Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-08-24

One of the Most Extraordinary Gases on
Record : Horrible Treatment of an
Adopted Child = Unprecedented Cruelty
Prncticed By n Woman.
A case was recently heard In London
Police Court developing the following facts,
which are most horrible to think of:
A little girl named Caroline Lefevre aged
eight years, the daughter of a porter named
Edward Lefevre, in the employ of Messrs.
Barclay & Perkins, was entrusted to the care
of certain Mary Allen, a schoolmistress,
who lived near st. Saviour's, Southwark.
The child was day-scholar for about twelve
months, at the end of that time the father,
who was widower, married again, and, OF
the earnest request Of the schoolmistress,
allowed the child to remain with her in
more permanent way. Mary Allen said to
Edward Leievre, 81 am so fond Of your little
girl; let me keep her altogether. I'll clothe
her and educate her" We had rather that
the result should be told in the words of some
Of the witnesses or persons engaged on the
hearing Of this case than in our own. Mr.
Edwin, who conducted the prosecution said,
II shall be able to show that the prisoner
was not content with cutting the poor child
with stick and a cane, and with poker
and shovel, but that she actually made her
eat human excrement.n George Fillmore, q
beating the child with the hook part of a
cane on her head and arms till blood came.
The blood came from the stripes as fast as
she struck the child.
Anne Rose saw her beating the child on
the head till the blood came The child her
self was put into the witness-box, and ex-
amined by Mr.. Burcham himself. She told
the magistrate that she had been beaten
most numerically with stick by the
prisoner. Fragments Of the stick, smeared
with blood, were produced in court. The
child said: "That was what she struck me
with; she broke 1t over my arms and back"
The child also told the magistrate that upon
two occasions the schoolmistress had beaten
her with theTpolIer and shovel, and burned
her with red-hot iron. 1t is difficult to tell
the end Of the story in terms which are fit to
meet the eyes of our readers, only it is dread
full that such things should be done, not that
they should be talked about. The fact, how
ever, is, that the heschoolmistress compelled the
child to swallow some human excrement,
saying, "If you don't swallow it, I'll poke it
down with the stick" There was another
child present when this was done, and this
child was produced in Southwark Police
Court on Thursday, and testified to the fact.
The medical witness DR.. Thomas Evans,
who was called to see the child at the Police
Station, stated that when he saw her first
.her head was .bandaged up, ana she could
scarcely stand. Her face was mass OF
bruises, so that he could scarcely distinguish
her features Her eyes were SO closed that
she could scarcely see. She had three scalp
wounds. Her shoulders, her back, her arms,
herlegs were all bruised and lived. What
was better, perhaps, than all testimony, how
ever Trustworthy, was that the poor child's
head and the upper part of her person were
uncovered in court, and the spectacle was so
dreadful as to excite horror in the breast OF
every person present.