The Central Glamorgan Gazette, and General, Commercial, and Agricultural Advertiser. — 1869-03-12 (Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales)

BABY-FARMING IN FRANCE.  A trial, which discloses a frightful state of immorality in the town of Montauban, has just commenced before the Court of Assizes of' the Tarn.et-Garonne. The prisoners, eight in number, and all females, were charged with procuring abortion. One, named Delpech, or "the Ogress," as she is now called by the people, was likewise accused of murdering nine infants, which had been confided to her either to place out to nurse or to otherwise dispose of. These she had drowned in a pail of water, and bad buried them in a Cellar. The "Ogress° " had got off once before when she was tried for the murder of two women, who had died under her operations. This she admitted, with a pleasing smile. She must, indeed, be "Jeanne qui rit et Jeanne qui pleure ;" for she grins and cries by turns, and has a pocket-handkerchief for each operation. Having operated on her own daughters and others, as she openly admitted, she then went into another business. Criminal examinations in France are usually in form of a dialogue, criminatory and exculpatory—betwixt greffier and prisoner. At this (says a correspondent) the following passed: "You devoted yourself to another profession ? " said the magistrate, mildly. "Yes, unluckily," was the reply. " Children were left in your charge and they disappeared ?""Yee, sir ; butt was not a free agent." "How did you kill these wretched infants ?" "I was not a free agent." "These children were found after they had been dead two or three days?" "Yes, sir; I kept one for two or three days at the foot of my bed." "You killed them by pitting their heads in a pail of water. Is it not so I" " Yes sir." I cannot translate, and lam sure you would not publish, the details, they are 0 such sickening brutality. She chopped up one child. The judge then asks, "You suffocated another ?" "Comme l'autre ; mon D erg' oui." " Yes ; exactly the same as the others." "And you buried it under the staircase ?" " Yes ; dug a hole with a shovel." Here she roared with laughter. "And the third child?" "Oh; always the same operation." The story is too dreadful. She received 100 f., 200 f., 500 f., and undertook to send the children to an institution. She simply killed them, and when one man asked her for his child or his money, she and her accomplice arranged that they would hand over ;" the money they got for the next" to the injured parent. Nice man I We agreed that the money we gained by the next baby should be paid to H. Clary." Please don't think that any of the parties to these transactions were particular, or you will be deceived. "Then you killed these nine children. But that is not all. You also killed your grand-daughter You gave her vitriol, did you not?" "Si hit; si fait !" (This is pleasingly explained by the reporter as an expression equivalent to assent). There was a certain Madame Coyne who is likely, if justice march straight, to be banged in the same rope as Delpech. She was the agent who received the child, and the two or three hundred franca ; and, having deducted a most liberal commission, handed over 100 f. (24) as the future provision for this wretched morsel of humanity. "And you thought that Delpech could bring up a child on £4 sterling I" asked the judge. In a trial like this, with a verdict staring one in the face, I should hardly have thought it necesary,to enter into the vie intiine—the home life—of the accused. Yet the court asked these questions—" You have not led a respectable life?" and again, "You have had lovers?" The trial is not yet ended.  Die;