Dickens and Prussic Acid

[Harry]

Found this paragraph in the Fall River Globe of August 23, 1892:

"Prussic acid is one of the most deadly poisons known and it is frequently exceedingly rapid in its action. Death usually takes place in from one to 40 minutes. It is sure, quick and refined. It was thus that Jonas Chuzzlewit killed himself. On the night when he was arrested for the murder, he is dragged whining, crying and cursing into the coach where he falls moaning down among the straw at the bottom, and Dickens describes his death vividly."

Jonas Chuzzlewit appears in Dicken's book Martin Chuzzlewit. Jonas, a relative of Martin, has ideas of murdering his father for his inheritance (sound familiar?). Jonas does try poison and thinks he has killed his father but in reality his father had died of something else. Jonas is in turn blackmailed and he ends up killing his blackmailer.

Dickens was reportedly Lizzie's favorite author. Could she have read of Prussic Acid here?

[doug65oh]

Well, she might have Harry. I just checked an e-text though of The Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit, and there's no mention at all of "prussic acid" as such. Means little of course, except that Dickens might have used a different term.

The e-text I looked at is here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/968/968.txt

[william]

Harry:
I think it is entriely possible, if not probable, that Lizzie's familiarity with Dickens was instrumental in providing her with the information about prussic acid.

I have noted similar connections between Lizzie's taste in literature and other activities during her lifetime.

[Harry]

Doug, I have no idea as I have never read the book. It just struck me as quite a coincidence that prussic acid and Dickens were mentioned in an article on Lizzie Borden.

The article itself is from the New Bedford Mercury, reproduced in the Globe, and written by reporter Zephaniah W. Pease.

[doug65oh]

gutenberg isn't cooperating at the moment, but there is apparently specific mention of prussic acid in The Pickwick Papers. Fancy that.

[Harry]

A search on Google says that Prussic Acid gets a mention in Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby. and Pickwick Papers.

Prussic acid also gets a line or two in Trollope's The Way We Live Now and Thackery's Vanity Fair .

All these were almost certainly read by Lizzie.

[Harry]

Harry:
I think it is entriely possible, if not probable, that Lizzie's familiarity was Dickens was instrumental in providing her with the information about prussic acid.

I have noted similar connections between Lizzie's taste in literature and other activities during her lifetime.

Yes, Bill, I think it may have given her the idea to look into it further.

Doug, it looks like you were typing while I was searching and I didn't see your post re Pickwick Papers.

[Allen]

From Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens originally publishd in 1839.

At this inquiry, the clamour was increased twenty-fold, and an astounding string of such shrill contradictions as 'He's poisoned himself' - 'He hasn't' - 'Send for a doctor' - 'Don't' - 'He's dying'-'He isn't, he's only pretending' - with various other cries, poured forth with bewildering volubility, until Madame Mantalini was seen to address herself to Ralph, when female curiosity to know what she would say, prevailed, and, as if by general consent, a dead silence, unbroken by a single whisper, instantaneously succeeded.

'Mr Nickleby,' said Madame Mantalini; 'by what chance you came here, I don't know.'

Here a gurgling voice was heard to ejaculate, as part of the wanderings of a sick man, the words 'Demnition sweetness!' but nobody heeded them except the footman, who, being startled to hear such awful tones proceeding, as it were, from between his very fingers, dropped his master's head upon the floor with a pretty loud crash, and then, without an effort to lift it up, gazed upon the bystanders, as if he had done something rather clever than otherwise.

'I will, however,' continued Madame Mantalini, drying her eyes, and speaking with great indignation, 'say before you, and before everybody here, for the first time, and once for all, that I never will supply that man's extravagances and viciousness again. I have been a dupe and a fool to him long enough. In future, he shall support himself if he can, and then he may spend what money he pleases, upon whom and how he pleases; but it shall not be mine, and therefore you had better pause before you trust him further.'

Thereupon Madame Mantalini, quite unmoved by some most pathetic lamentations on the part of her husband, that the apothecary had not mixed the prussic acid strong enough, and that he must take another bottle or two to finish the work he had in hand, entered into a catalogue of that amiable gentleman's gallantries, deceptions, extravagances, and infidelities (especially the last), winding up with a protest against being supposed to entertain the smallest remnant of regard for him; and adducing, in proof of the altered state of her affections, the circumstance of his having poisoned himself in private no less than six times within the last fortnight, and her not having once interfered by word or deed to save his life.

[doug65oh]

Harry. Here's a little squidge from Pickwick:

'Singular circumstance that,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'Will you allow me to make a note of it?'

'Certainly, Sir, certainly--hundred more anecdotes of the same animal.--Fine girl, Sir' (to Mr. Tracy Tupman, who had been bestowing sundry anti-Pickwickian glances on a young lady by the roadside).

'Very!' said Mr. Tupman.

'English girls not so fine as Spanish--noble creatures--jet hair--black eyes--lovely forms--sweet creatures--beautiful.'

'You have been in Spain, sir?' said Mr. Tracy Tupman.

'Lived there--ages.'
'Many conquests, sir?' inquired Mr. Tupman.

