The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1878-11-23
CHILD BURNED TO DEATH.

| LOCKED Up ALONE, ITS OUTCRIES ARE OF NO
AVAIL AND 1T DIES IL AGONY AND FLAMES
A MOST CRUEL AND REPREuENsIBLE
PRACTICE.
Only yesterday we published para
graph recounting how four colorcd children
were burned to death in the room in which
they had been locked, while their parents
were abroad attending to religious duties
which they felt they could not neglect. A
striking parallel was furnished Yesterday.
about eleven o'clock, in this city--thc scene
being on Walnut street, within q stones
throw Of our sanctum
The clang Of fire bells and the outcries
OF women and children soon attracted a
crowd to the scene Of the horror. which is
a one story building a few doors above
Twelfth street. Entering the house, which
had been Quilted Of such articles of furni-
ture as had not been destroyed by the flames.
We saw colOred woman. named Harriet
Fields, and apparently about forty years
Of age, in the widest paroX'sms Of grief
Uttering piercing shrieks and frenzied cx-
CARNATIONS, she threw herself upon the be-
Uttered floor, near an object over which
sheet had been thrown. Franticaly rcmoy-
ing the sheet, she disclosed to view the
burned and charrcd body Of negro child,
apparently five or SIX years of age. This
little creature she had locked in the room,
when she went out to work in the morning,
first building hot fire in the stove that the
room might be kept comfortable during
her absence. Shortly after 10 o'clock, a
gentleman who was passing the building,
heard the voice Of child giving out the
most agonizing cries Of mother. mother"
but thinking it case of fog.
ging, quite common in the neghborhood,
he passed on, and gave the mat
ter no further attention 4 half
hour later the door Of the room from
which the cries proceeded, was bursted
open, and there, lying upon the floor, near
the stove, was the body Of the little girl,
every vestige Of her clothing burned to crisp
cinders, and the body so cooked that great
patches of skin hung pendant from the legs,
arms and shoulders. The little sufferer
gave gasp or two after the first bucket of
water was cast upon 1t, and then passed out
of its misery. The bedding in the room
was entirely destroyed, and no doubt gave
out dense volumes Of smOkcNnd flame; but
the doors and windows of the room being
tightly closed, neither the smoke nor the
flame could escape to give notice outside of
the appalling scene that was going on
within, until it was too late to rescue either
the child or the rooms contents.
The most reasonable conjecture is that
the child was playing with the fire, and by
some means communicated it TO the bed
ding. 1t was to give notice of this mis-
chief, no doubt, that she raised her outcry.
The burning bedding filling the room en-
veloped the child not sooner than ten or
fifteen minutes after its outbreak, for had
the child been burning during the interval
between its first outcry and the time of
discovery, its body would have presented
nothing but an unacceptable mass. Asst
was the skin remained intact on the breast
and abdoncn-the arms, legs and shoulders
Of the little creature being burned as above
stated, quite severely.
Surely, if our colored mothers can be
taught anything by experience, this terrible
lesson should put stop to the reprehcnsi-
bic and criminal habit Of locking children in
rooms with lighted fires, and leaving them
thus for hours together. But il will not stop
the habit; the death of a child under like
circumstances, ON every day Of the week,
would not stop It, The habit is like that
Of using coal oil for kindling. Everybody