The Express.
London, England, 1866-09-29 00:00:00

NOVEL AMUSEMENT FOR YOUNG LADIES.

Eliza Ingram, 14, the daughter of very respectable
parents, was placed at the bar before Alderman Abbiss,
charged with being concerned with others, not in custody,
4-lextinguishing a street lamp.
William Randall, 16.8, said that for some time past
the police bad been puzzled to know how it wax a
street lamp under an archway leading into Austinfriars,
was found to be frequently put out without any apparent
means of enabling any one to do it. What astonished
them most was that the lamp door was always shut. He
bad found the lamp extinguished as often as four times in
a night, and as the locality at that spot was very lonely
it was dangerous to allow it to remain in darkness. So
serious did the practise become that the police authorities
placed two constables to watch, and the result was the cap-
tore of the prisoner. This lamp was not upon an ordinary
lamp post, but projected from the wall, and was fed by
an iron pipe running up the wall. The prisoner 'and two
other young girls came past, and he distinctly saw her kick
the iron pipe with her foot, and the result was that the
light was instantly extinguished. They all ran away,
but he caught the prisoner.
Mrs. Ingram attended, and gave her daughter the cha-
racter of being a very good girl.
Alderman Abbiss fined her 2s. fid., but cautioned her
that the next offence of this kind would be punished by
imprisonment.

BOW-STREET.
CHARGE OP MANSLAUGHTIIR AGAINST A MOTHER.

Sarah Hothera wee brought up on remand on the charge
of taming the death of her infant male child by neglect.
The prisoner, a.peor wretched-looking creature, is the
widow of a labouring man who died in the Fever Hospital
en April 15, 1R65. She was admitted to St. Martin's Wor-
khouse with three children on the 24th of that month.
She was confined in June of the child now deceased.
After her confinement she suffered from fever, and in the
course of her recovery had several relapses. At length
she recovered, and was discharged at her own request in
April of this year. She was then well. For a time she
got her living by needlework, but lost her employment by
getting tipsy, and then took to selling fusees in the streets,
where the police and the relieving officer saw her from
time to time in all sorts of weather, often with the
child in her arms and sometimes drunk. When the child
was not in her arms exposed to the inclemency of the
weather it was left at home at a wretched lodging in a
back court of Bedfordbmy, where the cries of the poor
eterviai baby provoked the complaints of the neighbours.
To their remonstrances she replied that she could not
help it; she must earn money to keep her children,
and site could not do that and nurse them too, nor
could she afford to pay a nurse. At about 9 o'clock on
Smithy, the 9th Sept., the prisoner went into a public-
house in Chandoe-street, where she had some beer, and
asked for a pennyworth of port for the child. Mr. Wilby,
the landlord, gave her the port for nothing, and she dipped
her finger in it, and gave her finger to the child to suck.
Mr. Wilby observed that the child " did not drink the
wine ; it seemed too far gone for that." He advised her to
take the child to the hospital. After that she went into the
Horse and Groom, in Maiden-lane, where Mrs. Beauclerk, the
landlsdy gave the child some cake and wine. Witness
urged her to take it to the union, but she said she could
net, as they hail given her some bedding, which she had
" lost" (it had been pawned or sold). It appeared to her
to eat a morsel of the cake. At half-past? o'clock that
night she took the child to the Charing-cross Hospital,
but it was then dead.
Charles Holmes, the prisoner's eldest son, an intelligent
led of about 14, now an inmate of the workhouse, said that
for four weeks prior to the 9th Septemder he had worked
at a news-office for ss. a week and his breakfast. His
mother was kind to him and the other children, and gave
them food, though they had not quite enough " when
she could not afford it." She was only. out late when
at work.
The prisoner said she fed the child, and when it was ill
took it to the hospital. It had always been a poor ailing
thing, and she wished Dr. Skegg, the medical officered
the union, to be called to prove it.
1115 Skegg, the medical officer of St. Martin's, being
examined, proved that the child when removed from the
workhouse was healthy.
Bowman, the relieving officer, proved that when
the Prisoner left the hospital she was supplied with two
sets of bedding (es she had four children), worth about
24. 10a., the greater part of which bad since disappeared,