“On the 12th inst., Mr. Jehu McDaniel, formerly Justice of the Peace in Union township, was arraigned before Squire Kelly on a charge of attempting to procure an abortion, preferred by a girl named Lucy Koch, daughter of Eli Koch, of Duck Run. It seems the girl had been living in the family of Mr. McDaniel, and that David, the son of Jehu, had become too intimate with her, the result of which was she became en ciente. Then came trouble. The girl testified at the trail that the elder McDaniel had given her medicine ostensibly for a cough, and that the compound had thrown her into spasms, which not only frightened her out of taking any more, but set her to thinking that the medicine was intended for another purpose. She and her friends thereupon sent the medicine to Dr. Warwick at Lucasville, to be analyzed, and the result of the examination was the discovery of the presence of ergot in the preparation. As a cough medicine, it is needless to say that ergot is a failure; but its potency as an agent in producing abortion is pretty generally known, hence the arrest of the elder McDaniel on suspicion. Miss Koch testified that he left five bottles of medicine with her, but she never took but one done, and McDaniel carried off the bottle from which this dose was taken. The girl concluded she would as leave have a cold as to have fits, and rightly discarded Mr. McDaniel as a physician.”
“The testimony was not deemed sufficient to convict, however, and the case was dropped; but the younger McDaniel was held for bastardy, and will have an opportunity of demonstrating before the Court of Common Pleas why he should not pay the penalty for his waywardness.”1
