A Tale OF THE NATIONAL HOTEL POISONING. BY MANSFIELD T. WALWORTH. NEW YORK: Carleton, Publisher, 413 Broadway. (LATE RUDD & CARLETON.) M DCCC LXIII. HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY THE BEQUEST OF 1918 Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1863, BY MANSFIELD T. WALWORTH, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Kentucky. PREFACE. Ar the inauguration of James Buchanan as President of the United States, the author of the following pages chanced to be one of the guests of the National Hotel, in the city of Washington. In company with hundreds of the inmates of the hotel, he was suddenly prostrated with a severe and mysterious illness. After a few weeks, so prevalent and unmanageable had this malady become, that the guests left the hotel in terror, and the house was closed. When the President elect came to this hotel, a few weeks previous to the Inauguration, he and many others were taken suddenly ill. He tnen went away, and no new cases of this unaccountable disease occurred until he returned again to this hotel, a day or two before the 4th of March, to await his inauguration. this house were attacked again. Some died; others were injured for life; but most finally recovered. The coincidence of the President's distinct visits to this house with the two outbreakings of this frightful sickness, occasioned a widely-circulated rumor that an effort was being made by some mysterious unknown to poison him. Then very many of the guests of A medical commission reported, as the result of their investigations, that this malady was occasioned by imperfect drainage under |