The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-01-29 00:00:00

THE ALLEGED CHILD-STEALING CASE.

On Saturday, at the Stratford Petty Sessions,
Louisa Gumbrell, aged 21, a gipsy, living in a van off
Freemasons'-road, Custom House, was charged on re-
mand with being concerned with her husband in un-
lawfully decoying Frederick William Russell, aged 10
years and eight months, from the custody of his
father, Frederick Russell, formerly living at Toronto-
road, Leytonstone. Daniel Gumbrell, the husband of
the first-named prisoner, a gipsy, who had given him-
self up on the previous evening, was now placed
along with the female prisoner. The facts
of the case have been already reported. The
lad, Frederick William Russell, and his father
were now cross - examined at considerable length.
Police-sergeant Dicker deposed that on Friday even-
ing Daniel Gumbrell gave himself up at the station
at Canning Town, and said, "I have come to give
myself up." The prisoner afterwards said he found
the lad. Elizabeth Lee, of Custom House, was called
for the defence. She said she remembered the lad
going to her daughter's, on the Wanstead Flats, and
saying that he had been turned out of home. He
looked very cold and dirty, and said he had been
sleeping out for three nights. After they left the
Flats the prisoners moved to the rear of the Wood-
house public-house, at Leytonstone. John Gumbrell,
of Crouch-end, Hornsey, said that on August 7, 1884,
he was out on Wanstead Flats, and saw the lad lying
underneath some swingboats. His brother, the male
prisoner, was with him, and prisoner asked him what
he was doing there. The lad replied that he had
been turned out, and that he had got neither father
nor mother. He took him to prisoners' van, and they
gave him some breakfast and treated him as one
of their own. He had never heard the lad say he
wished to go home. After they left the Flats the
witness and his van moved away to the back of the
Woodhouse tavern. He stayed there about a fort-
night, during which time the lad remained with his
brother. Witness did not know that the lad's father
was making inquiries about his boy being m'ssing.
Mr. C. Elder, of New Crown-terrace, Fulham, a City
missionary, said when he first saw the lad was about
four days before he took him to Dr. Barnardo's home.
The lad called at witness's house, which wasa mission-
hall. Three times he asked for bread, and witness
the third time he called interrogated him. Ile in
reply said he had no home, that his mother was dead,
and that his father when employed in the docks four
years ago fell into the water and was drowned. The lad
ran away, and witness afterwards found him at a gospel
tent at Fulham, and taxed him with running away. Mr.
A. Marks, of Clapton-road, a brush manufacturer,
said he saw the boy in the beginning of the year 1885,
when ho used to call at the works for brushes. He
said be had come from the Gumbrells. The Gum-
brells told witness that they had found the lad. The
lad told witness that he had no father, but that he
bad a stepmother. In answer to whether he was
tteated well the lad said he was. The Chairman of
the Bench stopped the case, and said that in the
opinion of the Bench there was no case to send before
ajury. The lad appeared to have had perfect freedom,
and to have gone about just as he liked, and there
seemed to have been no intent to deprive the parents
of the lad's charge. The prisoners were then dis-
charged, the result being received with applause, the
chairman remarking that it was "a case of not guilty,
but don't do it again."