The Sun. — 1844-03-27 (London, England)

CORONER'S INQUEST. Mr. Baker, the coroner, and a jury assembled at the New Globe Tavern, Mile-end-road, to inquire into the circumstances attendant on the death of George Purley, aged one year and ten months, who was drowned by its wretched mother on Sunday night, in the Regent's Canal, and for which offence she now stands charged. The first witness called was Mr. Thomas Gardener, who had acted with such promptitude and humanity in receiving the mother, and endeavouring to resuscitate the deceased; but his evidence scarcely differed from that given by him before the magistrate at Lambethstreet on the day before, and which appeared in The Sun of yesterday. The next witness was Henry Cotton, K 361, and his evidence was also similar to that which has appeared. Sergeant Harrison, K 15, deposed that he was at the station-house on Sunday evening, when the mother of the deceased had been brought there, and she then coin plained of great distress of mind. He then cautioned her against saying anything in his presence which might have a tendency to injure her, as he should have to repeat it in another place, and it would be used in evidence against her. She replied that she might as well tell him as anybody else, and then proceeded to state that her distress was brought on by the ill-usage she and her children had received at Bethnal-green Union; that her child was all over sores, and that his head had been shaved as often as five times, and that sooner than return to the workhouse she would rather die, or remain in a prison. She also said that she had thrown herself into the water, and that she wished they had left her alone to go with her child, for that in that case her sufferings would be at an end. She said the child's name was George; and that his father, who was a hair dyer, was dead about two years. She further admitted that she had been a married woman, but that her husband had been transported, fifteen years ago, for " defacing (1. e. sweating) the current coin, and that she subsequently resided with the father of her two children. Mary Bullen the wife of a sailor residing at No. 2, Bath-street, Spitalfields, deposed that she had known the mother of the deceased for some years, from her living with a man named Charles Blackett, who was the father of her two children. On Wednesday last she came to her (witness's) house with her two children, and remained there until Sunday morning, when she went out, taking the deceased with her. She com• plained of the treatment she experienced at the Bethnalgreen Union-house, and frequently declared that rather than return there both herself and her children should have a watery grave. She (the mother of the deceased) admitted having received a trifle from the guardians at the workhouse, but said she had been robbed of it soon after. On Sunday morning she (witness) gave Mrs. Purley a cup of coffee, she herself being without the means of getting anything for breakfast, and she then talked about drowning herself and her baby, and soon after left the house with the deceased in her arms. The witness in conclusion said that the second child, which was in an adjoining room, was in a very bad state, having a great number of sores on its head and different parts of its body. Mr. New, a surgeon, gave it as his decided opinion that the deceased had died from drowning. The CORONER was here about to sum up the evidence, when the master of Bethnal-green Workhouse requested to make a few remarks. He said that the mother of the deceased and her two illegitimate children had been admitted into the workhouse on February, 1843, and remained there until last Wednesday, when she was discharged, at her own request. He was, he said, prepared with ample proof that, while in the workhouse, she and her children had been treated with the greatest kindness • that the guardians, on her leaving, had given her all she requested ; and that, in fact, there was not a word of truth in what she had stated. He also said he would be able to prove, by several witnesses, that the mother of the deceased had frequently expressed her fixed determination to destroy this child. The CORONER, in summing up, clearly defined the case, and the jury, without hesitation, returned a verdict of Wilful Murder against the mother.