Daily Republican. [volume] ([Wilmington, Del.]) 1874-1890, 1886-05-19

woman with boy in her charged
whom she would willingly got rid
Of" At the age at which the Society
|got possession of him the normal
weight of boy Is sixty to seventy I
pounds; he weighed only twenty
seven pounds. Under the tight drawn
skin every bone could be seen; what
little flesh there was, was all marked
with bruises and wounds, old and
fresh, from beating with a walking
stick and straps. They were on the
head, the hands, the wrists, the hack,
the face. In this emaciated condition
he had been made by smother" as he
called her, to carry fat-irons, one in
each hand, up and down stairs, going
his weary way up and down. up and
down, from early morning till late at
night. Each iron weighed seven
pounds; together they were more than
half his own weight. He had some
times carried them from half-past 7 in
the morning till 0 at night. Often for
thirty-six hours he had nothing to|
eat, and, what must have beer worse
to bear, nothing to drink; through
nineteen of which he was going along
I his weary, useless way up and down
steep cottage stairs, with his merciless
weight in his hands. When at the
long intervals the woman chose to|
rgive him food, he was never allow ed
to stop to eat it, nor was he allowed to
have enough; TO have once had enough
to eat would have been Heaven to|
him; with such food as he was allo wed
to have, his brother fed him on the
stairs as he went to and fro.
If it happened that he saw chance
l of crumb and took it and was found
out, his sore thin limbs were beaten
for stealing. He got at the cats meat;
he was punished by more weary tasks,
ito keep him out of mischief" When
the woman went out he was locked in
the coal place Weary and sore and
lii, he sometimes stopped and fell
against things, or dropped the icons;
then she beat him with her remedy for
all his soreness and faintness and hun
ger, a walking stick, a rod of thorns or
a strap; and at times she addeda pinch
of salt to the raw wounds she had
Imade. She forbade him TO 60 out. for
he had once stolen away beyond their
gate and begged bread of neighbor.
In very little while he would have
Iquietly expired in bed, the doctor
would have certified some disease as
the cause of death, and that would
have been the end of the matter. The
boy did not live in crowded slum,
but in an isolated cottage, surrounded
by q garden that yielded flowers and
fruits to his fathers culture. Father
and stepmother both were thrifty, and
} had money laid by in the savings bank.
Their cottage was not squalid, but
clean and white. Six days they
labored, and even bought meat tor
r their cat; and on Sunday the man at
r least went to chapel. The woman was
a spiteful fiend, though for all that she
wore a decent bonnet and shawl, and
: was always sober and respectable. u
The money in the savings bank was
! chiefly her saving. And while the
g meek, gentle child of the dead mother
. Twas dragging himself YEARLY up and
A down her stairs, the terrible load drag
Q ging al his skeleton arms, she was
i sitting in hear easy chair, by clear
? hearth and singing kettle, knitting he
e stockings. The only fault of thu
n father seemed to be that he neither hat
] much heart nor will of his own, ant
# he cared more tor being at peace will
3, his masterful wife than for the unen
durable miseries Of his almost perish
4 ing son.
n Happily, the boy was constitution
# ally strong, and in the cottage hospita
e to which he was removed, after crit
: cal time Gin which more than once lift
}, seemed gone from him) he made flesh
It and when he left his bed he could 10
!, get into any of his clothes. at Is al
= ricketts," was the woman's bold ples
!, ON the first hearing in court; and hal
o the boy once passed beyond the reacl
Il of inquiry, alas! all that science coult
d have said would have been the same
d The "disease" which stands in thu
8 Registrar generals return covers man.
va wickedness. Ricketts, it was; bu
Il ricketts, are passing away, and he ha
!, the prospect Of growing up health.
It boy.
So far as the society can see, the rea
e root of persistent savagery TO children
k is mainly two-fold: it is, first, a sulen
= ill-copditioned disposition; and sec
b ondly, a cowardice which limits it
d qualification TO unressting and help
n less things. 1t is due not to peculi
d arity in the spirit of the abused child
: but to popularity in the spirit of tn,
e adult abuser of the child. Men become
0 addicted to cruelty as they become ad-
y dicted TO drink and gambling. 1t is {
a vile pleasure in which they indulge
t some occasionally, some persistently
D making their homes into little bells
s Such was the kindly heart of the mis-
8 cradle victim of this female spite thai
Q it was with the greatest reluctance he
( answered the questions which brought
!. the mercilessness of his persecution tc
= light. And his is the common dispo-
Q sition of little sufferers from cruelty,
4 and the fact constitutes one of the diff
t culties which beset attempts to bring
D their abusers to justice Few of them
s are ready TO accuse, many are ready tC
n forgive; they are friends of theil
A abusers, with friendship far closer than
4 brothers..
Turning fresh from case like that
b of the woman of that gardened cot.
e tage, the milder cruelties of which,
e generally speaking, mothers are capa-
g Bile seem almost relief. One woman,
the mother-"to keep him from the
d School Board" as she alleged-put
It her little son into an empty orange
: box. and having corded it up, thrust
q IL ,,ndor hnr bod lea Yinn IL tharn