Poisoned ?

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 714, 13 July 1929, Page 2

Poisoned ?

ESSEX MAN’S CLAIM THAT “PECHE MELBA” HAD BROUGHT ON NETTLERASH

A HONEYMOON EPISODE iTSP'M'y'd ONTENDING that he had jJ'&llf/'g*' been “poisoned” by eatin S a Peche Melba, IMSSrfS?/J/ Sidney David Erridge, °f Loughton, Essex, the King's Bench Division, before Mr. Justice- Rowlatt, recently. He claimed damages from Messrs. Boardmans, of Stratford, for injury alleged to have been caused in their restaurant. Mr. C. J. Conway, K.C., for plaintiff, stated that Erridge had a cup of tea, and then decided on Peche Melbas. The Judge: I should have thought PSehe Melba with tea would make anybody ill. Counsel added that the following day Erridge noticed a rash on his arms, and a doctor found that he was suffering from nettlerash. Acting on medical advice, he motored to Salisbury, Torquay and Bournemouth, taking with him the lady who had then become his wife. The Judge: They married in the meantime ? Yes. The Judge: It looks like a honeymoon on a Peche Melba. In evidence Erridge stated that when he told the girl—a cashier—that he paid for a Peche Melba under protest, she smiled. Replying to the judge, he explained that the holiday was taken owing to the effects of the Peche Melba, his nerves having broken down. The Judge: What did you eat at home after the Peche Melba? I had a chop. It was a rule of the house that we had a chop on Friday nights. The Judge (writing): Friday night is chop night. Mrs. Erridge stated that when her husband was eating the Peche Melba he remarked that it had a sharp, queer taste. She ate the ice-cream off the top of hers, but left the peach, which tasted very sharp. A doctor told the judge that a person had been known to develop nettlerash by merely seeing strawberries. Ice-cream might produce it in one man, and be harmless to another. The restaurant manageress declared that as soon as the peaches were taken from the tin they were put into a refrigerator. Mr. Justice Rowlatt, entering judgment for Messrs. Boardmans, with costs, observed that it would be unfair to treat the case as proved or to make guesses. Because food disagreed with one it was not necessarily bad. Mr. Erridge did not complain of the PAche Melba until three weeks after he had taken it.