AN AMERICAN BORGIA.

Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 148, 6 November 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN AMERICAN BORGIA.

Since the terrible revelations in the case of the child murderer and torturer Jesse Pomeroy, nothing more revolting has come to light than the charges made against Mrs. Sarah J. Robinson, of Somerville, a city adjacent to Boston. The woman herself is reported to be a mild-looking person, somewhat prominent in society, who has an exemplary reputation. Until recently no suspicion has attached to her ; on the other hand, she was regarded as a pleasant lady, and was even tho object of public sympathy, aroused by the inroads of death in her family. It is now charged against this woman, upon strong testimony, that she has successively poisoned her husband, her 10-year-old daughter, her sister, sister's husband and two children, another daughter, and recently her last remaining child, a young man of 24, was lying in a critical condition. It is even believed by some thac she lately poisoned a whole picnic party of 100 people, by mixing arsenic with their ice-cream, but this does not rest upon proof, nor is it likely to have been the case, as there is an entire absence of motive urging her to destroy the pleasureseekers. In her household murders, however, the motive is very apparent, and is clearly traceable to her overweening greed for money. Each one of the victims of her poisoning operations was insured for £400 in a mutual benefit life insurance company known as the United Order of Pil- j glim Fathers ; and it is alleged to bo susceptible of proof that in each case, by the aid of a male accomplice, she

succeeded in having the life insurance , so adjusted that the money came to her. This Sornerville woman deliberately killed her victimsfor money ; and nearly all were children, either her own or those of relatives who dead, and towards whom she stood in the position of guardian. It was deliberately followed as a money-making business, and all her arrangements were carried out with coolness and craft. She does not even seem to havo been actuated by a homicidal mania, as was the case with Jesse Pomeroy, who was undoubtedly as irresponsible for his brutalities aa a wild animal. Her crimes were planned with the utmost coolness and deliberation, and were committed at long intervals of time, so as not to rouse snspicion, in which she was aided by the fact that so many of her victims were children, whose deaths do nob attract as much attention as those of elderly persons. Tho Albany " Evening Journal," in discussing the caso, calls attention to another startling fact in this connection. It says that " graveyard insurance has given place to child insurance among prevalent insurance crimes," and that during the present Bummer several instances have been reported in Pennsylvania, the Ohio, and in Borne of the Southern States. — Chicago Tribune.