Modern historians distrust the stories of the Roman poisoner Locusta,
and of the women who in Italy sold aqua tofana as the best means of satisfying jealousy, or hate, or greed; but the Hungarian tribunals are trying a case which makes all those legends possible. No less than ten women in the town of Mitrovitz are charged with poisoning their hus- bands with arsenic obtained from fly-papers, and they are only a section of the women originally arrested or suspected. They were all apparently taught by a single woman, Esther Sarac, a local witch or herbalist, who deliberately instructed at least one disciple, and probably many more. The poison- ings, some sixty in number, were done with little precaution, and cover a space of more than ten years, during all which time a vague suspicion has been floating about. The evidence against the women under trial is said to be overwhelming, and most of them have saved trouble by pleading guilty. They are all peasants, and probably of a low order of intelli- gence; but the revelation throws a strange light on the true value of much of modern "progress." In Hungary, at all events, it does not prevent epidemics of crime, though no doubt the improvement of chemical analysis helps the authorities in detecting and punishing the guilty.
Previous page
