POISON BY POST

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11366, 13 November 1922, Page 6

POISON BY POST

“ DOCTORED ” CHOCOLATES POLICE COMMISSIONER NARROWLY ESCAPES DEATH. MISCREANT UNKNOWN. Br Tel paraph—Press Assn.—Copyrieht Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Received November 12, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, November 11. Brigadier-General Sir William Horwood, Chief Commissioner of Police, when dressing for the Lord Mayor’s banquet, suddenly collapsed at Scotland Yard. Three doctors were called in, and later it was necessary to remove him to St. Thomas’s Hospital. The police announce that the illness is due to the malicious administration of poison in chocolates. The miscreant is not yet known. Sir William Horwood has been repeatedly threatened by Bolshevik extremists. and there is a suspicion that they placed corrosive poison in his luncheon. He narrowly escaped death. Only hia fine physique, and the fact that doctors were near at hand to give repeated administrations of oxygen, saved him. His condition is still serious. UNPLEASANT TASTE. Later. His condition is still dangerous. It is understood that the poison was either arsenic or strychnine, and that it was contained in a box of chocolates posted in London to Horwood, who, with Miss Drysdale, his confidential secretary, partook of the chocolates. Miss Drysdale noticed an unpleasant taste, and ate only one, but Horwood unsuspectingly ate several, and the seizure occurred IS minutes later.