CHLOROFORM AND CRIME.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7087, 1 May 1901, Page 2

CHLOROFORM AND CRIME.

THE IMAGINATION'S FRIGHT-

FUL FANCIES.

The case of Paul Lebon, who was sentenced at the Old Bailey on Feb. 16 to seven years' penal servitude for robbery facilitated by chloroformi, derives some interest (says- the- "Law Journal") from extrin-. sic circumstances which the public may well by this time have forgojbteav. Of the case itself, little need be said. Lebon entered the bedroom' of his vietinl, a widow named De Ligny, and with the assistance of a girl, Jeanne Giriot, a lodger in the house, overpowered her, after violent struggles, rendered her insensible by the use of a handkerchief saturated with chloroform or some similar drug, and robbed her of several hundred > pounds' worth of property. The accomplice had, it would seem, made am unsuccessful attempt, on the night before the robbery, to accomplish meir object by drugging a glass of milk wiiich De Lingy was in the habit of taking before going to bed. The case is chiefly noteworthy, however, on incidental grounds. Soon after the discovery of chloroform and its introduction into surgical practice there was a considerable panio as to the danger of its attractiveness in the eyef of the criminal classes. The matter was gravely discussed in Parliament. The administration of -noxious drugs was made felony by the legislature, and all sorts of stories were naturally forthcoming in coraroboration and' justification of the general fears. Family watchdogs were stupefied with chloroformed towels, and jewellers' assistants, despatched to the hotels of fashionable ladies with oases of diamonds, were seized from behind, narcotised, and robbed of their treasures.

' Authentic instances of this description have, it may be observed in passing, occurred. In California!, a hotel waiter was iried and condemned to -some years of imprisonment fon an offence alleged to have been facilitated by the agency of chloroform introduced into the room where his victim was sleeping, through the keyhole, by means of a spray apparatus! Still more ridiculous (if possible) was the story fhat a certain corner of a prisje-ring had been provided with a magazine ready to pour its torpifying contents upon the' luckless pugilist who might be knocked into his antagonist's portion of the field. Time, however, has reduced the perils of felonious use of chloroform to their true proportions.