Connecticut western news., 1874-04-24
A Story, of Civilization.

The story of little Ellen McC Cormack falls with weird and dismal eloquence on the ear of civilization. Its simple | but horrible details seem like an uncon-
 sclous reproach to society for permit ting such pitiful things to be. It has none of the attributes of sensation /; ii
 is only child unstudied tale of help. less suffering but it is more full ot | pathos than the most elaborate word
 pictures of romance writers who have made 8 study of the darkest shades of human nature to color their fctions with its somber buses.
 There are, no doubt, many such sad episodes in the history of great city, says New York paper, but they are rarely brought to light, and it is difi- cult for human laws to do justice to them when they are revealed. In the heart of crowded city, with almost as desert, child-life can be trampled on and made miserable, and the vail of the victim be unheard outside of the household that is thus made the tor ture room of innocence.
 romance of reality, has brought the
 
 a nilsson of mercy at the bedside of 8 dying woman, is startled by cry of agony, evidently the voice of a suffering child. Even the poor invalid's atten- tion, at the threshold of eternity, is ar- rested by that moan of anguish that intrudes upon the stiffness of her death hour, and she pleads with her minister ing angel to transfer her mission of %< +1,o% oI, 1,n To- 1xy inquires among the neighbors, and the is revealed. .s...tr. t....= =..
 Six years ago, it seems, an infant two years of age was taken from the Aims Francis and Mary Connolly. From that down to the present time, the child has been the victim of senseless and un- natural oppression on the part of her cruel custodians. She was kept con- fined to her room, never being permit ted to go out into the open air, and kept barefooted and half naked through out all the seasons. Her bed, the floor !; her raiment, rags her home, within the four bare walls where her young heart pined in dreary solitude never a playmate nor 8 living soul to speak to or look upon except the cruel guardians of her seclusion, this wretched waif has passed the years of her girlhood in an isolation worse than that of a wild beast in its cage. Her prosecutors noticed her only to torment her. Mamma" as she called Mrs. Connolly, would whip her and beat her almost every day, using raw cowhide that mangled her young flesh and left her body discol- bred with stripes of black and blue.
 The lady, to whose notice these out rages were brought, appealed to MT. Henry Bergh :; and that active philan- thropist, never indifferent to the suffer- ings of any living thing, whether hu- man or. brute, had the child brought before Judge Lawrence, who, by judi clous questioning, obtained from her the story of her life. It has been ascer- tained that her parents are living, but do not wish to be known. Their desire to preserve an iaacog1aito is not to be wondered at. Not wish to be known If it were possible for them to hide themselves forever from the face of the earth and the eyes of Heaven, it would beweH for them to seek that refuge from the scorn of their fellow beings and the wrath of Providence. Bad enough are the inhuman wretches who could infict years of torture and degra- dation upon innocent childhood com mitted to their charge; worse yet those parents who could betray their own child into the hands of such barbarians.