VIOLET POWDER.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 344, 3 August 1878, Page 4

VIOLET POWDER.

Ax the Hipping Petty Sessions on the 24th May, Henry George King, wholesale chemist, Abbot-street, Kingsland 'Road, London, appeared in answer to the charge of having, on 18th February last, feloniously killed Eliza Sears. He was further charged with having on various dates unlawfully and fradulcntly sold violet powder containing large quantities of arsenic, and the said powder having been applied to the bodies of a largo number of children of tender years, they became distempered in llioir bodies, and* their health had been endangered. Mr Poland prosecuted for the Treasury, and stated that the excessive mortality among children in Longhton and neighborhood, had attracted’ the attention of the medical gentlemen in the district, and an enquiry by the Local Government Board elicited the fact that thirteen deaths had been caused by the nse of the defendant’s violet powder. There were also a great number of cases in which serious illness had followed its application, and analysis showed that it contained from 28 to 51 percent, of arsenic. Mr Poland, before calling a number of witnesses in support of the charge of manslaughter, said that attention had been drawn to the serious illness of many children as far back as March of last year. The Treasury had written to the defendant warning him not to sell the arsenicated powder traced to him, and he did not reply until after Sergeant Eoots, of Scotland Yard, had served the summons upon him, when he expressed regret for what had occurred, and pleaded ignorance of any arsenic or other dangerous substances being in the powder. Evidence of the sale of the powder to retail dealers by the defendant, and the resale of it by them having been given ; and it having been shown that children to whom the powder had been applied became ill, the case was adjourned.