The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-14 00:00:00

THE suw, LONDON,t 11,VVED1kTESDAY EVENING,

being attdited every week. An order was made by
,the committee requiring him (Mr. Maitland) -to
balance his • accounts once a-week, to pay into
the banker's each day any sum over £lO, which
amount he was to retain for current expenses, and
the working of the society had been reorganised, so
as to reduce very considerably its expenditura and
1 increase its usefulness.

Mr. Selfe was happy to find the society was on a
better foundation. The best thing to do was to
check the indiscriminate use of charitable funds, and
prevent the benevolent being imposed upon. He
did not wish to stop the flow of public bene-
volence, but he Was very desirous that the
funds subscribed by the charitable should
be properly applied. He should have preferred
to see the second balance-sheet of the Royal
Benevolent Society properly, audited, which had
not been done. He would not, however, dispute
its accuracy. The second report showed only a de-
ficiency of £66 by the misconduct and departure of
Captain Sheppard. That did not explain away the
complaint he had originally made, and which he
was informed had found its way into the news-
papers, that £236 6s. 4d. had been disbursed in
loans and gifts, and that the expenses for doing so
were upwards of £l,OOO.
Mr. Maitland said the preliminary expenses of the
society should be borne in mind. Everything was
now conducted with the strictest economy. The
books were open to the subscribers, and any person
could obtain a report who requested one.
After some further conversation, the secretary
thanked the magistrate for his courtesy and atten-
tion, and retired.

' • ..1 I
thought it was imprudent. ' " You *lee to Will as
he was about to leaVe ?" " mother ie
-
about to .send you away—she will not hear of mar-
riage." ",Then; after all, there-was • a question of
marriage between you ?" "I never consented to
such a step." "You said- to him—' My mother
Will get rid of the child 9'" "I never said. that."
" After the departure of Fetis, what took place ?"
" I entertained doubts-that I was really enciente."
"At the end of April your mother had no doubt,
and what project did she form ?" " My mother felt
certain that nothing would come of my situation.
We, however, discussed the question asto the means
of getting rid of the consequences of my fault. My
mother said that if I had a miscarriage we might
burn the embryo. But if in place of an embryo there
be a child arrived at its full time ?' said I. Do not
be disquieted about that,' said mamma, there will
al ways be means of causing it to disappear." "That
meant that dead or alive the child was to be burned?"
" What I understood was that my mother would
send it away." " That is what you say now, but
you did not say so in your preliminary examina-
tions." " What I said was misunderstood." " You
did not ask your mother what she would do if your
child Was born alive ?" " I had not the idea of ques-
tioning my mother, because I was persuaded she
meant to send the child away." " Your mother made
you take violent exercise in order to produce femis-
carriage ?" "No, but because she thought that I was
behind my time, and it was of my own accord that
I rolled down the hill, and I did it in joke." " Did
not your mother propose to you to roll down "a stair-
case ?" " She said, laughing, If you had a good
tumble downstairs, perhaps you would be all right.'
But I answered that by such a fall I should per-
haps kill myself, and she said that she was only
jesting." " When your pains came on did not your
mother take you to a dark, isolated chamber ?"
" Yes ; and being persuaded that the child would
be dead. she told me to make no noise. For if the
child were dead, it was useless to let any one know,
and so render herself liable to be suspected of a
.crime which she would not have committed."

