Thomas. A post-mortem revealed the fact that Thomas had actually
died of arsenic poisoning; upon which discovery the bodies of
John Flanagan, Mary Higgins, and Margaret Jennings were exhumed
for autopsy, which revealed arsenic poisoning in each case. The
prisoners alone had attended the deceased in the last illnesses.
Theory went that the poison had been obtained by soaking
fly-papers. Mesdames Flanagan and Higgins were executed at
Kirkdale Gaol in March of 1884.

Now, these are two cases which, if only minor in the wholesale
poisoning line when compared with the Van der Linden, Jegado, and
Cotton envenomings, yet have their points of interest. In both
cases the guilty were so far able to banish ``all trivial fond
records'' as to dispose of kindred who might have been dear to
them: Mrs Holroyd of husband and son, with lodger's daughter as
makeweight; the Liverpool pair of nephew, husband, stepdaughter
(or son, brother-in-law, and stepniece, according to how you look
at it), with again the unfortunate daughter of a lodger thrown
in. If they ``do things better on the Continent''--speaking
generally and ignoring our own Mary Ann--there is yet temptation
to examine the lesser native products at length, but space and
the scheme of this book prevent. In the matter of the Liverpool
Locustas there is an engaging speculation. It was brought to my
notice by Mr Alan Brock, author of By Misadventure and Further
Evidence. Just how far did the use of flypapers by Flanagan and
Higgins for the obtaining of arsenic serve as an example to Mrs
Maybrick, convicted of the murder of her husband in the same city
five years later?

The list of women poisoners in England alone would stretch