Nashville Union And American

From the Memphis Appeal, July 1.

We are indebted to Walker Wood, Esq., who arrived from Somerville yesterday, for the particulars of one of the most cold-blooded and horrible affairs that we have ever heard of—being the poisoning of an entire family, consisting of a father and three children, by an assassin, whose sole motive was revenge. The circumstances, as detailed by Mr. Wood, are as follows:

Some two years ago a very quiet, peaceable man, named Harrison Baily, living some four or five miles from Somerville, killed a man (whose name it is thought best not to mention), as it was proven on trial, in self-defense. He was arrested, examined and discharged, as entirely justifiable; but a relative of the man who was killed made a vow to revenge him, and a few months ago was heard to swear that "neither Harrison Baily nor Ben. Chambers (a witness who testified very strongly in his favor), should live to see the 30th of June.

On Saturday last, Mr. Baily visited Somerville to transact some business, and on returning home in the evening, saw lying in the road, just before reaching his place, a package neatly done up in white paper. He dismounted, picked it up, and on unrolling it, discovered it to be a small porter bottle full or nearly full of liquor—looking, to use his own words, as if two or three drinks had been taken out of it."

On picking it up he noticed that it was slightly imbedded in the loose earth of the road, as if it had fallen some distance, and as he knew that his neighbor, Mr. McFadden, had been in town, and had started out just ahead of him, he concluded that it was his private bottle which had jolted out of his pocket, and determined to take it home and use it. He was strengthened in this idea by learning, on reaching home, that Mr. McFadden had passed by only a few minutes before, and that no one had passed since.

After resting he opened the bottle, and on tasting it, finding it to be what he thought a very good article of whisky, made a toddy of a portion of the contents. His three little children, one a girl of eleven years of age, and two boys, aged respectively eight and four, crowding around him while he was doing so, after he had made it he gave each of them a sip, and drank off the balance himself.

That was a fatal draught! A few moments after drinking, each was seized with a burning, griping pain in the stomach, which soon became alarming.

Aid was summoned, but came too late, and in two short hours all four were stiff in death.

The news was soon spread among his neighbors and created intense excitement.

The deadly bottle was examined and the liquor found to be saturated with strychnia. Mr. Baily having recounted how, and where he found the bottle, parties went to the spot and an examination revealed the fact, it had been thrown into the road from a clump of thick undergrowth, to and from which the party who threw it, had walked on his heels so as to leave no track behind. Mr. McFadden having been interrogated, declared that there was no bottle or bundle in the road when he passed by, some minutes before; consequently it was thrown there by some one who was watching for Baily, and who intended that he should find it and use it as he did.

The oath of the party spoken of above was then remembered, and it, along with various other things, directed suspicion to him, and it was determined to arrest him. When the officers went to look for him, however, he was gone, and though diligent search has been made, no traces of him have as yet been found.

The police and detectives in various localities have been notified to keep a sharp lookout for him, and he will, no doubt, be caught sooner or later. The wrath of heaven is sure to overtake the wretch who could deliberately commit so great and so monstrous a crime.