Delaware state journal. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1870-1883, 1881-06-30
A CHILD DEVOURED BY RATS.
Mrs. Fritz, OF philadelphia, Returns
10 Her Wretched Home to Find
mer sleeping Child Killed by
Hungry yermiu

Her Sleeping Child Killed by
Hungry yermin.
Fridays Philadelphia Times.
AT lo o'clock yesterday morning Mrs.
caroline Fritz, poor woman, residing
with her husband and four children in a
tenement, which might by courtesy be-
called house, in the rear of 3O9 Brown
street, after seeing two of her children oil
to school, and consigning third to the
ere OF neighbOr, Mrs. Wurst, left her
hve-weeks-old baby, Caroline, asleep
upon bed in the second story, and
started to gather coal along the German
town Norristown railroad tracks on
Ninth street. Two hours subsequently
she returned with her load, and barely a
minute afterward, when she went up
stairs, she was at u window shrieking for
help, her face conyulsed with horror
and agony and holding aloft in
her arms To neighbours gaze
the bloody, almost unrecognizable
features of her infant. "My God Mrs.
Rennelstein," the agonized mother
shrleked to her neighbor, whose house is
in the rear of 305 Brown street, look at
that the rats have eaten my baby. Go
for doctor" Mrs. Rennelstein, after
one glance, which made her shudder, at
the mangled form of the infant, ran to the
drug store at the corner of Third and
Brown streets and soon had DR.. A. l..
Wittkamp i'll attendance upon the child.
The neighbors also ran in, attracted by
the screams. The return of the mother
had routed the rats at their horrid feast.
When she entered the lower room two
big gray fellows came Gathering down the
stairs and disappeared in some of the
numerous retreats lining the room.
THE BABy's FIGHT FOR LIFE.
When she reached the upper chamber
the so-called house only having two
apartments-she had found more than a
dozen of the creatures deyouring the
infants face and arms ravenously and
the poor little thing trying her best with
her puny and waning strength to fight
them off. Before she went after the coal
she had washed the child, dressed it
atresh and laid it asleep upon the led,
covering it over with piece of blue
mosquito netting. On her return
this netting was torn and gnawed
| and dragged away partly from
the babe and was red with its blood.
The rats fled up the chimney in the holes
niuuhu tit HuoI, lntb all Olu-idSulOutu
| rubbish closet several feet above the floor
and down the stairs, some of them carry
ing with them in their jaws fragments of
the little ones flesh. One dropped her
nose upon the bed, the covering of which
was marked by the blood stained foot
prints of the voracious crew. DR.. Witt
| kamp made an examination of the little
sufferer and saw that its life would he of
a few moments duration only. Nearly
every ounce of blood had been sucked
from its veins by its destroyers, leaving
the babe bleached almost white.
A SHOCKING SCENE.
They had eaten its nose completely oil
and part Of the lips and cheeks, leaving a
great hole similar to that made often by
cancers. The forehead and ears and the
throat were spotted, like smallpox, with
| the indentations left by the teeth of the
rats. The left arm and hand, which the
| child had evidently exposed while asleep,
| were torn and eaten to the bone in places.
| Fragments of the flesh were upon the
counterpane close by. In ten minutes
| the infant died. without struggle, in
the arms of its mother, the other children
and number of women neighbors form
ing mournful group around it.
Mrs. Rennelstein, who was the first to
respond to Mrs. Fritz's appeal for a
doctor, said that about .45 o'clock she
heard the infant cry and remarked that
| some of the children must have been
teasing her, as they sometimes did. She
| kept ON crying louder..and then suddenly
| u-anod. This muat have boon about the
time when the vermin overpowered her
| and drained away har bIoo1 This woman