SALE OF POISON ACT.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 911, 9 January 1872, Page 2

SALE OF POISON ACT.

An Amendment Act dealing with the sale of poisons came into operation on JS T e\v Tear's Day. It is of importance that it should be, knowu as some of the clauses are very stringent, and will affect not only chemists, but various other classes of traders. Clause 12 of the Act says:— It shall be unlawful to sell any poison unless the box, bottle, wrapper, or cover in which such poison is contained be distinctly labelled with the name of the article, and the word " poison," and with the name aud address of the seller of the poison. And it shall be unlawful to sell any poison of those which are specified in the first part of the schedule to this Act, or may hereafter be declared to be poi-. sons within the meaning of this Act, by order iu Council, under the third section of this Act, to any person unknown to the seller, unless introduced by some person known to the seller ; and on every sale of any such article the seller shall, before delivery make or cause to be made an entry iu a book to be kept for tfiat purpose, stating, in the form set forth in the third schedule to this Act, the date of the sa'e, the name and address of the purchaser, the name and quantity of the article sold, and the purpose for which it is stated by the purchaser to be required; to which entry the siguatare of the purchaser and of the person (if any) who introduced him shall be affixed. " And any person selling poison otherwise than is herein provided shall, upon a summary con-

viction before two Justices of the Peace be liable to a penalty not exceeding £5 for the first offence, and to a penalty not exceeding £lO for the second or any subsequent offence." The schedule of poisons coming under the operations of this Act is: '" Arsenic and its preparations, prussic acid, cyanides of potassium and metallic syanides, strychnine, and all poisonous vegetable alkaloids and their salts, aconite and its preparations, emetic tartar, corrosive sublimate, cautharides, savin and its oil, ergot of rye and its preparations, laudanum, and opium."