The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1875-09-02
The Murder Of Children in India.

iu0 muIucT OI OGlIurpH III lHUld.
There is, perhaps, no form of crime more
common i'll India than child murder. The
practice prevailed when first the province of
Bengal passed into the hands Of the British,
and it fiourishes with scarce abated vigor
at the present day. Open at random the
'Decisions Of the Nizamut Adawlut-the
Supreme Court Of Criminal Judicature-
and at brief intervals will be found such
cases as these: In Cuttacka woman draws
a child aside, takes the silver bracelets from
her arms and filings the little victim into a
tank, on the surface Of which the body is
found floating few days afterward In
Behar man stranglcs boy 9 years old
for the sake Of his silver bracelets and gold
earrings and throws the corpse in a sugar
plantation. At Moorshedabad, Chamoo
robs child aged years, and drops her into
deep and rapid part of the river At
Benarcs fellow entices a boy II years old
into his house, and there cuts his throat in
order to get possession of his silver
bracelets, while a friend looks on and
mildly expostulates, but neither seriously
interferes nor gives information to the
police. Another takes neighbors son
into the fields under pretence of helping
him to fly kite, and there strangles him
with his waistcloth, and strips him of the
trashy trinkcts with which he was adorned.
Yet another conducts boy, aged nine, to
witaess religious procession, but passing
near a ditch suddenly throws him down,
Ioll c[r Il, II
ornaments from his arms and feet, and
filings him into the ditch, which is fortunate
ly dry, and where he is found before life is
quite extinct. BY the promise of melon
Leela inveigles Debee Dee, seven years of
age, from his fathers house, brains him
with hoe, and buries his turban and
trinkets in field leaving the body where
it had fallen, and where it was found by
the anxious father.
This murderer, like the others, on being
charged with Che crime, at once confessed
his guilt, bat pleaded, as an extenuating
circumstance, that he was prompted by an
evil spirit. 4 woman holds little girl
under water until she is drowned, the
temptation being silver collar of the
weight Of two rupees. Two women one
evening ask child eight years old TO come
to them tomorrow for some fruit, and when
she eagerly Y arrives one holds her while the
other passes rope round her neck and
pulls it till the breath has fed The body
was speedily found in the midst Of some
tall grass near the house, and the spoiIs
consisted of silver collar Weighing four
rupees.
\ woman Of Tippcrah was engaged in
cooking her food, when, according to her
own account, child not above six years
old came toddling up to her. Suddenly
thick darkness enyeloped her, and voice
sounded in her ears bidding her strangle
her little visitor. Thereupon she seized
the child by the throat and the darkness
passed away. SO she dug a hole in the
floor of her house and hid the body there
in, after taking off the few valueless orna-
ments. A girl, aged nine, herself recently
betrothed browns her playfellow in shall
low watercouse, while boy fourteen years
old leads in play a youthful companion to
the edge of tank, smashes his skull with
a flint, possesses himself of the scanty
ornaments, and then lays the crime at the
door of neighbor.
Similar cases might be quoted to any
extent, and they all resemble one another
in simplicity. No sooner is the child
missed than it is traced to the company of
its murderer, who straightway relates the
whole transaction and points out where the
ornaments have been buried. These usually
consist of very thin silver bracelets and
anklets, with possibly small gold rings on
the fingers and tiny pearls set as earrings,
the value ranging from two to ten rupees.
The trinkets, and sometimes the body, are
buried few inches beneath the surface,
either in the dry soil of neighboring field,
usually the murderer's own plot of ground,
or in his hut, where its presence must
inevitably be discovered as soon as decom-
position sets in. Bodies exposed in the
open fields or carelessly thrown into the
nearest Jungle are quickly rendered unrecog-
nizable by wild beasts and birds of prey
nor does the scanty clothing afford trust
worthy means of recognition.-PaH Nai
| Gazette.
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