold Street, and that the deceased was a 
plumber and glazier, residing in Mount Pleasant. On the 11th of April last, Dr. 
Nottingham prescribed a lotion and a powder for the deceased, who was suffering from 
an affliction in one of his eyes ; the latter was to be composed of five grains of James’s 
pow r der and six grains of Dover’s powder. The prescription was taken, in accordance 
with the directions of Dr. Nottingham, to Messrs. Clay and Abraham’s shop, in Bold 
Street, by Miss Witter, who was at the time staying at Mr. Lingard’s house. The 
prescription was first handed to Mr. Whitton, who looked at it and then passed it 
on to one of the assistants, whose duty it was to copy it. That having been done, the 
prescription was giving to the prisoner, who made it up. In doing so he had to use 
-two bottles, and it appeared that the one containing James’s powder was placed upon 
the same shelf and almost side by side with another bottle of the same size, form, and 
appearance, which contained strychnine. Between these two there w r as only one other 
bottle, of the same description, the strychnine bottle being the second, and the James’s 
powder the fourth, from the end of the row. Before the powder was handed to Miss 
Witter it was passed on to Mr. Whitton, who, after looking at it and smelling it, gave 
it to the young lady. The powder was given to the deceased the same night, at bedtime, 
and almost immediately afterwards he complained of feeling ill. His symptoms rapidly 
developed into such as accompany strychnine poisoning, and in the course of an hour 
he died. 
Mr. Aspinall told the jury that the real question they would have to consider would 
be, not so much what was the cause of death, as whether or not the circumstances under 
which the prisoner made up the prescription had been such as would bring home to 