Did you remark that the child to whom you gave
birth moved P" " I thought for a moment that it
moved." "Did not your mother remark that he
was a large child?" "It was big, certainly, but I
am not sure that.. it was born alive. It did not
cry." "But if he moved he must have been born
alive, and how did he die?" "He was still born,
Sir." " Did you not say after your arrest
that your mother had put her hand iu the child's
mouth ?" " What I said was, that if she had killed
the child she could only have done so in that way."
Did you not say that you knew your mother meant
to kill the child ?"' No, I knew, that she meant
to cause the child to disappear, but that is not the
same thing as killing it." The President then read
extracts from her declarations after being arrested,
for the purpose of showing that they were not in
accord with her present statements, and that, there-
fore, she was not worthy of credit. She afterwards
again energetically denied that she had ever thought
of marrying Fetis, and, in answer to a reference to
something he.had said, she exclaimed with disdain,
" Such a man cannot be believed !"
At this point the interrogatory; during which the
girl had displayed remarkable energy, was sus-
pended ; ultimately shs was brought back, and the
President said—" Tell us the manner in which the
child was burnt." " I only khow," answered the
prisoner, " what my mother told mer and she told
me very little. Ido not knew if she had prepared
beforehand a fire in the grate, nor how she. executed
her project. It Was, I believe, .in a room by the
side of that in which I was confined that the t urn-
ing took place. Firewood and faggots are always
keptin a closet in that room." "We have reason
to believe," said the President, "that the prepara-
tions for. the burning were made the day before the
confinement ; and if so, there must have been the
premeditated design to burn the child, whether
alive or dead." " 1 can give no explanations on
that point." " You appear to have always enter-
tained a certain degree of fear of your mother.
Why, then, did you not communicate your situation
to your father, who loves you ?" "My mother en-
tertained the' certainty that nething would come of
my situation, and she led me to share her convic-
lion. I consequently had no need to confide in any
one, my interest being tohave my fault kept secret."
Madame Lemoine was then interrogated, and
site said :—" I watched over my daughter as it
was my duty to do.' I never observed any famili-
arities between her and the coachman, Fetis ; I
should not have tolerated them. When I heard cf the
reports about my daughter, I laid a complaint
against some persons for calumniating her. I never
entered into an understanding with my daughter,
WhCn I learned, her situation, to represent that the
coachman had dohe her violence. If my daughter
on her preliminary examination said the contrary
she is mistaken. I first heard the reports in Novem-
ber, and I questioned my daughter ; she denied that
they were true, and as no alteration had taken place
in her health I believed her." " Tell us," said the
'President, " what your daughter said to you after
the discharge of Fetis." "Allow me, sir, not to re-
peat thosel details ; there are ;certain things which
ought not to be required from a mother." " But I
recommend you to say what they were." " It is 'very
painful to repeat them; my daughter only said a
few words, but they were terrible." " Tell us what
your daughter said, since what she revealed to you,
if true, was a crime-on the part of one of your eer-
rants." " It was to save my daughter's honour that
I said nothing about the matter." The President
again pressed-the prisoner to say what the revelation
was, and at last she, in great agitation, declared
that her daughter had confessed that she had been
subjected to violence by the coachman. She then,
in answer to furthiar questions, protested that when
she became aware that her daughter was enciente
she might have thought of causing the consequences
to disappear in the event of a miscarriage ; but.
bursting into tears, she exclaimed, I never thought
of committing a crime. She then denied that the
violent exercise which she had caused the girl to
take-had been intended to produce a miscarriage;
she also denied that she had recommended her, to
roll down a staircase, and said that the rolling doW n
the hill was .accidental. She went on to assert that
the confinement of the girl had taken place unex-
pectedly in the middle of the night, and she said
that fact explained why she had not called in a
doctor. "But, said the President, whynot have sent
a servant for a doctor ?" " The servants slept in an-
other' part of the house, and besides I was anxious
to save the honour of my
daughter." " What pre-
parations did you make for her confinement?" " Ex-
case me, the details would be painful." "I insist on
your answering." " I did what every mother would
have (lane, and among other things T put a bed in
the room." "And what happened ?" "A dead child
. was born." ." And what did you do with it when
you had condemned it in advance not to live ?"
" Oh, Sirl what you now say deprive's me of the
courage of stating what passed." " When a woman
has the courage to throw into the fire the child of
her daughter she ought to have the courage to state
what she did." " I had 'the courage to do what was
necessary to save the honour of my daughter." The
prisoner afterwards, though with great 'repugnance,
gave detailS of'the birth, and then said she was con-
vinced that the.child was dead, inasmuch as it did
not move. " But often newly-born children do not
move, though alive," said the President. " Ah, that
is science, and I am not learned. The child had been
lying motionless for some time before I pat it into
the fire." " Did you not say to your daughter that
the child was alive, and a very large one ?" " I did
not say that it was alive, though I may have' said
it was large." " Your daughter said that the child
moved—that she saw it move." " She could not
have seen that, for lam sure it did not." " Why
did you cast it into the fire?" " When I was certain
that it was dead I had the honour of my daughter
to protect, and I did not hesitate." " How did you
light the fire ?" " There was already wood in the
grate." " Give us details. of the 'burning." " I did
so in my preliminary examination, and it is cruel to.
ask me to repeat them." "Did the operation last
long 2" " I cannot tell." " Afterwards you had
the courage to cast away the ashes of the burnt
child of your daughter ?" " Yes,'l had the courage
to do that. Why should T not have had the courage
to carry to the end what I had commenced ?" "And
'you compelled your daughter to take
a the
w ad
la f;
walk in
an
theer town ?" " When a mother desires to
save the honour of her daughter, she does' every-
thing except crime."
Witnesses were then called. The first was Fads,
the coachman, and he created great curiosity. "It
was in 1856 that I entered the service of Madame
Lemoine._ Shortly' after Mademoiselle Angelina
began' remising with me whenever she found me in
the rooms. did not then think it possible to marry
her. In 1858, when 'she was 15, she remarked that
she was old enough to marry, and I said Mademoi-
selle, I can recommend to you a good husband.'
' Whom,' asked she. ' Myself,' I answered ; and she
observed, We shall see.' ' The man then went on
to describe the liberties which the girl had taken
with him, and how they had ended. He admitted
that he had calculated that if she became enciente
he might, notwithstanding the
,dilTerence 'in their
positions, marry her. It was in January last she
made known to him that she was enciento, and in
that month unfavourable reports began tabe propa-
gated about her. She heard of those , reports, and
said she was pleased with them rather than other-
wise, as they would facilitate a marriage. "At
first," continued the man, " it was agreed that she
should
she
d
bst:,
:hula,v.iNeyttrir,e,after...Tawiessaal
drovepasdn was afraid;
faas•rr,
ada3mirialdi
nwiel:gtieis,hlsihsat:e.aeoter:
Inhlshetuoeoooranm‘uval,
house e
yisovnooiuguili
cilrettaportoutroiot
stsc
jotdei
doitycnN
:racottaer.
sa‘ra,ol,oany.:
nuin es
pd:;:,:
o
ing s
11,
Madame, it is right to tell you that Mademoiselle