The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-07


slaughtered whole family to obtain few
francs; but the Englishwoman for period of
four years carried on q system of child-mur-
der for the paltry sum of two shillings and
sixpence per child. 1t was her practice to
adopt the undesirable children of repentant pa
rents, s,andtofurnish them with all the comforts
of home at the rate of eighteen-pence per
week. To the mind of Mrs. Waters, the only
comforts which a reasonable infant conld
require appear to have been perfect quiet and
unlimited supplies of laudanum. 1t was her
custom to give her young charges substan-
tial breakfast of elixir of opium, and then
to secure to them the opportunity for undis-
turbed repose by locking them up in her bed
room and leaving them unmolested for the
remainder of the day. The infants, however,
refused to thrive under this motherly treat
ment; and as they successively died of what
the physician examined upon the trial called
starvation and narcotism,' Mrs. Waters
was accustomed to wrap them in paper and
drop them in unfrequented localities
wbene'er she took her walks abroad. The
vacancies thus caused in her youthful family
by the obstinate refusal of the infants to
take kindly to the regimen of repose and
laudanum were promptly filled by the adop-
ton of fresh children. BY this ingenious
method the thrifty Mrs. Waters was gradu-
ally accommodating competence for the
support of her declining years, when her
occupation was rudely disturbed by the po-
lice, at the instigation of certain Mr. Cowen,
whose unmarried daughter had inadvertently
given birth to an unexpected child, which
Mrs. Waters had undertaken to bring up in
the midst of her peculiar infantile comforts.
Being placed on trial for the murder of this
infant, her long career of successful suppress
sion of unwelcome children was brought to
light, and she was not only found guilty of
havirg murdered the Cowen infant, but in
the course of the trial the incidental murder
of at least thirty-nine other infants was shown
to have resulted from her successful practice
Of baby -farming-as the English press has
called her peculiar profession.
The woman herself seems to have been
utterly without feeling. When asked if she
had anything to say in her defense before SEN
tence was passed upon her, she made a ram-
bling speech, setting forth what she knew
about farming applied to infants, and claim
ing that her management of them had re-
suited disastrously only in consequence of the
ill-advised interference of the police who had
persisted in disturbing her in her wise and
motherly course of treatment. In reply to
the evidence which proved that the police
had found five infants lying at the point of
death on a sofa in her room, she urged that
only three instead of five were thus found and
evidently regarded so small trihe as the
starvation of three children as wholly I'm wor-
thy of notice. The court, however, declined
to be influenced by her statements, and SEN
fenced her to death, to the great satisfaction
OF every humane person in the United King
dom.
Horrible as this case is, it will doubtless
have beneficial effect upon the conserva-
tive British public, which has heretofore re-
garded a founding hospital as demorazing g
institution, fit only for benighted "Popish"
communities. Already the London press is
discussing the proposal to establish such a
hospital as the only safeguard against infan.
ticide and baby-farming. If the English
| people can be brought to look upon the
Founding hospital as a necessary preventive
of crime, the forty children whos by Mrs.
| Waters aid 'Sslept ever into long, loug sleep"
| have not suffered and died in vain. Her
| case also emphasizes once more the unplea
SAINT truth that the cruelty of thoroughly
| bad woman possesses fiendshness which is
seldom found in the worst of male criminals
Traupmann was at worst feeble, haf-witted
fellow, who probably had no real sense of the
nature of his enormous crime; but the woman
Waters, whofor five years deliberately starved
and drugged two score of hepless and help
less infants till they sank into forgotten
graves, was, to all appearances, an intelligent,
strong-willed person. The annals of crime
may be safely challenged to produce crimi-
nal who in relentless, calculating, and long
continued cruelty can equal tnls Daoy-farm-
| ing fend in womans shape.
! THE REORGANIZATION OF GRANT WOULD
DISSOLVE THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
From the NJ Y. sam
If the Republicans elect majority of the
House of Representatives this fall, they will
at the close of the next Congress have con-
trolled the House fourteen years. This is a
longer period than any party has had ma
| jority in that branch of the Federal Legsla-
ture without interruption since the reorga-