WHOLESALE POISONING IN HUNGARY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1071, 3 November 1882, Page 3

WHOLESALE POISONING IN HUNGARY.

At Gro*s Bodakerek (South Hungary) the trial has commenced of Thekla Popoy, a peasant woman, nud over a hundred accomplices, who are charged with poisoning their husbands. The guilt of the orisoners has been already proved in tlnr-y five cases, nud thirty more are strongly suspected Thekla Popov is a very remarkable character—destined to occupy a position at once unique and picturespue in the annals of crime. She is a gipsy, and is now some seventy years of age. She lived in a little village named Meleneze, and it may almost be said that murder was her trade. People sav she had her agents and emissaries, whose business it was to keep up her “ connection " ; and it must have been a horrid and gruesome spectacle to see the grizzly hag seated in her arm-chair every day receiving her customers during business hour-, and giving them the diabolical advice and aid they sought. They were all married woman from the neighboring country side, eager, for some reason or another, to get rid of husbands who obstinately refused to die in the ordinary course of nature. hut who by Thekla’s friendly offices might be made amenable to the resources of art. These wretches paid the old gipsy a feo of from 50 to a 100 florins for each bottle of poison they bought, and were duly instructed hy her in the safest methods of its “exhibition.” Thekla Popoy’s clients were, however, not always married women. Sometimes she had dealings with young girls who quarrelled with their sweethearts and who, from jealousy or rage, had determined to kill them. This woman’s terrible trade ptospererl amazingly for two years, and if it had not been for the confession made bv her daughter might have gone on for some considerable time. She excited no suspicion, because the drugs she administered acted slowly, though surely, and in their effect simulated the symptoms of disease. Even now that the bodies of some of her victiums have been exhumed they show no signs of poisoning, though the stomachs are eaten away.