Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-04-10
GIRL SAYS PARENT
INFLICTED BURNS
Child, 6, Tells Court Foster
Mother Used Curling
Iron on Her.
BY the Associated Press.

@ASoSNA@N~A
NEW YORK. April 9.--Taking her
pen in hand to write carefully, but
with a decided flourish, 6-year-old
Roberta Jane Pratt today signed the
name her foster parents gave her in
Des Moines, Iowa. to a complaint
charging Mrs. Everett S. Pratt with
third-degree assault.
MI Pratt was held in $500 bail,
promptly furnished, to answer at
Special Sessions to charges that she
burned and bruised her foster daugh-
ter in Furnishing her for leaving a no.
tel room at the Hotel Plaza for the
less combining spaces of the lobby.
Roberta Jane crossed all three Of
the ITS" and then reviewed her handi-
work carefully, as if she might be
searching for an II" to dot.
Testifies to Reading.
She had one more court duty to per-
form and she was lifted to a counsel
II Bile before Magistrate Flood to say
that complaint had been read to her
before she signed it. She seemed bit
confu ed as she looked down at the
court, when she had been accustomed
to | oking up, and first said mo" but
quickly changed it to Yes"
Then Roberta Jane was through for
the day and running to Mrs George
Cole, welfare worker and her constant
companion since she has been in
charge of the children's society, she
piped:
Remember, I'm to have lunch with
you"
The child was the principal witness
at the hearing, one of several court
actions resulting from charges pre-
ferred by the little girl through the
children's society, since Mrs. Jane
Valielly, a hotel maid, told the society
that Roberta Jane had told her that
her foster-mother had burned her with
curling iron.
A curling iron was introduced at the
hearing.
The little girls feet barely reached
the end of a big witness chair as she
seated herself with her feet straight
in front of her to give testimony.
Drilled in Truthfulness.
ats a bad thing" she tolC Magis-
trate Flood, when, in preliminary
questioning. he asked if she knew
what it is to tell lie.
do you k. low what will happen
Of you tell lie?''
"You will be put in jail"
She was led through q series of
questions to the story of the alleged
burning.
Her foster mother, she said, burned
her with a. curling iron which had
been heated at lamp socket.
Asked where she was burned, she
replied:
Here" pointing to her ankle.
'Want to see it?" she asked, bending>
to roll down her sock.
The court interposed to say that
he previously had made judicial ex-
animation.
She testified during cross eXamina-
ton that she had on occasions told
"whoppers" when J. J. O'Hara, de-
Tense counsel explained that "whop-
per- is an untruth. An admitted in
stance was when she placed burned
matches beneath a cough and said
that a man came in and put them
there.
Didn't Tell Her Daddy.
The child said she loved her
daddy but did not tell him of
liked her mother" She knew, she
not her parents and in reply to ques-
tons said that she knows who her
mother is, but does not know where
she is.
Other witnesses in addition to the
child and the hotel maid were James
Devine, hotel detective; DIR. William
Travis Gibbs and Vincent Pisarra, SUI
perintendent of the Children's Society.
A surety company furnished the bail
after Mrs. Pratt's counsel waived ex-
animation, and Mr.. and Mrs Pratt left
the courtroom in one direction, while
Roberta Jane went in another with a
Children's Society agent.
A hearing is scheduled for Chill
dren's Court Tuesday on a charge al
leging improper guardianship of Ro-
IBERIA lane