THE INSURANCE MURDERS IN HUNGARY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1315, 13 May 1897, Page 12

THE INSURANCE MURDERS IN HUNGARY.

A TERRIBLE STATE OF THINGS. The trial of seven woman and one man on a charge of having poisoned more than a dozen persons at Hofanezoe Vasarhely in order to obtain possession of sums for which they had been insured has now lasted ten days. The evidence tends to show that there are more guilty persons than was at first supposed. Fresh arrests have been made, and more dead bodies have been disinterred, including eleven yesterday (as the Daily News Vienna correspondent wires). The village was a nest of conspirators, the doctor and the midwife lending their aid to the vampires who actually administered tho poison. The insurance societies, it seems, are in such close competition that they keep secret their lists of members, and it was possible for these men and women to insure their relations in as many as seventeen, societies at once. In some cases it was an aged mother who was insured by a son and daughter, or an ailing sister, a crippled brother. Sometimes it was a poor person who had nobody to care for him or her, and was thankful to be received into a house on any terms. All these were insured for moderate sums. One man who lived in extreme poverty got ,£l2O when his mother died, having insured her in five societies. The midwife Jager, it is stated, always supplied the arsenic, which was ready at hand when the insured person ailed, and could be given with medicine without arousing suspicion. When death took place tho doctor examined the body and declared, everything in order, and the midwife was handsomely paid when the insurance money had been received. In some cases persons previously insured were asked to dinner, and were given poisoned food. The midwife denies her guilt, saying she gave the women poison to put in soap, which they made.