The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-01-23
CHILD MURDER IN LONDON.
Horrible Tortures to Which the Little
Ones Are Subjected.
London Cor. Globe-Democrat.

clare handsome dividends. The recent
| Imprisonment of Lady Montague for kill
ing her baby by hanging her by the arms
| Is but the punishment Of single con-
| spicuous instance Of inhuman cruelty
| among thousands that happen yearly and
are never brought to light. The terrible
| ness of the practice exceeds the atroci-
ties of the widest savage in darkest
Africa, and no cannibalistic native ever
| tortured his victim with fewer pangs of
consciousness than does the English pro-
fesslonal murderer wipe from the earth his
share of children whom devil-pOssessed
parents sacrifice for paltry life insurances
Spanish history of the red pages of the
days of the inquisitions, show no such
art of diabolism. II is officially known
that at least 1000 children a year are
killed for hire in this metropolis alone.
HORRIBLE ToRTUREs.
The slaughter of the babies on the
Ganges was two-fold more human-death
| by an aligator's jaws-than the new
methods employed by the English Bill
| Sykeses. Some are hung by straps I'M
til they become limp; others are SCARED
and burned with hot pokers one case
was recently reported where the child
had been held against blazing stove I'M
til its body was cooked one was held in
tank of ice water until dead others
were tortured by having hot oil poured in
| fresh wounds, several were killed by al
| lodged accidental falling from high win
dows. Yet such desperate means are
rarely used-means likely to betray the
| murderer. Starvation is the favorite
method. 1t leaves no clew, and is equally
| as deadly as arsenic or laudanum. Other
| favorite procedures are medicines for dis
! eases the child has not, mans food for
sucking infants, neglect for the ailing,
| chilling drafts for the feverish killing
the victim and earning the reward as
easily as they would pluck petal from
| rose.
The greatest incentive for the slaugh-
ter of the children is the reward offered
| for their deaths. While the original in
| tention of the system of child life insur-
ance was to enable the needy to suita bly,
| bury their dead, the good end of it has
been entirely perverted. 1t has now be-
| come simply a plan whereby persons of
no conscience obtain a cash profit by a
| comparatively safe method of murder-a
| scheme of neglect varying in degrees of
| cruelty with the age of the victim. The
| younger the child, after it is old enough
| to be insured, the easier the killing and
| the less the reward The prize increases
| with the difficulty of the nefariouS game,
and so it happens that children of very
mature age are the most frequent victims.
In fact, the business has grown so ex-
! tensively that it is one of the problems
now before parliament There are 90. 600
men in England working from door to
door, Fostering parents to insure their
| children. These are working for profit,
and for each first penny premium they
! get twenty pennies pay 1t matters not
| to them that they are selling tickets in a
! lottery where the thriftless parent gam
| bles his penny week against the COM
| pany's thirty shillings that the child will
die, and the corOners of the kingdom
|
| that one-half of the children who die
mysteriously die with this thirty shilling
| policy on their heads.
MATHEMATICS OF MURDER.
The cold mathematics to which the
profit and loss of thisi chld-killing has
been reduced is one of the most awful of
modern facts. The law allows value of
| $50 to be placed upon the life of child
under years; up to 10 years it is worth
| $50, and over that 81, 900. The traffic is
! largely among the desperately poor peo-
! pie, those whom poverty has made des-
| perate and whom debauch has made
| brutes. The parent usually insures for
| penny a week premiums. The figures
| show that the crisis is usually reached
| within six months, when the premiums
! paid amount to 2s I'd. Consequently the
| family has netted GO los Cd upon the
! death of the infant. From this must be
1
London undertakers have reduced to
minimum by burying poor children in job
lots-tive and often more in the same
man-size coffin.
Their rates for such service are usually
about los, and, deducting that amount
from the amount of the penny premium
| policy, less the premiums paid during the
six months. the hend realizes about 81 15s
for his nefarious work This is the lowest
| possible reward, which leaves ample room
for an increase by insuring the child in
several concerns and Fastening its death.
The sum seems small aud hardly worth
| the cost, but it is a great temptation to
him who has always been at the very bot
tom, torn and wretched by famine and
vice. 1t means paid rent or a new de-
| bauch Parental instinct is hard to OBJ
| literate, but thousands of cases are shown
in London every year where mothers
love and fathers solicitude have been en-
tirely wiped out by the fearful business
of killing children for insurance money.
There is a society waging an unequal
war against this buslness-the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
1t has big hospital on Harper street,
Bloomsbury, within shadow OF the Brit
ish museum, and here are seen scores Of
children rescued from the hands of their
intending slayers. Hardly an hour in the
day passes but that carriage rolls up TO
the door and there is lifted out a child
| covered with dirt, filth and mildew, found
| by some agent in a stench-filled attic
alley, shed or damp cellar. But the other
day FIVE victims were brought from a sin
gle slaughter-pen. When the door was
broken in a strong man vomited, so strong
4 was the atmosphere.
Upon the floor were two boys unable to
/ stand from hunger and disease; two more
were strapped to old chairs, and the
third lay upon rotten blanket Two
had single tlannels around their loins, and
the others wore short cotton frocks.
When found they did not cry; they were
too weak. Not one of them belonged to
the owner of the den, but all had been
sent TO her to dispose of. This monster
is now doing prison service, and the
children live-all but one The society's
books show 5000 just such cases un-
earthed, and now it has 305l parents
under supervision for cruelty. and the
prisons hold 1,l30 tiends for cowardly.
foul child murder or cruelty.
| A SAMPLE CASE.
One case selected at random records
how boy 10 years old was found who
/ weighed but 25 pounds. He had been
starved until every bone in his body was
! visible through the skin. His task was
to carry t1at-irons up and down stairs
| from daylight to dark each day. Up and