THE POISONINGS.
DEPLORABLE as it is, we cannot gainsay the fact, that among Englishwomen of the humbler classes the settlement of conjugal or pecuniary difficulties by the summary help of arsenic is already a habit, and one that is increasing. There have been several very bad cases lately. Mary Anne Geering is convicted at Lewes of destroying a hus- band and two sons, and making the attempt with a third, for the lucre of burial-fees. Abolish burial societies, cries everybody. That, as we have before remarked, might be done ; but then, if the State prevents facilities for decent burial among the poor, it ought to grant such burial as a right to all ; and we cannot say that a pauper's funeral is always "decent burial." Besides, the abolition of burial societies would not abolish the poisonings. At Warwick, Mary Ball, " une femme de trente ans" of the working order, puts her husband out of the way be- cause he had been jealous : now you can't abolish jealousy—at least there is no immediate prospect of such a blessed change.
Again, Charlotte Harris is convicted at Bridgewater of poison- ing her first husband because he stood in the way of a second. There does not appear to have been any "love" in this case, even of the lowest order for Merchant, the first husband, was a young man, and Harris, the second, was old; though, indeed, age does not always determine liking. The incidents revolt against every kind of feeling; but you would not stop this crime by abolishing burial clubs.
Abolish arsenic, then, is the new cry. That might be possible; for although arsenic is used in manu- factures, its retail sale might be restricted, and for many pur- poses substitutes could be found. But you do not get much nearer: for if you could find substitutes (say) for the poisoning of rata so might you also for the poisoning of husbands and other domestic nuisances, and substitutes which evade detection still more than a poison of comparatively obvious and well- known symptoms. We need not name examples; any druggist could enumerate a dozen in a breath.
The perilous source of evil does not lie in the arsenic, nor is the crime the most deplorable fact : the danger and the opprobrium both lie in the existence of the homicidal mind. It is not in the fatal blow, but in the liking for murder—in the treachery—in the shocking oblivion of humanity and its inalienable claims to love and help—that we see the true calamity. How will medical Police reach it?
Education, you exclaim. Alas, education, even the well-in- formed worldly wisdom which shall suffice to check such things, Will not reach these multitudinous classes whom we lump to- gether as the " poorer " or "lower," perhaps not for generations. Education does reach far enough to check the wickedness of stu- pidity and ignorance. But there are influences more rapid than education, more instinctive, speaking more flirectly to the heart and pulses of humanity,—human affection well fostered, ,human reaching of simple loving morals' and that highest influence Which is indicated by the broadest meaning of the much-abused Word- religion. Something is wrong here. Are there teachers Walking among the people recalling these things? or are the doctors all in the temple cavilling over dogmas—the "mission- aries "-abroad all intent upon catching converts for sots 7,