WHOLESALE TRAGEDIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 10009, 21 December 1895, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHOLESALE TRAGEDIES.

ALLEGED MURDERS FOR THE SAKE

OF GAIN. The Criminal Court of the town of Hodmezje Vasarhely, near Szegodin, in Hungary, is now occupied with a series of poisoning cases, which recall the great trial for wholesale husband poisoning with arsenic that was held in tho same district several years ago. Tho motive of the more recent crimos, it appears, was to obtain insurance money as quickly as possible from a number of friendly societies and insuranco companies in which tho victims, unknown to themsolves, had been insured. In one case tho person had been infured at IS different societies, tho premium being paid by the relatives. The insurance money after death was divided between these relatives and the agent who provided tho poison in the proportion of six to one. The minimum charge of such agents, of whom there aro six known and imprisoned, was a hundred florins. Among tho accused is a woman who has poisoned her mother, while another has poisoned her husband and her sister. Some of the culprits have similarly murdered not only 000 of their parents, but at the same time a husband and a child, or two or more children. So numerous wore THE ORDERS FOR I'OISOX that in the house of ono of tho agents, & certain Mario Szalay Jager, aged G3, 19 bottles of poison, all ready to bo fetched, were found, and not much less in tho house of eome of the other poison procurers, who wero mostly midwives. The clientelo belonged mostly to tho peasant class. In one of these cases a single woman, Juliana K.oti, aged 31, was charitably taken into tho house of a couplo named Kis Gulyas, and was insured by thorn in 18 friendly societies for an aggregate sum of 2500 florins. She was then purposely made ill by something that was not fatal in its effects, and the doctor was called in to attond to her. Once this testimony of illness, which was wan tod for tho friendly societies, was obtained, a powder containing arsenic was administered to fcha patient, ostensibly as though it had been prescribed by tho doctor. The poor woman died a most painful death, and the culprits had already ; colleoted the sum of 1,400 florins from ' different societies, when one of them grow suspicious, refused payment, and gave information to tho authorities. About 60 persons are implicated in crimes of this kind in tho district in quostion up to tho present. The bodies of Juliana Koti, who died some weeks ago, and of ft certain Elizabeth Irare, who died 18 months ago, aged 71, have been exhumed, and tho internal organs sent for analysis to the Chemical Institute at Posth. These test cases will decide whether further disinterments are to toko place.