“TO POISON PUSSY.”

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XV, Issue 202, 25 November 1925, Page 5

“TO POISON PUSSY.”

GIRL ASKS FOR STRYCHNINE. THEN KILLS HERSELF. After conversiner on everyday Subjects for a moment or so. the girl inquired whether the chemist would be so good as to sell ho r some strychnine. “You see,” she added. “I want it to ooison a poor pussv we have at home.” The man behind the counter shook his head. “I can’t do that,” he answered. “Really I can’t.” Then as an afterthought. “But I’ll tell you what: “If vou’ll bring the cat along L’ll poison it for you. How will that do ?” The girl seemed dissatisfied. “You see." she went on. “pussv has the manse. I couldn’t reallv handle it.”

“Oh, very well.” replied the chemist, “I’ll give you some.” He did. A fivegrain dose it was, and the girl signed tho poison book, acknowledging by hor signature that she had taken it away. Instead o-f giving it to the cat, however, she gave it to herself, and death came quickly after. The chemist who told this story to Mr. E. Page, tho Coroner, in the Wellington -Magistrate’s Court on Monday was mark Herbert Lavis, employed m Evans’s Pharmacy, Manners street. “The came into the shop,” he said, "and I knew her as a customer. She seemed quite normal when I sold the. stuff to her. 1 never thought for one second sh e intended to use it for any other purpose than stated.” The Coroner considered that undci the circumstances he could not do otherwise than return a verdict of suicide. He found that deceased died as the result of poison self-administered while in a depressed state of mind.