POISON PISTOLS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 59, 27 July 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

POISON PISTOLS.

STRANGE WEAPONS TAKEN FROM MURDERERS.

The ordinary Paris apache or hooligan invariably carries a revolver, and most of the murders which have recently horrified Paris have been committed with the ordinary six-shooter. The weapon which the police found upon Prevost, who lay in wait for a bank messenger on April 2 last, was a novelty. He and a friend named Couion planned to kill his messenger in a way which would 'be least likely to attract public attention.

Couion carried a bludgeon with which to stun the man. Prevost had a medical syringe charged with that most deadly of poisons, prussic acid. He confessed that he had meant to squirt this down the victim's throat, which would have resulted in his instant death.

A pistol which renders the person fired at unconscious without seriously injuring him was found upon a hooligan arrested in East London in October last. The cartridges contained a mixture of gunpowder, burned cayenne pepper and lycopodium, the fumes of which caused the person fired at to lose consciousness. Very little originality is shown by the assassin. If he does not use a pistol or a bomb he has recourse to an ordinary knife. In almost all political assassinations one of these three has been used. The only exception was Lueeheni, the anarchist who so brutally killed the unfortunate Empress of Austria at Geneva. His weapon was a file fixed in a wooden handle and ground to a keen point. This was afterwards destroyed by the Swiss authorities.

The "black-jack," a variation of the old-fashioned sand bag, is a favorite with the Xew York crook. "Silent talkers" is a name given to these weapons, one blow from which will stun the strongest man. Some three years ago a man was arrested in Xew York for the murder of an old woman who had been caretaker in an up-town, and there was found in his possession a black-jack of which the head was a leather pouch filled with small shot. The handle was of plaited leather 9in long. It weighed nearly two pounds. A somewhat similar weapon was taken from a man who is now in Sing Sing prison, serving seven years for a murderous assault upon his employer, an Albany butcher, it has an iron ball for head and a length of steel wire rope for handle.

As diabolical a specimen of murderous ingenuity as ever was discovered by police was found in the possession of a Chinaman, who had been working in a laundry in New Orleans, and who was believed to have intended using it upon his employer. It was a tiny stiletto with a handle about as thick as a carpenter's pencil, and a blade four inches long of <*lass pointed as keenly as a needle. A tiny o-roove had been filed around the blade dose to the hilt. Suppose it were driven into a man's body it would be certain to break oil' at the groove and leaves three inches of glass deep in his ■flesh. What is more, the puncture would be so tinv that it would probably close at once, and show no mark, not even a single drop of blood. Perhaps the strangest weapon ever used for killing was an October, 1008. a man named Ernest bmitn was found dead in Chiswiek High street, London. He had a punctured wound 111 the eve which had reached his brain, and which the doctors agreed had undoubtedly been caused by the steel ferrule of an umbrella. Luckily for his assailant, who was arrested in Fremantle only a few months ago, he had an unique chance of distinguishing himself while awaiting trial Bv Ms prompt action he saved the life of a warder, who was murderously attacked bv another prisoner, and no doubt the judge, in passing sentence of onlv nine months for manslaughter, took this meritorious action into account.