'Conquests! Thousands. Don Bolaro Fizzgig--grandee--only daughter--Donna Christina--splendid creature--loved me to distraction--jealous father--high-souled daughter--handsome Englishman--Donna Christina in despair--prussic acid--stomach pump in my portmanteau--operation performed--old Bolaro in ecstasies--consent to our union--join hands and floods of tears--romantic story--very.'

'Is the lady in England now, sir?' inquired Mr. Tupman, on whom the description of her charms had produced a powerful impression.

'Dead, sir--dead,' said the stranger, applying to his right eye the brief remnant of a very old cambric handkerchief. 'Never recovered the stomach pump--undermined constitution--fell a victim.'

'And her father?' inquired the poetic Snodgrass.
-------
No idea of the page, that doesn't seem to be given in the etext.

[Wordweaver]

Jonas Chuzzlewit does in fact use prussic acid, but its qualities were so well known that Dickens didn't need to name the poison.

He started back as his eyes met those of Jonas, standing in an angle of the wall, and staring at him. His neckerchief was off; his face was ashy pale.

'You're too soon,' said Jonas, with an abject whimper. 'I've not had time. I have not been able to do it. I—five minutes more—two minutes more!—only one!'

Slyme gave him no reply, but thrusting the purse upon him and forcing it back into his pocket, called up his men.

He whined, and cried, and cursed, and entreated them, and struggled, and submitted, in the same breath, and had no power to stand. They got him away and into the coach, where they put him on a seat; but he soon fell moaning down among the straw at the bottom, and lay there.

The two men were with him. Slyme being on the box with the driver; and they let him lie. Happening to pass a fruiterer's on their way; the door of which was open, though the shop was by this time shut; one of them remarked how faint the peaches smelled.

The other assented at the moment, but presently stooped down in quick alarm, and looked at the prisoner.

'Stop the coach! He has poisoned himself! The smell comes from this bottle in his hand!'

The hand had shut upon it tight. With that rigidity of grasp with which no living man, in the full strength and energy of life, can clutch a prize he has won.

They dragged him out into the dark street; but jury, judge, and hangman, could have done no more, and could do nothing now. Dead, dead, dead.

Usually prussic acid (AKA hydrogen cyanide) is said to smell like almonds -- which are, of course, a close relative of peaches.

Lynn

[doug65oh]

Well, that solves the Chuzzlewit mystery. Thanks!

[Harry]

Thanks, Lynn. Good Sherlock-ing!

I should have read another few lines further in the newspaper article:

"It is a transparent, colorless, volatile liquid, possessing a smell resembling that of peach kernels, its taste at first cooling, and afterwards somewhat irritating."

[1bigsteve]

I'll be reading Dicken's "The Old Curiosity Shop" in the near future and I'll let you know if I find any mention of the acid.

-1bigsteve (o:

[Kat]

Thanks Allen and DougOh and Wordweaver for all the typing!!! Yay!

[Tonight, on CSI-Miami- a girl was murdered by prussic acid in her lip gloss. Noting to do with Lizzie, tho...]

[Shelley]

There's quite a case to be made about the death of Napoleon- many thinking he was posioned slowly. One drink he consumed was called orgeat, made of apricot nectar and containing Prussic Acid. The suspects and the method of poisoning is nicely detailed at this link:
http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_ ... rte/6.html

I recall reading somewhere that Lizzie had a book called With Edged Tools in the library, and that a household domestic arts book in the house opened readily to the section on poisoning and antidotes.

[RayS]

What a sense of unconscious humor!
Charles Dickens was one of the most popular writers in the 19th century. How does that make his readers potential suspects?

[william]

Shelley,

If you are referring to the book collection in 92 Second Street, the volume "With Edged Tools," by Henry Seton Merriman( 1894) was acqured by THe House from Lesllie Featherline. Mr. Featherline's great aunt was the second wife of Earnest Terry, chauffeur to Miis Lizbeth Borden.

I have a copy of the book. I read it about eight years ago, and while I don't recall the incident you speak of, I do remember an old codger offed himsilf with belladonna in the early part of the book.

It appears Lizzie had plenty of oppotunities to read about "death by poison" in the literature she collected.

In my copy of the book there is a dedication: "Merry Christmas for Ella from Harriet, 1897." I dunno. I must be an old softie. Stuff like that makes me go warm all over!

[Kat]

In the Evening Standard the few days just before the Borden murders there was coverage of a large scale arsenic poisoning in a restaurant not far away.

As for the Borden household book that fell open to the poison section, that anecdote is in Pearson.

[RayS]

In the Evening Standard the few days just before the Borden murders there was coverage of a large scale arsenic poisoning in a restaurant not far away.

As for the Borden household book that fell open to the poison section, that anecdote is in Pearson.

The usual form of arsenic compound was white crystals which could be mistake for salt or sugar. Near tasteless? That's why laws required makers to use a blue color for sold arsenic. "Never eat anything blue."
Its tastelessness and slow acting made it a favorite for poisoners. There are many books on this 19th century and early 20th century poison. One reason for professional Medical Examiners.