POISON FOR POLITICIANS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 94, 20 April 1912, Page 13

POISON FOR POLITICIANS.

The British Premier is said to have been been rendered seriously uneasy (says the San Francisco Argonaut) by the numerous threats to poison his wife and children unless hs surrenders in the matter of the suffrage. As a rule it is safe to disregard a threatening letter, but the dove-eyed- apostles of the vote have espoused what is called the propaganda by deeds with such energy that even poison ceases to be impossible. And what a thrill it would give to the tired nerves of political life. What a spice of romance would be imported into the prosaic diningroom of the House of Commons if an adverse vote on a woman's Bill might mean a little something in the coffee. But the proposal is an interesting one from many points of view. Poison has never been a favourite .with the Anglo-Saxon mind, and we must go back for two aud a half centuries before we find an instance of its employment for -political purposes. It is related by Sir Simon d'Ewes that wheu PyjttLw*! oigauisiji^theL£SSMtftase.'aS ih&.

Commons to Charles I. he was handed a parcel left for him at the door of Westminister Hall. The parcel was gound to contain a piece of linen rag that had been used to cover a plague wound, and it had been sent to him by some too enthusiastic royalist in the hope that he would contract tho disease.