AN INTENDED SUICIDE.

Evening Star, Issue 4043, 10 February 1876, Page 3

AN INTENDED SUICIDE.

(From the Sydney Evening News, Jan. 21.); Last evening, shortly after 6 o'clock, a plump and rather pretty young girl, known as Minnie,"but whose name is Amelia Williams, and who was employed as a barmaid at the Cafe de Paris (bite Wangenheim) in King street, walked into the shop of Mr Mitchell, chemist, next door, without abonnet or hat, and made some purchases. She first bought a packet of face powder, and another of rouge, remarking that she wished to look pretty, as she intended to attend the pantomime. After receiving these articles she said, apparently as an after-thought, "Oh, I want sixpennyworth of arsenic to poison" rats with." It is a commoh thing for prepossessing young females to buy cosmetics, but ratO tor them to ask fdr poison; yet Mr Mitchell immediately handed Miss Minnie a packet labelled conspicuously "Arsenic -poison," and she'thanked him and withdrew. Shortly afterwards she came from her bedroom in the cafe to the bar, and exclaiming, "I have done it j I have taken an ounce of arsenic, and shall be dead in ten : minutes," threw herself; on the floor apparently in the agonies of death. The spectators raised her lip'and received, as well as she was able to pronounce it, a dying message for some dear friend. A rush'was of course made for antidotes and medical advice. The chemist | next door, the unwitting cause of this fearful tragedy, suggested a policenian and the infirmary, and a man in blue putting in an appearance just at the right moment a cab was obtained, and the sufferer prbmj?*v conveyed to that institution, where Dr. Brady, on being informed of the committal of the rash deed, applied the stomach pump and such antidotes as arsenical poisoning ; required. We are glad to be able to : state-that, notwithstanding'the poor girl's agonies, not a trace of poison was found in the contents of the stomach thus rudely removed. The Silent tomb was thus deprived I of its fair victim, and we have the gratification of being able to infonh the publie that Miss Williams has already sufficiently recovered to be able to leave the mfirmary. As usual when a comely young female seeks to vfly to the arms of death, reasons for the *ash act by the* score are forthcoming, but it is hot necessary or politic* to give them currency. "What about the arsenic?" the reader asks. Well, drugs are no* always genuine, and deception's are sometimes pari donable, even in the case of druggists.