The French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1896-1912, 1906-09-27
BABY ALIVE FIVE DAYS {.
BESIDE DEAD MOTHER
Found Gasping Near Body when
Door Was Broken Open.
INFANT BRAvELY FIGHTS DEATH
Mrs. Catherine Denhan,, q Lone
Woman and a Fourteen-Months-
Old Founding Discovered in
Brooklyn After Many Days.


Brooklyn After Many DAYS.
Brooklyn, N. Y.-Struggling fol
life with all the resoluteness of a
prehistoric child and with the intelli-
gence of a civilized one, John Boyle,
fourteen months old, through five
terrible days kept himself from
death, though alone in a little fiat in
No 4201 Third avenue, with the body
of Mrs. Catherine Denham, his moth
er by adoption. He was found there
by the dead woman's aunt, who, OBJ
tanning no answer to repeated calls,
got a p~atrolnan to break in the door
of the fiat for her. Mrs. Denhan's
body lay in the middle of the kitchen
floor, close to the stove. Apparently,
she had died of heart disease when
about to light the fire five days be-
fore, for in her stiffened fingers a
match was clutched, and the Coroner
and ambulance surgeon said she bad
been dead at least that long. Beside
the body little John was close to his
last hour. He had eaten everything
AAo OhS JO'l1S jaws COulO ulDDI6,
edible or inedible, and had come to
the end of his strength. Yet SO great
WIS his vitality, medical men said he
would pull through.
Little Johns tongue was black and
swollen with thirst when they found
him. His voice had dwindled to a
gasping whisper. One would have
said his eyes were falling out of his
head. The once rosy cheeks were
sunken. His wrists and ankles had
gone down to nothing. From ton to
toe he was as emaciated as children
in the horror pictures of Indian fam
ines. The fatal bloating of the stom-
ach from prolonged starvation had
not occurred, but it would have han
pened in a day or two-had the child
survived his experience that much
longer.
Guessing was all Mrs. Denham's
sister, the policeman and the doctors
could do when they gazed about the
tiny fiat and tried to imagine what
had taken place there. Itwas enough.
On all sides were strewn crusts the
baby had gnawed until they became
too hard even for his rare pluck to
conquer. He had broken q milk bot
tie to get at the contents-at any
rate, he had dragged the bottle off a
low table and evidently had Tapped
up the milk off the floor when the
glass was shivnrpd. How IN avoided
swallowing splinters from the bottle
was a mystery, yet the physicians
found no symptoms that he had done
so. The little chap, not old enough
to toddle stoutly, nevertheless had
swept the bottom shelf of the pantry
bare in a hunt for food, and a chair
placed near showed that the baby
must have tried to climb up to reach
the higher ones. A small pail which
had contained lard was enpty, licked
empty by the starving baby, the
neighbors believed. He had eaten
-four from a broken bag until the
agony Of thirst made him stop.
Enough injurious substances went
into that small stomach to kill an or
binary child. Physicians said a Fifth
avenue baby would have succumbed
In two days. Little John. being a
waif-Mrs. Denham had adopted him
from the Guardian Angel Home,
Twelfth avenue and Sixty-ffth street
fought it out for five. Instinct led
him to food as long as there was n
20 be had. When there was no more.
he gnawed a little cloth horse stuffed
with sawdust-gnawed it until his
sharp little teeth worked through the
cloth, and doubtless he swallowed a
good deal of the stuf1lng. A rubber
teething ring was found beside him,
gnawed to shreds.
Small John evidently slept where
sleep overlook him. There were signs
that he had inhabited each of the
three rooms. Fortunately. he was
f00 ~, - IS~1- oLsll - RN-y
years older, if not clever enough to
unlock the door, might have died of
fright at being shut in with a r
The baby had pulled at the old wom-
ans hair-Mrs. Denham was close to
sixty years-and tugged at her dress
ng sack in efforts to arouse her from
he sleep of death. Failing that, he
perhaps ceased to notice the body.
Yet-wbether by chance or instinct
he had fallen beside IL when at last
MS little legs gave way. under him,
and his hand, shrunk to the seeming
If a birds claw, was stretched toward
he dead woman. 81
Neighbors said they diS not recall
nearing the baby's cries. They hard
" noticed the fact that Mrs. Denham
was not in evidence. in the first few
lays, and when at last they did, they
assumed she had gone away on a
Jisit.
Mrs. Denham became lonesome a
vear g when her husband, William
J. Denham, a civil engineer, died.
and from the sisters of the Home Of
The Guardian Angel she obtained an
orphan. In such a case a foster
mother is allowed So a month for the
care of the child. and this she accept
I'd, as her husbands death had left
her impoverished. Johnnie Boyle's
parents. MIR. and Mrs. John Boyle.
lad died within a few weeks of each
other soon after the death or Mr..
Oenham, and he had been in the
nome only a month when Mrs. Den