176 
PROFESSOR TAYLOR’S REPORT ON POISONING. 
mixture with common articles of food, or a poison sold for medicine, may have been the 
real cause. Even in the event of death taking place, as no suspicion exists among the 
neighbours, and post-mortem examinations and analyses are not made, except when strong 
suspicion has been excited by moral circumstances, such cases are necessarily overlooked. 
Among various instances of the sale of poisoned food that have come before me 
during the last thirty years, illustrative of the effects of carelessness and ignorance com¬ 
bined, are the following :— 
A man died from the effects of some oatmeal purchased at a village general shop, 
where drugs and poisons, including arsenic, were sold. The death of this man from 
arsenic led to a suspicion that a murder had been perpetrated by some member of Ins 
family. Some oatmeal procured at the same shop was found to contain arsenic in quan¬ 
tity sufficient to destroy life. The meal was kept in a large drawer, divided into a num¬ 
ber of parts by loosely fitting wooden partitions. In one of them white arsenic in 
powder had been kept, and the poison had diffused itself through the contents of the 
different divisions of the drawer, thus giving to all of them, more or less, poisonous pro¬ 
perties. Several articles of food in common demand were found to have been acciden¬ 
tally poisoned. How many persons had suffered in health from this carelessness in 
keeping arsenic, before attention was drawn to the fact by the occurrence of a sudden 
death from poison, it is now impossible to state. 
Another instance occurred recently in one of the northern counties, which brought to 
light two cases of death from the criminal administration of arsenic one and nearly two 
years previously. A man in a respectable position of life as a small farmer kept a village 
general shop, where rice, arrow-root, sago, and other articles of food were sold. He also 
kept arsenic for sale. Some ground rice was purchased at this shop by a neighbour, 
and seven or eight persons were made seriously ill and nearly killed, in consequence of 
eating a pudding made with a portion of this rice. An action for damages was brought 
in the county court against the shopkeeper, but this was decided in his favour, on the 
ground that the arsenic might have got into the rice by accident. It transpired, however, 
that other persons had suffered from symptoms of poisoning by reason of their partaking 
of food from this shop, and it was then remembered that the wife of the shopkeeper had 
died suddenly twenty-one months before, and his mother had also died a year before this 
date. Their bodies were exhumed, and it was found that they had both died from the 
effects of arsenic. This led to the trial of the shopkeeper and a woman whom he had 
married after the death of his wife, for murder. It came out in evidence that arsenic 
was so carelessly kept in the shop that it might have become mixed with various articles 
of food (arrow-root) given to the wife and the mother during their illness, and thus have 
accidentally caused the deaths of both. The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter, 
and the prisoners were sentenced to penal servitude for life. But for the simultaneous 
illness of so many members of a family who had partaken of food procured at this 
village shop, their violent deaths by poison would probably have remained unknown to 
this day.* 
The superintendent of police, who gave evidence at the trial, made the following 
'* The Queen against Garner and Wife, Lincoln Lent Assizes, 18G3. It is worthy of 
remark, that an inquest was held on the body of the wife immediately after her death in 
March, 1861, and the jury returned a verdict to the effect “ that deceased died suddenly from 
natural causes by visitation of God, and not from any violent cause.” When the present 
experienced coroner for Boston, Mr. Walter Clegg, heard of the sale of this poisoned rice, 
etc., he, upon his own responsibility, ordered the exhumation of the bodies of the wife and 
mother of the male prisoner. The result of the inquiry showed that he had taken a correct 
view of the facts. The medical gentleman who attended the wife in her illness, candidly 
admitted that at the time he had no suspicion that poison was the cause of the symptoms. 
I am indebted to Mr. Justice Willes for a note on a similar case. A woman named Alice 
Hewitt was tried before him at Chester Winter Assizes, December, 1863, and convicted of 
poisoning her mother with arsenic in the month of March preceding. Although the symp¬ 
toms of irritant poisoning were very clearly marked, a medical man who attended her 
certified the cause of death as gastro-enteritis. Eleven weeks after the burial of the de¬ 
ceased, the body was exhumed and examined, when as much as 154 grains of arsenic were 
found in the stomach and contents. It was proved that shortly before her mother’s death, 
the prisoner had purchased a quarter of a pound of arsenic for threepence, and had insured 
her mother’s life in one of the local clubs, by causing a woman to personate her. This 
