Note 283 — MINERAL POISONS.

Trial of Mary Bateman for the wilful murder of Rebecca Perigo, at the York Assizes, 1809. As we have on several occasions alluded to this trial, it may perhaps be satisfactory to give a short sketch of the case in this place.

This diabolical woman, under the pretext of possessing the art of witchcraft, committed numerous frauds, and worked with so much success upon the credulity of her victims, as to obtain considerable sums of money, and reduce them to the extremes of poverty; while, in order to conceal the frauds, she consigned whole families to the grave by her poisons. Her detection was brought about by the robbery of a family of the name of Perigo, from whom she obtained the sum of seventy pounds, besides cloathes and furniture, under the pretence of engaging a Miss Blythe to relieve Perigo’s wife from the effects of an “evil wish,” under which she was supposed to labour; when the appointed time arrived for the restoration of the property, and the promised cure of the wife, Mary Bateman sent a powder (Arsenic) which she directed them to add to their pudding, and advised them, should they be ill after eating it, to take a spoonful of prepared honey with which she supplied them. The wife ate the pudding, and soon afterwards died; the husband, however, very narrowly escaped: for this murder she was tried and convicted; and thus was a system of robbery and murder, scarcely equalled in the annals of crime, happily exposed and ended.