REMARKABLE TRIAL FOR POISONING

Tuapeka Times, Volume 1, Issue 41, 21 November 1868, Page 6

REMARKABLE TRIAL FOR POISONING.

- One* of tfroß© cafo'eiveteb+e'rhaß just been tried at Posen, which would almost justify the belief that men are occasionally^ b'oria -into '•{&&> world as entirely destitute of all principle of conscience as others We of sight and hearing. The trial itself presented no particular ' of interest 'beyond that of clearly establishing the guilt-bf the prisoner, whose crimes almost eclipse, jtijose iof the Balder,, of detestable memory. The facts are shortly "foHowa,i-r»A J iaaßter bookbinder, Wittmann, was accused of having poisoned .-cup -persons in six years, namely, his four wives and two: children. worked aa' journeyman for a bookbinder named Pirsch, of Wolljn, .wjiere he made the; acquaintance of Marie Gehm, Pirsch'si housejkeepex. . Wittmann w,as, on a visit at Woflhrat' the end of 1858 and beginning of 1859, on January 1, in which year Pirsch died very suddenly, and Marie Gehm, according to a previpus: arrangement cfime into* posses,sion .oiiall shis. property. Scon .afteri this Wittmann commenced business in. Wollin, and in February, 1860, married Mario Gehm, who, in addition to' Pirsch's property, 1 had also '"inherited 1 some money through the Budden death; of an aunt. Twd sons, John and Paul, were the result of ihis- marriage. Mrs Wittmann died very suddenly in 1862, •leaving all her property to her husband and two children, of whom ike eldest died in the- same mysterious manner three months later. In June, 1863, Wittmann married his second wife, Charlotte Hohn, who possessed some fortune. Tho latter made her will in .the following December, leaving every-, thing' to her husband, and died a week afterwards. In April, 1864, Wittmann married his third wife, Augusta Kornotzky, who was richer than her predecessor. ' Her fate may be described in almost the same words. She. died in August, 1865, leaving her property between, her husband .and her mother. Only two months after her death Wittmann married his fourth, and by far the richest, wife, the widow Bpse, who had one child by her. first marriage. This child sickened immediately after its mother's wedding, and died in a day or two, by which the fourth Mrs Wittmann inherited its. property. Wittmann then removed from Wollin to Posen. It is hardly necessary to add that the fourth Mrs. .Wittmann's life was not of very long duration, as she die.d in September, 1866, having made a will in favor of her husband a month or two before. Under the pretext that she had died of cholera, Wittmann had made arrangements for burying her the day after her death. But the extraordinary mortality in the Wittmann family had already excited attention. The police here took the matter up, and their first suspicions were strengthened when they found that Wittmann had called in no medical advice. ..Wittmann was arrested just as the funeral .procession was about to start,- and. burial of the body was prohibited.- On searching the house a large lump of arsenic, sufficient ts poison a hundrsd persons, was found locked up in a chest. All the bodies of Wittmann's former wives, aa also those of his two children, were then exhumed, and submitted to a chemical investigation. TKe result was the same in all six cases ; a large quantity of arsenic was detected, and there could not be the shadow" of a doubt that Wittmann had poisoned his four wives and two children. He has been found guilty and sentenced to death. If we consider tho motive for these crimes was no higher passion than avarice, and then remember the relation in which he stood to his victims, and the deliberate perfidy with which he entered upon those relations, it is doubtful if the whole record of crime can show a blacker case. Indeed, it is not improbable that he committed eight murders, as the 'very sudden death of Pirsch during Wittmann's visit, and also of his first wife's aunt, are extremely suspicious coincidences under the above circumstances.

A correspondent of the , " Deccan Herald " writes : — " Two of our militar ds, Lieutenants Stacey and c been lately to the Joonor forest, in quest of large Tatter officer, before leavr in company with his rtsman, managed to bag ses and a lion. The latter, monster, measuring nearly 11 m the tip, of the nose to the end of the tail, appears to have c patience and metal of its ant's! At the first meeting the encounter ended in a fleshy wound, which made the "lord of the forest"; scamper into the jungle, leaving a gory. track to mark the path. The' pursuit was about to bo given tip ' af^er a Jong search, when a native discharged' a ; " Manton " into' the brushwood;- and" the lion reappeared and made' a 'dash at the two officers, who alldwecV the brute to come pretty elpse up.befbrje firing. The simultaneous volfey,^Bb far, however, from slackening the velocity of the charge, accelerated^ "foe motion. In a twnikiing of the «ye, both 'sportsmen bounded a paceson each flank, leaving ajpassage fo^ihe infuriated beast to pass, and immediately after,' on the .lion, re-facing, planted a bullet (Lieutenant Tinling, I believe) between' the brute's" two eyes,' which broughti itrlifeleea to the ground. ■ '