guished editor of the day the savage sugges tion that culprits of the same class should in future be put out of the way of repeating their acts by being compelled to drink a fatal dose of chloroform. The romantic side of the chloroform question would not have produced any permanent effects but for the Kendal and similar cases. The feel ings excited by these were, however, so strong, that in 1851 Lord Campbell intro duced into his " Prevention of Offences Bill" a clause making " the unlawful administra tion or application of chloroform and other stupefying agents felonious," and argued vigorously in favor of its enactment. But Lord Campbell abandoned the idea that chlo roform had been or could be used to facili tate robbery, without the knowledge of the person taking it, and thus gave a severe blow to the chloroform scare. 4. The public mind was at length released from this incubus by the concurrence of two sets of circumstances. In the first place, the medical profession had all along pro tested against it. In the second place, fresh cases occurred which showed this protest to be well founded. A man and his wife, living in hired apartments in London, were alleged to have induced a jeweler to send
one of his shopmen to their rooms with dia monds of very considerable value for inspec tion. While pretending to look over the jewels, the woman went behind the shopman and placed a handkerchief dipped in chloro form over his mouth and nostrils, the hus band holding his arms. As he became senseless, they pinioned him and made off with the jewelry. Subsequent evidence transpired, however, which went to prove that the shopman was a consenting party to his own narcotization. Other cases of the same kind occurred and were exposed, and then the voice of medical science was heard, and the panic brought to an end. It is obvious, indeed, now that it has been clearly pointed out, that chloroform poisoning is attended with so many risks of detection through the necessity of administering the vapor slowly, and through the resistance, the chloroformic excitement, and the sick ness of the subject, and with such imminent danger to life, that no prudent thief would dream of employing it; and the terrors of a surreptitious application and unconscious inhalation of this valuable agent for criminal purposes have ceased to disturb the quiet of law-abiding citizens.
