WHOLESALE OISONER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2650, 28 December 1904, Page 30

WHOLESALE OISONER.

AMERICAN NURSE'S TERRIBLERECORD OP CRIME. Jane Toppan, a trained nursa, who~two years ago confessed to the poisoning of 31 people, "is now starving herself to death in. a New York asylum, haunted by the horrible fear that all around her are seeking to serve her as she served -her numerous victims. 'The woman's terrible crimes extended over a period of 20 years, and when they were brought home to her she was certified to as " morally insane." She strenuously combated this view. "I can, read a book intelligentfy," she protested, " and I don't have bad thoughts, so I don't see where moral degeneracy comes in." There is now no; doubt, however, that Janet Toppan is, and has been for move than a. quarter of a century, insane, though her malady is of siich a peculiar aaid heretofore unheard of order that it left her intellectual faculties unimpaired until a comparatively short time ago. A perfectly normal woman, mentally, physically, and, apparently morally, Jane Toppan's outwardly placid life was torn with one insatiable passion — the slow murder by poison of those whom, she loved best. With the exception of her foster-sister, all her victims were either 'her patients or members of their families. Hundreds of persons who she nursed possibly owe their lives to the fact that they ceased to interest her before her affection assumed THE FULL STRENGTH OF PASSION. , According to her own story, she invariably experimented with morphia, and in those cases which she chose to bring to a fatal finality a staggering dose of atrcpia. With those patients for whom she entertained only spasmodic affection it was her habrfr to experiment with drugs so combined in kind and proportion that their effect was an unusual and perplexing set of symptoms. Her passion for knowledge and discovery seems ;to have been quite as strong as that which could only be subdued by the spectacle of her victims' death struggles. Until her arrest in connection with the death of |- her last victim Jane Toppan enjoyed a sinj gularly successful professional career. ; Families who employed her once sent for ' her repeatedly. It was indeed the confid- [ once of her clients which rendered her so I long immune from the punishment which' i an autopsy upon any one of her -earlier vici tims would have brought upon her. Even I where two or three, and" in one case four, j of her victims belonging to the same family j had died under circumstances so strange aa bo excite suspicion on the part of the ali tending physicians, the relatives steadfastly refused to permit a post mortem examina- | tion, considering it would be a gratuitous affront to a kind and capable nurse. In the asylum Toppan's remarkable serenity of [ character remained unchaken until the apI pearanoe of her Nemesis in the shape of the j poisoned dish. When questioned a short ! time ago she said: — "J feel absolutely the same as I have always been. I might say I feel hilarious, but perhaps that expresses it too strongly. I do not know the feeling of fear, a-nd I do not know the feeling of remorse, although I ■ understand perfectly whs>t these words mean. I do not seem to be able to realise the awfulness of the things I have done, although I realise what? those awful things are. I try to picture it by sayingto myself : ' I have poisoned Mary, my dear friend;. I have poisoned Mrs Gibbs ; I have poisoned Mr Davis and Mrs Davis ' ; but I seem incapable of realising the awfulness of it. Why don't I feel sorry, and grieve over it? I don't know. I seem to have a sort of paralysis of thought and reason." 1 The impairment of the brain, which has resulted in the poison delusion, was first noticed about the beginning of the second year of Jane Toppan's confinement. The delusion has been growing stronger, and now she ha* to be fcYl by nieaiis of a tuba, for she stubbornly declines to take food.

In the Gyle district, on the sea coast of the Ashburtou County, the harvest prospects are said to ho considerably above the average of former years. Tho crops are well out iv ear, and are maturing rapidly.