AN EPIDEMIC OF POISONING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11942, 16 January 1901, Page 6

AN EPIDEMIC OF POISONING.

The poisoning cases just discovered at! Kisoda, in Southern Hungary (says ihe Vienna' correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald), . may well be called a chapter of frightful I crimes. Instances in which wives rid them-1 selves of inconvenient husbands and girls did away with lovers whom they no longer | wanted increased there appallingly. From ] time .to time wholesale poisoning took place in siugle villages. In such cases the attention of the police is excited by the numerous deaths. Inquiry is made, and then it turns out that the original suspicion is more than justified by the facts. So it was some years ago at Hodmczo-Vasarhcly, and so also now at Kisoda; a small Servian community in the Comitat of Temesvar in Southern Hungary. Most of the inhabitants arc farm labourers. In that village lived a man who had the reputation of being a magician. He asked a high price for the wonder-working medicines he sold. Not only from Kisoda but from all parts of .Southern Hungary came his customers, consisting for the greater part _of women and girls, and without much haggling bought his nhyeic. About two years ago a mysterious disease beean to carry off the men of his village. Healthy people were suddenly taken ill without apparent reason. In many cases it was impossible to save t-him, although medical help was at once called In. In a few days they died. After a very short time their widows married. Also young fellow? whose sweethearts feared them because of their jealousy died in the same unaccountable manner. These uncanny occurrences at last excited the swpicions of the gendarmes. They laid the facts before the Court of Justice, and it gave orders for the exhumation of the last men who had dieil and the examination of their remains. /The execution of this order met with unexpected difficulties. When tho commission had the sraves of the men who had died within the last few weeks opened it became plain that the inFcription on the srraves had> been falsified. The corpses of such persons as had been buried scarcely a month were quite decomposed. It was discovered that the crosses had been interchanged, obviously with a. view of frustrating the judicial investigation. Consequently Ion? and troublesome inquiries were necessary for the identification of the desired graves. The bodies that were then exhumed were dissected, and it was proved beyond all doubt that in no less than 18 cases arsenical poisoning had taken place. The widows and sweethearts of the murdered men were arrested, as likewise Petar, the macician. In his house were found several bottles of brandy containing a solution of arsenic. The manic draught that he had sold was the poison by means of which the inhuman wives and eirls had got rid of their j husbands and lovers. The suspicion of bavin? used the poisoned brandy is spreading, anii'iuimerous further, arrests have been made, I and fresh exhumations ordered. I