A leg of mutton

A most horrid attempt was made by a man who resides near Dockhead, on Friday last, to poison his wife and three children.

He took a leg of mutton home, and ordered it to be roasted for dinner. His wife accordingly roasted it, and got it ready by the time he appointed. He did not come home to dinner, and the wife and children made their dinners from some provisions that were in the house, and did not cut the leg of mutton.

The husband did not arrive till supper-time, and made an excuse for not coming to dinner. His wife offered him some of the leg of mutton for his supper, but he declined it, saying he had brought home some fish, which he wished to have fried.

His wife fried them with the dripping produced from the roasting of the leg of mutton, and he ate heartily of the fish. In the night he was taken extremely ill, and has continued in the most excruciating torture since.

He inquired how the fish had been cooked, and being informed, and also that none of his family had partaken of the mutton, he acknowledged his guilt by saying, the deadly and diabolical scheme he had laid of poisoning the whole of them had fallen upon himself, having laid the leg of mutton in a quantity of arsenic for a considerable time, and also having rubbed it into the meat.

The miserable wretch is languishing in the greatest torture of body and mind.