ICE CREAM POISONING IN LONDON.

Western Star, Issue 979, 5 September 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

ICE CREAM POISONING IN LONDON.

In connection with the extraordinary case of poisoning of some 20 or 30 persons in Lambeth lately the officers of the Crimnal Investigation Department under the active supervision of Detective-Inspector Chamthe L Division, have been busily eDgaged all the week in tryirg, to throw some light upon the matter, but up to the present have been unable to do so. The Italian, Luigi Feretti who resides at Back Hill, Holbom, a portion of the Italian colony in this district, has been seen, and he says that he has stood with his stall in Lambeth "Walk and sold ice greatly of his own manafacture for the last eightyears. He disclaims the presence of any injuriousingredients in his ices. The ingredient used for colouring, which he purchased from a tradesman in the neighbourhood, was not an injurious article, otherwise, he states, some hundreds of persons, adults and children, must have been poisoned, he having been using the same lot of colouring stuff for the past fortnight. On Sundayhe served some 300 persons with ice-creams before any complaints were made. Upon Monday morning he made the ice-cream with the same ingredients,-when no complaints were made. Some, of the persons who had purchased ice-cream from him the day previouo, and had been treated for illness afterwards, had informed him that they had partaken before having the ice-cream of some sweets that had been purchased off some barrows in the neighbourhood, This, he argues, might have been the cause of their illness. The Italians who sell icecreams in the streets of London num ber nearly 800, and they state that this trade has been carried on now for some 20 years, and that this is the first occasion during the period when an aecusationhas been brought against Bt the business. They account for the wholesale poisoning by the supposition that the sufferers had partaken of injurious sweat-meats, or that, while the ice was being made on the street, some evil-disposed person deposited poison ia it, in the interest of rival tradesman, who are said to chafe under Italian competition. It appears that in consequence of the reports that have appeared in the press, the Italians now find it nest to impossible to sell any of the ice-creams in the streets, and they complain of being much abused by persons calling out to them " Poison, poison." The police have been asked to obtain some of the cheap sweets sold in the neighbourhood, and which it is alleged, are far from pure, and highly coloured, with tbj'view ot their being analysed as well as the ice-creams.