POISONING A FAMILY.

Evening Star, Issue 4098, 15 April 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

POISONING A FAMILY.

At the Wagga Wagga criminal sessions on the 4th inst., Ah Mann, a Chinese, was indicted on a charge of poisoning a widow named Mary Burke and her throe children, 'ihe prisoner was a cook in the service of Mrs Burke, who keeps a public-house in North Gundagai. He slept in a room over the kitchen, where Mrs Burke’s late husband kept some arsenic for dressing foot-rotted sheep* On the day on which the offence was committed, the prisoner was discharged, and claimed more wages than was due to him, An altercation ensued—he left the premises, but returned in the evening- went into his bed-room., and during the time procured the poison from a billy in which it was kept with other odds and ends. No other was on the premises. Some time aftei prisoner left, and Mrs Burke ordered the servant to make some pancakes for the children’s tea. The family partook of these pancakes, and all cot sick. Dr M‘Killop was immediately sent for, and he administered emetics, and the sufferers got better. The main portion of the pancakes, and the washings of the basin in which they were made together with a portion of the flour taken from the bag, were given to the pigs, and two of these animals died ‘ m great agony within half an hour. Information was given to, the police, and the prisoner was arrested. The jury found the prisoner guilty, and he was sentenced to death.