here
is still sufficient evidence to warrant posterity in the belief of their
guilt. They were found guilty, and condemned, according to their degrees
of culpability, to various punishments. La Spara, Gratiosa, and three
young women, who had poisoned their husbands, were hanged together at
Rome. Upwards of thirty women were whipped publicly through the streets;
and several, whose high rank screened them from more degrading punishment,
were banished from the country, and mulcted in heavy fines. In a few
months afterwards, nine women more were hanged for poisoning; and another
bevy, including many young and beautiful girls, were whipped half naked
through the streets of Rome.

This severity did not put a stop to the practice, and jealous women and
avaricious men, anxious to step into the inheritance of fathers, uncles,
or brothers, resorted to poison. As it was quite free from taste, colour,
and smell, it was administered without exciting suspicion. The skilful
vendors compounded it of different degrees of strength, so that the
poisoners had only to say whether they wanted their victims to die in a
week, a month, or six months, and they were suited with corresponding
doses. The vendors were chiefly women, of whom the most celebrated was a
hag named Tophania, who was in this way accessory to the death of upwards
of six hundred persons. This woman appears to have been a dealer in
poisons from her girlhood, and resided first at Palermo and then at
Naples. That entertaining traveller, Father Lebat, has given, in his
letters from Italy, many curious particulars relating to her. When he was
at Civita Vecchia, in 1719, the Viceroy of Naples discovered that poison
was extensively sold in the latter city, and that it went by the name of
_aqueta_, or little-water. On making further inquiry, he ascertained that
Tophania (who was by this time near seventy years of age, and who seems to
have begun her evil courses very soon after the execution of La Spara,)
sent large quantities of it to all parts of Italy in small vials, with the
inscription, "Manna of St. Nicholas of Barri."

The tomb of St. Nicholas of Barri was celebrated throughout Italy. A
miraculous oil was said to ooze from it, which cured nearly all the
maladies that flesh is heir to, provided the recipient made use of it with
the due degree of _faith_. La Tophania artfully gave this name to her
poison to elude the vigilance of the custom-house officers, who, in common
with