A family poisoned

A frightful consequence of the practice of allowing poison to lie about in private dwellings occurred at Kensall Green.

Thomas Hickman, thirty-four years of age, occupied a small cottage in Penton Villas, with his wife and six children. On Sunday morning, Caroline Bonamy, Mrs. Hickman's sister, arrived to spend the day; having occasion for a piece of paper to light a fire, she took up a bag which she supposed to contain flour, and which had long stood untouched in a cupboard, and, having turned the contents into the flour tub, burnt the bag - the contents were, in fact, arsenic, and with the fatal mixture thus formed a pudding was made for dinner.

The whole nine persons ate heartily of it. Soon afterwards they were seized with sickness,  accompanied by a burning sensation in the throat and stomach. Mr. Abercrombie, a surgeon, was called in, and was soon convinced by the symptoms that the family had swallowed arsenic.

Mrs. Hickman's sister said it must have been the powder she found in the bag; on which Hickman exclaimed that must have been the white arsenic which he had had in the house so many years. The poison, it appeared, had been originally kept in a bottle; but the bottle having been broken, the powder was placed in a flour-bag, and put in the cupboard!

Notwithstanding the efforts of several medical men, the poison soon exhibited its mortal effects. At six o'clock, a boy of nine years old died; then a child three years old; and by eleven three more children had perished. The father lingered till noon the following day, and then became the sixth victim. The others recovered.