The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 2/2Griffiths, Arthur
History
The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 2/2
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
Here, however, the evidence was strong and sufficient. It was proved
that Mrs. Wilson had given Mrs. Soames something peculiar to drink, that
immediately afterwards Mrs. Soames was taken ill with vomiting and
purging, and that Mrs. Wilson administered the same medicine again and
again. The last time Mrs. Soames showed great reluctance to take it, but
Wilson said it would certainly do her good. This mysterious medicine
Wilson kept carefully locked up, and allowed no one to see it, but its
nature was betrayed when this last victim also died. The first
post-mortem indicated death from natural causes, but a more careful
investigation attributed it beyond doubt to over-doses of colchicum. Dr.
Alfred Taylor, the great authority and writer on medical jurisprudence,
corroborated this, and in his evidence on the trial fairly electrified
the court by declaring it his opinion that many deaths, supposed to be
from cholera, were really due to poison. This fact was referred to by
the judge in his summing up, who said that he feared it was only too
true that secret poisoning was at that time very rife in the metropolis.
Wilson was duly sentenced to death, and suffered impenitent, hardened,
and without any confession of her guilt.
Although murder by insidious methods had become more common, cases where
violence of the most deadly and determined kind was offered had not
quite disappeared. I will mention two cases of this class, one
accompanied with piracy on the high seas, the other perpetrated in a
railway-carriage, and showing the promptitude with which criminals
accept and utilize altered conditions of life, more particularly as
regards locomotion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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