NEW YORK SENSATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2356, 20 April 1899, Page 17

NEW YORK SENSATION.

A POISONING MYSTERY.

NEW YORK, April 13. The judge dismissed the charge against Roland Molineux of poisoning Mrs Adams and attempting to poison Mr b'ornish.

The case is in many respects a most extraordinary one. Henry Cornish, director of the athletic sports at the wealthy Knickerbocker Club, New York, received by post just before the Christmas • holidays a package containing a small silver bottle-holder, and what appeared to be one of the familiar little phials of bromoseltzer. He took it from the club to the house of his aunt, Mrs Kate Adams, where he had rooms. On the morning of December 28, Mrs Adani3 was suffering from a. headache. Someone suggested d dose of the bromo-seltzer, which had been sent to Cornish. It was givrti to her, and she' died in great agony a few minutes later. Cornish tasted of the solution, and became very ill. The doctor, whom he had hastily summoned, also tasted of it, and was effected in the same way. The contents of the phial were not bromide-seltzer, but cyanide of mercury — a deadly poison. Examination showed that the phial — a little smaller than a bromo phial, but of the same colour — was one of those in which the poison is sold. The murderer had pasted a bromo-seltzer label on it, and had even paraffined the cork, in imitation of the process used for a bromo phial. Then began a most interesting inquiry. Only 24 of the silver holders which had contained the poison aent through the post had been made. A search from San Francisco to New York proved that this had been sold in the city of Newark, a few miles from the city. The man who bought it had been disguised by a red beard. It was then ascertained that two or three weeks before the death of Mrs Adams a well-known member of the Knickerbocker Club, Henry C. Barnett, who had rooms in the clubhouse, had" been poisoned by a little phial uf sedative powder, which he had received by post; that the poison in that instance had also been cyanide of mercury ; and that Barnett had died of disease superinduced by the poison. The New York newspapers took the whole case up in a manner which is described as enterprising. Day after day they were getting up cases against various people whom they named ; and by free statements of alleged facts, and by the pointing of obvious suggestions, they stirred up the public to believe, at various times, that quite a number of men had been tne objects of the gravest suspicion. Then when the inqueut came -on two papers wnich hinted that the police were attempting to hush up tbo case employed criminal lawyers to watch the proceedings. The principal victims of the newspaper detectives have been (1) Roland B. Molineux, (2) Felix J. Gallagher, (3) Alvin V. Hacpster, (4) Henry Corninh.

Boland B. Molineux is the sor of General Molineux, of Brooklyn, who, as .soon as his son's name was mentioned, instructed his lawyers to take immediate proceedings against' the offending journals. But tho only effect the intervention of the lawyers had on the irrepressiblo newspapermen was that they — the lawyers — were watched wherever they went, to have their movements recorded nnd made the subject of deductions for and against the guilty. The New York correspondent of the London Daily M^il gave the following particulars.

COMPLICITY OF YOUNG MR MOLIWEUX

In the first place, Mr Roland Molineux is a chemist in a Newark paint firm; and the Government analyst, basing his statement on the rarity of the drug employed in the poisoning of both Burnett and Cornish — cyanide of mercury— ha 3 declared that in all probability a chemist cither committed or had some complicity in the poisoning. In the second place it is recalled that Roland Molineux was the rival of H. C. Barnetfc in the affections of a Miss Blanche Chesebrough, a pretty, young professional vocalist, sometimes a chorus-girl in the theatres. Barnett and Molinoux were 3ioL her only admirers. Indeed, an long ago ns Jyno last, she confided to her sisters that phe expected to marry a-Mi A. J. Morgan. This Mr Morgan died in October. "He is said to have been a victim of poison," calmly announces the World. In November Barnett received a letter from Blanche Chesebrough, in which she said she heard ke was ill, and he was to make haste and get wel). Barnett's death occurred after his reception of poison in a mysterious package through the mails, on Novembei 22. Twelve days later Blanche Chesebrough and Roland Molineux were married.

In these circumstances the papers find a motive for suggesting guilt against Molin^nx in respect of Barnctt's case ; and the uses of innuendo are skilfully employed by one journal, which says, "If they had a quarrel over Miss Chesebrough, no fact has become public to prove it."

Now about the poison sent to Cornish. The press sleuths have not allowed themselves to be at fault in finding ample motives for Molineux to have done this also. More than a year ago Cornish and Molineux quarrelled, and the latter told the committee that either ho or Cornish must resign from the knickerbocker Athletic Club. Cornish was retained and Molineux left, and joined the New York Athletic Club. It is said in a delightfully vague and airy way, considering the gravity of the insinuation, that Molineux " has long studied poisons," and that " there was found in the Knickerbocker Athletic Club, where he formerly lived, a book on famous murders by mennn of poisons." The 'police have declared that^theii investigations satisfy them that there is no reason to suspect Mr Molmeux; but the elaboration of the case against Mr Molineux proceeds apare in the columns of more than one of our dailies.

