A Disappointment

CURIOUS MISTAKE WITH A CORPSE

An extraordinary case of mistaken identity is reported from Stirling. On Friday night an Edinburgh gentleman who had been angling in the River Forth dropped dead in the street from heart disease, and so remarkable was his resemblance to a local merchant, who is also an angler, that the body was taken to the latter’s house. The shop was closed, and the sad intelligence broken to the supposed widow, who, however, discovered that the corpse was not her husband’s.

The North-Eastern Daily Gazette, Monday 16 September 1895

I hereby nominate this fellow for a Darwin Award

POISONED BY A STOLEN DRINK.

A STRANGE OCCURRENCE.

Whilst a man named Keogh, belonging to Ballyward, county Wicklow, was travelling by the Blessington tram from Terenure, near Dublin, on Friday afternoon, he extracted by way of joke from a fellow-passenger’s pocket a bottle which he believed to contain whiskey, and imbibed a considerable portion of its contents. He quietly replaced the bottle, making no remark as to the occurrence at the time, but as it was subsequently noticed that he was seriously unwell, he mentioned that he had taken a quantity of the liquid, which turned out to be poison. Nothing could be done for the unfortunate man by those on the tramcar, but as soon as he arrived at Blessington medical aid was procured, and although every known remedy was applied, the poison was too long in the system, and Keogh died a short time afterwards.

The North-Eastern Daily Gazette, Monday 19 October 1891