New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-12-24
Child MURDER.

We are too apt to believe that we live in coun
Try in which woman is respected and childhood
loved, and an injury to the unprotected and help
less starts a thousand aims to aveDge the wroog.
But from time to time comes some horrid tale to
disenchant us of this fair illusion. 1t is true,
thank Heaven, that the heart Of this nation, as a
patton, is sound. In England the assize reports
and the testimony of philanthropsts disclose the
pbastly fac. that iDfanticide is as common on the
banks of the Severn as in days Of old on those Of
the Ganges, though the circumstance appears to
have escaped the observation of the society for
the propagation of the Gospel in foreign paris
Here it is unknown in the direct cold blOOded form
it there assumes; still We fear another kind Of
infanticide is not 30 uncommon as we usually in
seine Nor is is less criminal and revolving from
it's being perpetrsted by slow and continuous
torture, of which case reported In our columns
on Saturday furnishes most horrf5ipg and We
trust most rare example.
child of but four or five years old, little
orphan, whose tender years and lonely lot might
have touched with pity the heart of the hardest
monster, was shown by ample testi Dony and the
verdict of tie Jury, to have been subjected by
fend to whom on its mothers death it WAS en-
trusted, to cOurte of brutal and inhumsn treat.
ment, under which the poor boy happily for him,
succumbed and died. Persons residing in the
neghbOrhood testiitd that for three or four hours
at time they heard the sound of the lash and the
piteous cry which followed; and the doctors ex-
animation showed the little victim to be one mass
of cuts and bruises Men reading the pictures of
Dotheboy's Hail. and of the tyrant Squeers, and
softening over the misery of poor smike, hardly
believe such things could be in another land, and,
at all events, bless themselves in the hope that
none such find dwelling here. But nothing tha'
Dickens ever painted could reach in brutality the
tale told in our columns of Saturday.
The most horrible feature of this case is that
thete BRUTAL injuries were inflicted by the hand Of
one who're sex should have made her to the little
solitary she undertook to care, the supplant
for mercy rather than the minister of murder, the
tender rather than the ferocious scourger
Miss Parkhurst, though the beatings she inflicted
on the poor child may not have been the immediate
caute of death, will, we doubt not, receive for her
brutality the fullest punishment the law permits.
But what punishment will fall on the parent who,
in having thus beartlessly committed his child to
the care of stranger, into whose character he
had made no inquiry, and who was wholly untitled
for such a charge, and in having never from that
time inquired once after its well-being, was vir
tually accessory to those brutalites which super
"induced its death" None, We fear, but that
which public opinion will, we trust, inhict, and
which in thus calling attention to this case we
hope to rouse, both as well deserved punishment
in this instance, and as a warning in many others,
against cold, inhuman neglect of helpless child
hood, which, if not checked, will disgrace our
country, and inHct deep stain upon it's humani-
tartan naue