THE CAREW POISONING CASE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10761, 27 March 1897, Page 2

THE CAREW POISONING CASE.

A REMARKABLE CASE,

The Yokohama (Japan) poisoning case codec, as we were informed by e&ble, in the conviction of Mrs Csrew, charged with poisoning her husband. Like Mrs Mayfcrick, she condemned, a good husband to ah agoai.sing death, without a pang of compunction, and stood by him watching coolly the consummation of her fearful crime. ■ Not content- with this, the woman plotted to throw the bisuic of the murder on her unfortunate little nurssry governess, and blackened Carew's character with groundless accusations of cruelty aad perfidy. Fortunately, neither Mrs Carew's constructive capacity nor her imagination was equal to her audacity. The first vcluma of the romance consisted o{ an intrigue with a handsome bank clerk, whose sympathy was secured by ttlea of Seditions' cruelty and iufidelity. Hwi Mr Dickinson's ethics been flexible, we should: have been spared | a, murder, and volumes 2 arid 3 would have read "adultery " and "diverse." But the lover was honourable, and declined to behave badly. So j Mrs Carew commencsd to bay. arsenic. She did I this openly through their governess, hoping to affix on Carew the stigma of argenic-eating (so useiul in the Maybrick case), or, if thst failed, to divert suspicion on to the governess. , Wbati vfcould have happened to the Ktter had she ever cooked for or waited on Mr Carew, I don't know. Things tamed oat a bit awkwardly as it was. But no cpe couli suggest a reason why* the little governess should murder ker master, wherea3 Mrs Csiew'a motives came out pain-; fully clear. Betides, only'his wife and the &icW nurse ever gave deceased food. The doctor* found out the truth before Mr Garew died. They were puzzled by bis synipfcorns, and said so to the sick onrse. She gossiped with Miss Jacobs, who casually wondered it the stuff she had bought her mistress for master's use was good for him. " What's that ? " atked nurse. Then the purchase of arsenic transpired, and the doctors were told. In amazed horror they • promptly shifted the Biok man to a hospital. : But i6. was ■ too late to save him, and in a few hours he succumbed. On the night of Mr Carew's death his widow told Dr Wheels' of certain purchases of arsenic mads by Mr Carew's orderi, as a thing which she supposed she ought to have raontioned^efoje. ' Mrs Garew gave evidence at the inquest.. She was perfectly cool and collected in manner, and she repeated what she had said to Dr Whesler as to her. husband's habit of taking arsenic. She also spoke of tbo strangu visits to her house of a mysterious woman in black, who gave her name as Annie Luke, and who, on her husband's admission, was believed to be a woman with whom he formerly had an intrigue. Her juggestiou was that, if there; had been foul play, the author of it was the woman in black. The Coroner, in his summing up, brushed all this'aside »s irrelevant. He dwelt on the fact that Mrs Carew had been the nurse through-' oub; thefc no fewer than six bottles of arsenic had been parchaeed; and thst Mrs Carew, • until she was taxed with it, had made no mention of the administration of aruenic during her I husband's illness. At the trial proper, the reading of Mrs Carew's letters to Dickinson created a most damaging effect, especially one where he came to the point of promising to marry her when she got a divorce. On the day after these' letters were produced they were handed to one of Mrs Carew's counsel by the officer of the court. When the envelope containing them was returned, one letter was missing. The doors of the court were instantly closed, a search was instituted, and finally a female searcher found the missing document cencealed in the crape cufi 01 Mrs Carew, who had throughout sat by the side of her counsel. THE CLOSING SCESE. Japan papers thus de3criba the closing scene:—"The acensed woman, haggard, thin, and careworn, her lips tightly compressed, her frame rigid with nervous energy, could scarcely be seen behind the screen that shut off the back of the prisoner's dock, but to the judge, the jury, and the journalists who sat facing her the great and shocking change wrought in her ap- | pearance by long torture on the rack of ! suspense was plainly _ visible. Behind the ; Bench, and at the side where the jury safci the i.wiudows were h&lt-draped with dark blue I curtains, and these added to the gloom of the | darkened court room. At 25 minutes past 2 | the judge concluded his summing up, and within a few minutes the jury had le£t the court. At 3 o'clock the judge entered, and I within a minute a clatter of fest on the i paved stones leading to the court's private entrance announced that the jury were returning. The accused .stood up and, with parted lips and steady, piercing eyes, awaited the words that were to restore her to liberty or' condemn her to a felon's doom. The clerk of the court formally put the question, to the j'iry: ' Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict ?' The answer was m the affirmative. Then, his voice quivering with emotion, the clerk pronounced the next .momentous question. Mr Faterson, foreman' of the jury, replied, ' Guilty.' The silence that ensued was terrible. The face of the accused became overspread with a ghastly dull bine tint, the lines of her lips changed to chalky white, her eyes assumed the look af an cuimal stricken to death, her handa clutched convulsively at the deck. Aeked whether she had anything to say why sentence should not ba • pronounced upon her, she replied, in a voice whose husky dulness contrasted painfully with her wonted tones, 'No,' and sank back exhausted into her chair. The judge then sat upright in his place. It could be seen by all that he mastered his emotion with the greatest difficulty. In a voice broken and trembling he j uttered the words of doom, the final sentence of all—' May God have mercy upon yens soul '—being scarcely audible."' WHY THE DEATH SENTENCE WAS COJISICIED. It appeats that the sentence passed by the judge upon Mrs Carew was not commuted in ■ coiiiequence of any question arising upon the , evidence, as the following paragraph from the • Japan Mail shows:—"Her Majesty's consul [ has received a despatch from her Majesty's minister at Tokio to the effect ihat he has had under consideration the subject of the sentence of death passed in H.M. Court, Yokohama, on the Ist inst., on Edith May Hbllow-H Carew for the murder of her husband, aod that, iv view of the Imperial proclamation of H.SI. the ! Emperor granting to all Japanese subjects | under sentence on th*t day a remission of punishment, it appears proper that a similar, measure of grace should bs extended to the criminal in this case, whose trial iv a toutl sittiug in his Majesty's dominions had been proceeding for some days before, and was about to be brought to a conclnsion at the time of his Majesty's proclamation. Her Majesty's minister has accordiugly decided not to direct that the sentence of death be carried into execution, and in virtue of the powers conferred upon him by the Order-iu-Council, .1033, and otherwise, has directed that, in lieu of suffering capital punishment, Mrs Carew shall ba imprisoned, with hard labyur, for life."

—An averaee of 1000 pigs are eateu Hi Londoa daily.