The prevalence of disease among the non-union men in the Carnegie mill, and the alarming increase of mortality in the months of September and October were touched upon in an earlier chapter. It was not until December that the first intimation of the existence of a criminal cause for the species of epidemic which struck down man after man and baffled expert physicians and chemists reached the public. The Carnegie Company had concealed the truth as far as possible, endeavoring from the first to counteract the statements sent abroad by the Amalgamated Association to the effect that bad food, bad water, and bad sanitary arrangements were killing off the "blacksheep" like cattle stricken with a murrain. The malady was a virulent form of diarrhoea or cholera morbus, for which the medical men employed to treat the sufferers were unable to account. All sorts of remedial measures were tried by the firm. Only the purest food was used. Notices were posted warning the men not to drink from the water plugs ordinarily serving as a source of supply, and chemically pure water was provided. Still the plague did not abate. Suspecting foul play, the firm set Pinkerton detectives to work, distributing them among the cooks and waiters as assistants, and in this way evidence was secured of a wholesale poisoning conspiracy, and the identity of the conspirators was believed to be established by confessions obtained from two accessories. On December 5, J. H. Ford, a Pinkerton detective, made information before Alderman McMasters against Robert J. Beatty, a cook in the mill, on a charge of felonious assault and battery, in administering poison to the non-union men at Homestead. It was learned that Beatty was about to start for Cincinnati on the steamboat Nellie Hudson and an officer boarded the boat to apprehend him, but was not permitted to make the arrest. Beatty was subsequently arrested in Louisville and brought back to Pittsburgh on requisition papers issued by Governor Pattison. The confession on which the Carnegie Company based its charge against Beatty was made by Patrick Gallagher, a cook in restaurant No. 1 in the Homestead mill. Its publication, which followed immediately on the arrest of Beatty, caused a tremendous sensation, inasmuch as it named as the arch-conspirator, the designer and executive head of the plot, no less a personage than Hugh F. Dempsey, master workman of D. A. 3, K. of L.