New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1865-08-21
INFANTICIDE IN ENGLAND.


We have supped full of domestic horrors
lately, but We doubt whether among them all
there is one which equals in hideousness the
revelations of the last case OF child murder IN
England. The particular murder is no worse
than hundreds of Others; it is the development
of hitherto almost unsupported system which
has startled the English public, and set all the
newspapers to discussing infanticide. For in
this case the child was not murdered by the
mother, but by woman whom the mother paid
to murder it, and who is now shown to have
made n business and profession, almost without
concealment, of numbering children for hire.
The mother was Mary Jane Harris of Tor
quay, in the County of Deyonshlre. She and
Charlotte Winsor were indicted aud tried to-
gether for the murder of child, but the evil
dence was circumstantial, and the jury could
not agree. On the second trial the mother was
made Queens evidence and told the whole story
on the stand. And such story! We make 1t
brief as possible. Seven years before, she had
been seduced and borne q child that is still liv-
ing. In October last she gave birth to second
by the same father. She was at service, and
the child was a burden still more than a shame,
and She resolved to be rid of il. Mrs. Charlotte
Winsor's aid was Sought-a woman whose dread
full trade was known and seems to have been
easily tolerated by the people OF Torquay.
She was q "wise woman" She was the
friend of unmarried girls in difficulties arising
from indiscretions. Her house was at once q
lying-in hospital and the home ola professional
murderess Harris took her baby there and
heard from Winsor the story of her previous
exploits She was a clumsy brute--killed babies
by sufiocation between beds, and with thumb
on the jugular yen.' Albeit, she was philos'
opher. Being asked if she was not afraid, she
answered: SEQ to hell with YOU it's doing
GOOD Her scheme OF benevOlence was not In
diyidual nor limited. "Ill put them all by for
thee" she told Harris, "if thee hast forty"
She would do it for love, or she would do it for
money. She strangled one and stifed another.
She put away third for her sister Poorly. "
She took orders for murder wholly in bust
ness way, complaining of one customer that
she was not "honest" for she had not paid
her fee. When Mary Jane Harris came to her.
she took her baby into the next room-but
only the mothers testimony can tell this story.
The baby was tied in q chair and playing with
the granddaughter of the murderess Z" She
asked me then if she should do it. j asked
how she could do it. She said, Put it between
the bed-ticks' don't remember that she said
any more; but she took the child into the girl
Pratt's bedroom. did not then 90 in, nor
could / see what she did. She stayed there
about ten minutes, and then came back into
the room without the baby. She said, would
look in; and that it soon died. l looked in
and saw the bed made up but no child. ! saw
the childs body afterward." DE Foe could not
improve upon that in its dreadful picturesque
ness. Happily, it was sufficient to settle the
fate of Mrs. Charlotte Winsor, who was found
guilty and will undoubtedly be hanged.
But it is more than intimated by the English
papers that when Charlotte Winsor has been
hanged, the profession Of which she is at this
means become extinct. Even with inlanticide,
political economy and the law of supply and
demand have certain relations. 1.-The ex-
perience of our county coroners," says The
London Rerier, "shows that in many country
villages and great cities there are women like
the Torquay murderess exercising their terrible
profession" The law seldom reaches them;
some sort of public opinion tolerates them;
their own internal cunning and the difficulty OF
inducing those who are either legally or morally
their accomplices to testify against them, in
sure them comparative safety in their calling.
They do exist us class; they have existed as
class for many years, and Charlotte Winsor is
the first who has been brought even to trial.
And in her case after one unsuccessful effort 10
convict il is only the turning Queens evidence /