THE HEPORTnRS' SECOND VICTIM,

Mr Felix J. Gallagher, the second victim of the reporters, is a friend and protege of Mr Molineux. He held a position as auditor in tho Knickerbocker Athletic Club by virtue of Molineux's influence, and left the club after Molinoux left it, and then followed Molineux to the New York Athletic Club. Mr A. A. Ilarpster wns employed at the former club as bookkeeper's clerk, and when he saw a. photograph of the hand-writing on the wrapper which covered the silver holder and the bottle of poison sent to Mr Cornish, he is alleged to have declared that the handwriting was that of Felix Gallagher, and that he was co familiar with it that he could not be mistaken.

This made the newspapers very busy for a time. Facsimiles of Gajlagher's admitted penmanship were printed in juxtaposition with photographs of tho writing on the incriminating wrapper ; and all sorts of similarities were discovered.

Nor did the papers content themselves with excursions into the realms of the hand-writing expert. Two men who rented letter-boxes to the mysterious person who was ordering samples of drug specifics in the names of " Barnett " and " Cornish," together with other possible witnesses, were marshalled by one reporter at a street corner, when Gallagher was known to be about to pass. The unsuspecting Gallagher went his way unconscious of the eyes focussed upon him. None of the witnesses was able to identify him, but the reporter recorded hopefully that another test would be made.

In the meantime tlie official hand-writing experts pricked this bubble, by reporting tliat they had compared Gallagher's undoubted penmanship with the incriminating wrapper, and

with the orders for drugs sent in the niuneS o{ " Cornish " and- " Barnett." They found both of the latter, to be, in their opinion, the work of the same hand which directed the poison tc Mr Cornish, and they were convinced that tha' hand was not Gallagher's. THE THIRD VICTIM. Then the papers fell upon A. V. Harpstet, and plainly insinuated that he attempted t<i throw suspicion on Gallagher in order to diver! it from himself. Facsimiles of Harpster'i writing were next paraded before the newspaper readers, and again damaging similaritiei were indicated. The World suggested thai Harpster only made his allegation against Gallagher after his (Harpster's) name had been mentioned in the case, under the following circumstances:—Early last December the poisoner, whoever he is, wrote from his letter-box address, 1620, Broadway, in the name of " Cornish, asking whether the firm to whom hi wrote, Steams and Co., of Detroit, would recommend A. A. Harpster as a collector. The fact that Harpster had been employed by Steams and Co. years ago was known to very few persons in New York. The suggestion here was that Harpster, fearing he was about to lose his place with the Ballantine Company, wanted to sound Steams and Co. on the likelihood o£ his getting a reference from them, and that it was Harpster himself who wrote in the name of Cornish. Moreover, it was alleged that on th*. night of November 22 last, while returning from the Sharkey-Corbett fight, Harpster tola a friend he could have a letter addressed to hiro under the name of "H. Cornish," at 1620, Broadway. There is strong evidence that th« man using that name and , that address wrote the address on the parcel containing the poison sent to Mr Cornish, at the Knickerbocker Athletic Club, and it is not, " therefore, to b& wondered at that Harpster was emphatic in his denials. .The police, too, declare that the association of Harpster's name with the case in 'this way' is unjustifiable; but the World insists that "Harpster can explain the unexplained," and announces that its hand-writing experts " are continuing their - examination . of Harpster'? hand-writing." ANOTHER SUBJECT. Then poor Mr Cornish, who was himself all but killed by taking some of the stuff which poisoned Mrs Adams, has not escaped a suspicion which has been aired in the papers. Tt is pointed out that, although he could sleep nnd board at the Knickerbocker Athletic Club free, he preferred to leave somo mouths ago, in order to live at . the flat of his aunt, Mrs Adams, where resided also Mrs Florence Rogers, " a young woman in the spring of tha thirties, who dresses well and is fond of pleafure." Her husband is an insurance agent in Buffalo, whose friends knew nothing of his marriage. On the evening Mr Cornish took the silver holder and the doctored bromo-seltzer home from hio club, he and Mrs Bogers weni to a restaurant to supper. The next morning, Mra Adams feeling unwell, he gave her the fatal " bromo-seltzer " ; and one of the papers at least is not at all sure that he did not bjftvt the poison sent to himself at the club in the mysterious manner already recorded, in ordci to account for hift possession of the dose bj which he intended removing Mrs Adams. >