Genre:

Essay, Drollery

Subjects:

Pollution, Disease, Public Health, Crime, Gas Chemistry

    Gives advice to people wishing to 'poison whole districts without running the risk of being hanged for murder'. Advises storing elements, including oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon, in deep holes lightly covered with mould. Explains that these elements will subsequently combine to form 'most subtle' and poisonous gases, and subsequently result in 'sudden death', 'typhus', and facial disfigurement, in anybody who inhales the gases. Warns readers that such 'poison magazines' exist and are currently attached to 'Churches and Chapels'—i.e. graveyards.