The Sun. — 1845-08-07 (London, England)

CHILD MURDER.  Monday afternoon an inquest was held in the borough gaol, Windsor, before Thomas Marlin, Esq , the Coroner for Windsor, and a respectable jury, on the body of a new-born male infant, which was found dead in the privy attached to the residence of Mr. Charles Alder, in Spring-gardens, on Friday last. The servant of Mr. Alder, a young girl, named Susan Douglas, between twenty and twenty-one years of age, who had given birth to the infant, was in custody of the gaoler, but too ill, from the weak state she was in, to be present during the inquiry, which lasted nearly four hours. Mr. Geoffrey Pearl, surgeon, deposed that he was sent for by Mr. Alder ow Friday last, in consequence, as Mr. Alder stated, of a suspicious circumstance having taken place with reference to his female servant. When he went there the girl was out upon an errand. Mrs. Alder told him she thought the girl had been delivered of a child. When the girl returned he told her of the suspicions entertained, but she denied that she had been delivered. Upon examining her in the presence of Mrs. Alder, he found that she had borne a child, and very recently ; he told her so, and that she had better say at once what had become of it. She then told him that she had been taken ill while in the privy She looked pale, but not particularly ill. The next day he made a post mortem examination of the child, by the desire of the Mayor. It was a lullgrown male infant ; there were no appearances of any external marks of violence to account for its death, and he bad no doubt it was born alive. The umbilical cord was not tied. He had attended the mother of the deceased in the prison since Friday. Mrs. Jane Alder stated that Susan Douglas had lived with her as servant for upwards of four years, and during that time had been particularly steady and honest. Witness was net aware she was in the family way. Witness, in consequence of the girl appearing very ill on Friday last, sent for Mr. Pearl. Mr. Charles Alder, the husband of last witness, said that upon Mr. Pearl discovering that his servant had given birth to a child, he immediately ordered the privy to be opened, when the body of a new-born male child was found by the police near the mouth of the drain leading into the cesspool. James Dobson, police-sergeant, deposed to searching the privy, and finding the infant lying on its back on the surface of the soil, quite dead. This being the whole of the evidence, the room in which the inquest was held was ordered to be cleared. After the jury had been in deliberation for half-an-hour, Mr. and . Mrs. Alder were again called in and privately examined, and the jury then remained in deliberation for upwards of an hour, and ultimately returned a verdict of " Wilful murder against Susan Douglas." The prisoner will be removed to the county gaol at Reading, to take her trial at the next Berkshire assizes, as soon as she is in a fit state to undertake the journey. The girl, who is a native of Wokingham, states the father of the unfortunate infant to be an old man named Day, who died at Windsor, where he was well known, about three weeks since, at the advanced age of between seventy and eighty.