Norwich bulletin., 1918-07-09

to 1so Days in Jail Each, For Cruel ty to Two. Year-old Frank E. Ho- mer-canning Drive to Start This Week-Gift of $1oo to Rev. James Grsdy-PIans For chautauqua Pa. rade.
 William Lane and Bertha Lane were sentenced to serve 1So days in jail each by Judge W. Fehner Woodward, at a session of the town court Mon day morning. Husband and wife were scathingly arraigned by the judge who said:
 T am sentencing each of you to serve 1S0 days in jail for. cruelty to child It is the maximum that I am permitted to give you under the law. l wish.I could impose a far heavier penalty and if the whipping post were in use 1 would sentence you to be whipped and would relish aiding in giving you such punishment"
 MT. and Mrs. Lane were sent to jail for cruel treatment of Frank Edward Homer, aged two years and two months. a boy they had adopted when he was a tiny infant and who has since been in their care.
 As told in Mondays Bulletin, they had kept the little boy confined in an upstairs room of their home, a room destitute of furniture and every other comfort with only the headpiece of mattress, a maggot-infested mattress, to sleep upon and no comfort or con- venience whatsoever. The states wit nesses were prepared to testify that the child had been. left alone in the room for many hours at time, IS in some instances, Constable (Grimshav of Attawaugan said, without food or water. Left to live much after the manner of an animal, the child con- tinued to exist in tightly closed room that reeked with such a stench that Constable Grimshaw was nause ated and made i'll when he visited it.. and a woman who accompanied him there that she might testify as a wit ness in the case was similarly affected.
 The warrant in the case charge: that the boy had been kept confine since April l, though there were tinei when the little fellow was allowed lib erty and had been seen out of doors 0 about the house.
 On being put to plea, Lane said ''nC guilty" and the same plea later wa. entered by his wife, who was locke up Sunday evening, some time afte. her husband had been arrested, ant spent the night with him in a cell at
 
 pleas Judge Woodward ordered a post ponement of the hearing until Tues day morning. but the couple late. changed their pleas to guilty to cruel ty to a child and were sentenced tQ jail.
 Following the arrests of MT. anG Mrs. Lane Sunday. the child that was the cause of their trouble was taken to MT. Grimshaw's home. The little fellow ate ravenousiy and was contin- uing to show wonderful appetite when it was felt that he would make himself i'll and so he was not permitted to eat more.
 At bedtime his little brow clouded and he showed fear of the night, in- 6icating that he did not want to go tc bed and be left alone by lisping Rats Rats!"-evidently in remembrance ol horrors that he had endured.
 The boy is a bright, pretty child Just why he was subjected to such treatment as he has been through is net clear, but interest in him may have given way to interest in another baby horn into the Lane home some time ago.
 Constable Grinshaw has taker charge of the child uHtilgsuch time as the town. officials can arrange for hi. return whence he came or otherwise provide home for him where he car be properly cared for and outlive thu shocking memory of his baby days At court Monday morning the littl fellow was under the care of Mrs. JOhl Grimshaw of Attawaugan and al though his little brow was usuall, wrinkled with something like the lool of. apprehension, he smiled at times especially when a few wild flower were picked and fashioned into a bou quet for him, and he hsped a littl about the horses and the men an other things that he saw.