MORE POISON AT PAHIATUA.

Otago Witness, Issue 1981, 11 February 1892, Page 18

MORE POISON AT PAHIATUA.

Mr Skey is still engaged in analysing the biscuits, and the ingredients sent by a settler near Pahiatua. The materials were obtained from a "Woodville grocer, who sold the same stuff to other people, none of whom complained qf jt. The bisevjits which excited suspicion were made a week after the Pahjatua poisoning case. Colonel Hume being away, the result of the report he made is not officially known, but it is understood that poison was found in the materials handed to Mr Skey.

The following particulars are given in the Woodville Examiner : — The biscuits were baked about the 12th inst., and on tasting the dough Mrs Marsh found there was an extremely bitter taste. After cooking the biscuits she asked Mr Marsh to taste them, intimating that she had found a bitterness in the taste. Mr Marsh found the same taste, and decided there was something wrong. He then gave a small piece to his dog, and it soon became ill, but did not die. It was given the same quantity three times on different occasions, and each time the dog was ill in the same manner, but had not got sufficient of the poison to bo fatal. On Sunday, however, Mr Page fed his dogs freely on the biscuits, ridiculing the idea of poison, and luckily for him he did not carry out his intention of eating them himself, for one dog died in half an hour, while the other lingered for some six hours, dying in the night. MiMarsh and his wife tasted all the ingredients that were used in the composition of the biscuits — flour, ginger, brown Bugar, and treacle — and found a bitter taste in the ginger. They made a cake of the articles, leaving out the ginger, and gave it to their dog without any ill effect. They brought some biscuits and portions of the ingredients to Mr Ridd, who, it is understood, pronounced the poison, which was found in the ginger, to bo strychnine. The ginger was procured from Mr Crawford, of Woodville, who believed he was out of that article when Mr Marsh's order was received, and procured a quantity elsewhere. Mrs Marsh, it is understood, had used some portion of the same ginger previously, and found no ill effects. The bag of flour was just opened. Mr Cooper took away the whole of the ginger, and a sample of the sugar and flour. What remained in the bottom of the treacle tin had already been sent to Mr Ridd. The articles mentioned will be carefully examined, when it will be positively ascertained what the poison is, and in what portion of the food -it was contained."

The criminal sitting at Invercargill wasopened on Tuesday before Mr Justice Williams. The grand jury returned true bills in all the cases. William Weston (larceny), John O'Neil (forgery and larceny), and Thomas Pepperill (forgery) pleaded guilty. Weston was sentenced to six months' imprisonment, O'Neil to two years, and Peppenll to three years. In the case of William Ellis and Ellen Lewis, charged with the theft of a watch and appendages from a Cardrona miner named James Jones, in a brothel in Invercargill, the Crown prosecutor offered no evidence against the woman, who was discharged and gave evidence against Ellis, who was found npfc guilty,

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