The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1867-05-24

cuts about the neck, as IT inflicted by the
trembling, hurried hand of woman
On that day, also, another case of. imam
ticide was added to the long list which
disgraces our annual police calsndar.-
An unknown woman was seen to drop a
bundle in Twenty-sixth street. When
opened it was found to contain the MUIR
dered body of a child, killed by strangu-
lation.
One Of the most shocking and inhuman
child-murders that we ever read of, occur
red in the early part of March, in Warsaw,
Indiana. An abandoned woman named
Hines apprenticed her little boy, four
years Of age, to MIR. and Mrs Harl.-
They were to have kept the boy until he
was OF age; but the process of "conquer.
ing" him, which the man iIarl immediate
ly commenced, was too severe for 80 ten
der a baby, and death relieved him of the
charge at the end OF four weeks. The
day after his introduction to his new
home, the poor infant was whipped with
a "backsnake whip because be did not
know his letters. E[e was scourged with
q knotted wagon whip, beaten with straps,
knocked out of his chair for falling asleep,
bruised with clubs and bits of board until
his flesh was like Jelly. One day the
brute Harl hanged him by the waist from
a hook in the wall, took off his shoes and
stockings, and kindled fire under the soles
Of his feet. When the flames began to die
out, the child's mother, who was present,
was compelled, with dreadful threats, to
bring fresh Goals. This torture lasted near.
ly half an hour. Then the sufferer was
taken down and tied to bed-pcst. Spent
with pain be fell asleep; for this crime
he was locked up half.naked for two hours
and half on cold February day in
cellar. At night the ezecutioner dipped
his head in bucket of water and impris-
oned him again in the cellar. Then be
turned him out doors in his shirt and
trowsers. After the burning, said Harl's
wife, in her testimony 10 court, "the
child was not able to run around as we'll
as usual" Sometimes, as q variation of
the torture, the boy was hanged up by the
heels. One day after he had been whip
ped as usual, he seemed Every poorly"
he "did not talk any," and at noon be
was put to bed. Early in tho evening
Harl sent his wife to her room. It. was
very late when he followed. awe had
no conversation that night" says Mrs.
Harl "the child was not there in the
morning. Mrs. Hines, the mother, sus-
pected foul play, and applied to magis-
trate. A search was made, and the body
of the poor boy was found in a trunk at the
bottom of WE'LL Harl made his escape,
but has since been captured. The women
were both arrested and tried as accom-.
plices in the murder. They were acquit-
ted after an examination, which seems to
show that the mother, who had done little
OR nothing to prevent the ftul cruelty
which had been exercised under her very
eyes, was the worst criminal of the three.
A few days ago German carpenter
was arrested in Chicago on charge of
whipping his daughter to death. The
neighbors, alarmed at the horrid out-cries
of the little sufferer, sent word to the po-
lice; when the officers entered the house
the man and his wife were absent, and
the child was found dead, lying on her
face upon bed. Her back was mass
of wounds; her garments were saturated
with blood; her neck was purple with
the marks of clutched hand tho eyes
were open, and the face was distorted with
agony.
These things are almost too sickening
for comment. We used to believe that
the wholesale killing of children by slow
torture was refinement of wickeduess in
which England led the world but the
records of the last year or two go far to
transfer the bad pre-eminence to our
selves. Murder by the lash seems al
1 most to hare been an epidemic, and enc of
the worst features in the case is that wo-
men are so often implicated 10 the unnat-
ura brutality. A state of society in which
such horrors can become frequent, such
ineffable crimes be perpetrated by parents
on their own offspring, cries out to heaven
for signal punishment, with cry to which
God cannot be long deaf.