The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, MARCH 3, 1884.

Timaru Herald, Volume XL, Issue 2946, 3 March 1884, Page 2

The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, MARCH 3, 1884.

The proprietor of the commodity called " Rough on Rats," thoroughly understands the ait of advertising; but the oleve.iest advertisement he ever paid for, was nothing to that which he obtained gratis last week by the shocking death of the poor barmaid, Olga Stenesse, at Wellington. The details of this deplorable affair have been given fully, — quite unnecessarily ssino — m tb«j local papers, and it is not for us to rate them up again, 'suffice hto say that a man bought a box of " Rough on Rats " at a chemist's shop and gave it to the girl, who swallowed part of it, and died after some hours oi fearful agony. The enquiry showed , that " Rough on Rats" is a preparation b of arsenic, and a deadly poison, and ° t bat a very much smaller quantity than the girl took, would have been fatal. There can be no doubt whatever of its efficacy as a ratsbane ; and the slartlingly destructive qualities which aye claimed for it m its proprietor's advertisements, are not m the least exaggerated. Thi& testimony is decidedly m favor of " Rough on Rats" as an article oi: trade. On the other hand, it cannot but be noticed, the disclosures m this case are unfavorable to it m one very important respect. It is proved to be one of the most dangerous of all substances to keep m a house. Ifc is a white powder, and might with the utmost ease be mistaken for any one of the dozen harmless articles of food m common use. Yet a few grains of it are sufficient to cause certain death. The most serious part of the whole business, however, is that this deadly compound appears to be sold 3*UBt as freely as liquorice, or sugar, or sardines, or any ott er commodity, without any warning to i,be purchaser or the public that it is poison, and without any precautions being' taken against accident or crime, lathe Sale of Poisons Act, we have an elaborate lav/ for preventing chemists or traders from selling dangerous drugs without due care. Whether that lav/ is or is not obeyed, is another question. There it is, at all events, and if it is disobeyed, and a catastrophe occurs m consequence, the delinquent trader can be punished. Yet n appears tba.t the very same drug which a chemist is strictly forbidden to sell under its proper name, except m small quantities and after all sorts of enquiries and formalities, he may sell as much of as he chooses, without any enquiries or formalities, when it i 3 done up m boxes und called by a misleading- name. It is a grave offence to deal m arsenic with all and sundry ; but " Rough on Rats," which is nothing but prepared arsenic, may be dealt m to any extent with impunity. It stands to reason that, for the protection of the public, it is far more necessary that thess patent preparations should be made subject to the Sale of Poisons Act, than that the drugs they are composed oi' should. Anyone who buys arsenic as iirsenic, knows what he is buying, and m not likely to make any mistakes with it or to allow others to do bo. But anyone buying arsenic m the form and under the name of a vermin destroyer, has no such sense of responsibility. In thia very case at Wellington, tho unfortunate girl appears to have been ignorant of the real nature of the stuff she was taking, while her friend who gave it her did not know it was poison, and would no^ believe it, even after he ha.d run to the chemist's to ask, and had been told that it was !

We commented some time ago on the puzxling intelligence that the shipment of frozen meat by the lonic had been damaged by fire, and we remarked that fall particulars would be anxiouuly looked for, especially m connection with the question of insurance. Particulars havo now been given, but they certainly cannot be called full. On the contrary, they seem to have been purposely made as scanty as ponsible, and they only have the effect of rendering the mishap more incomprehensible than it was before. It is stated that the fire actually broke out m the freezing chamber itself ; though how that could be, we are quite unable to explain. The officers of the ship, we learn, showed no disposition to give any information on the 3ubject, on her arrival m port, and th<?re was au evident desire to hush the matter ap. The following brief entry is all that appears m the log concerning the fire : — ■" On December Ist, at 5 a.m., when tbe vefcnel was m lat. 58deg 49min S., and long. 98deg 43min W., the chief refrigerating engineer, Mr Raeburn, going down into the hold to take the temperatures as usual, observed smoke issuing from among tbe carcases, and apparently proceeding from the orlop deck. He at once gave the alarm, the hatches were taken off, and volumes of smoke ascended. The steam-hose were applied, and so soon a« the smoke diminished sufficiently the inon removed 1000 sheep on deck. This work was continued till the smoke again grew dense, when the hatches were onoe more put on and steam applied for a considerable time. On reopening them the danger was over, and by-and-bye the sheep were put bacli and the chambers refrozen." Now, it is quite clear that those volumes of smoke must have arisen from a fire, and that that fire must have had a cause. Spontaneous combuHtion m wool, we have heard of, and tbe loas of many a flue ship has, correctly or incorrectly, been, attributed to it. But spontaneous combustion m frozen mutton, is, we havo reason to believe, a phenomenon entirely without precedent. How, then, did this fire break out among the frozen carcases m the lonic, and was the cauiie of it one which might occnr again ? These are questions of great importance not only to shippers of sheep or insurers, but to shipping companies and the travelling public. It is all very well to say it cloeii not signify if a few sheep are discolored, or even roasted, for that matter ; there are plenty more where those came from ; and the squatters can well afford to lose one cargo out of a hundred or so. That is not the whole thing, by any means. It is like the reasoning of tbo man who was sleeping m a hotel, and who calmly replied, when some one roused him up m the night with the cry that the bouse was on fire, " Oh, I'm only a lodger. Go and toll the landlord." A firu which breakfi out m the freezing chamber of a largo, font steamer, and burns then) for hours perhaps, before it is discovered, might easily spread beyond the freezing chamber, and become a matter of very opecial interest even to pasnengers who never owned mere mutton than they cotild cat at a, Hitting. It might .destroy the ship and all on board, 'he qileittion that needs to bo answered, m abort;, is whether there is anything m tho freezing process, or the working of the freezing machinery, which ie liable to cuuse a fire, or whether the fire on the lonic was merely the result; of some carelessness or accident of the common sort.