Denton and Haughton Examiner, etc. — 1886-05-29 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

HORRIBLE CRUELTY TO A CHILD. At the Exeter Assizes Frederick Day, 44, and Mary Jane Day, 28, were charged on a coroner's inquisition with the Wilful murder of Mary Jane Day, aged 4 years, at Exeter in January last. There was a second indictment against the prisoners of manslaughter to which the grand jury had reduced the charge, and the latter charge was proceeded with, The court was crowded, and there were manifestations of intense feeling. It appeared that the male prisoner was a shoemaker. He had previously married, but some time ago married the female prisoner. The youngest child by the first marriage was the subject of the present inquiry. Deceased was born about the middle of January, 1882, as that at the time of its death it was a little over four, years of age. After the mother's death Mrs. Darby, sister-in-law of the male prisoner, took charge of the child, and during this time it was healthy and had nothing the matter with it. Prisoners lived very much to themselves; they had few friends to come to see them, and the jury had to rely toa great extent on the evidence of the children and the medical men. According to the evidence of the children it appeared that the female prisoner persistently persecuted the child, and a system of gross torture was carried on by her. She beat deceased many times a day with a large stick about the head, stomach, and other parts of the body, and there were marks caused by a scald. These marks were due to the child being beaten with a stick, taken out of the copper, and from which stick boiling water was dripping. Then in January, 1885, the child while in a state of nudity was put into a bucket of cold water in an outkonse. It screamed loudly, and was then dragged into the house. The female prisoner was also seen to strike the child's nose with a stick, and seriously injure it, and whilst the nose of the child was bleeding the female prisoner put salt to it and bandaged it up. On all the occasions referred to the child had been beaten for nothing. In August, 1884, deceased, having lost its nose, was taken to the Devon and Exeter Hospital, suffering from what was described as stinfflm. In March, 1885, the deceased was re.adnaitted to the hospital, this time with three of its toes mortified. ' When it was admitted to the hospital the nurse asked how long the child had been ill, and the stejimother replied from its birth, adding that it was born without a nose, and had 'taken the disease from the mother" at its birth. The whole of this was untrue. The child was discharged a second time, a little better, as an out-patient. From that time the parents never took the child to WO the surgeons at the hospital, and seemed to have no feeling whatever as to its condition. No doctor of any ssrt was called in until January 29, 1886, and a post-mortem examination discovered that there was a total absence of fat, death being attributed to starvation. The jury found both the prisoners guilty, and Mr. Justice Day sentenced the woman to 15 years' and the man to five years' penal servitude.  A TOWN traveller named Robinson has obtained from a jury in the Queen's Bench Division a verdict for £lOOO damages against the Metropolitan Railway Company, for injuries sustained in falling between the footboard of a train and the platform at Gower-street ' Station.