Chap. I.—B. S.] ATTEMPT AT POISONING. 
9 
One of my fellow-passengers, an officer in her 
Majesty’s service, gave me many curious details about 
negro life in the West Indies. He had been com¬ 
pelled to go home in order to recruit his health, which 
had been very much shattered by slow poison ad¬ 
ministered by his black cook, whom he had scolded 
for being dead drunk on the day of a dinner party. 
The officer found that after every luncheon (a meal 
which he always took by himself) he became sick; he 
consulted his medical man, but never suspected any 
foul play on the part of the negro. However, one day 
mentioning the case to a friend, he heard to his sur¬ 
prise that the late mistress of the cook had suffered from 
similar symptoms, and finally died. The luncheon was 
analysed, but the chemists of Trinidad failed to detect 
any trace of poison. The case being sufficiently sus¬ 
picious, the poisoned man insisted that the cook should 
be dismissed by the messman, but, as he was considered 
to be the best cook in the island, his brother officers 
naturally objected to comply with the request, and they 
tried to argue that the sickness must have some other 
cause, as they themselves were never affected by any un¬ 
pleasant symptoms after partaking of their meals. To 
set the matter finally at rest, one of the other officers 
offered to partake of the luncheon, the cook not being 
made previously acquainted with the fact. Ho sooner, 
however, had he eaten of the luncheon than he too 
became very sick; and then there remained no doubts 
that poisoning had been attempted. 
“ One would have thought facts like these,” my in¬ 
formant added, “would have been sufficiently strong 
