The Sun. — 1855-07-30 (London, England)

CHARGE OF MURDER.  Mary Ann Hataton, 23 years of age, was charged with the wilful murder of her male infant at St. Blaize.  Mr. Bevan and Mr. H. T. Cole prosecuted, and Mr. Carter defended the prisoner. The prisoner, whose appearance was of the most wretched description, appeared to be labouring under great mental anxiety during the trial, and seemed to take little notice of the evidende given by the various witnesses. On the 234 May last the prisoner was met, a short distance from St. Austell, having a child in her arms, by a labourer named Cole, who took compassion 1 on her by allowing her to remain at his home for the night. The prisoner was accompanied by another woman, who had also a child, which was several months older than the prisoner's. At Cole's house the prisoner seemed to treat her child very cruelly, and two or three times was told 'by Mary Cole that she ought to be ashamed of herself for striking an infant, who was so young that it knew not what it was beaten for. On the 2Gth of May the prisoner went to St. Austell, and there asked a little girl named Elizabeth Peters if she had found a purse, at the same time representing that she had lost one containing 20s. The little girl, of course, replied that she had not, and the prisoner then said that she should look for it, and she asked th'elittle girl to hold her child a few minutes, to enable her to do so, Peters consented to do so, and the prisoner left. The little girl waited in the street about half-an-hour, and finding that the prisoner did not return she became alarmed, and carried the infant to her mother's, who resides a little way out of the town. Peters gave a description of the woman to her mother, who immediately remembered that she had seen such a woman pass her door but a few minutes previously, and proceed in the direction of Lostwithiel. The mother went with all haste after her, and after walking about two miles, succeeded in coming up to her. She said, in reply to questions, that she did intend to come back after her child. The prisonerthen took her bady, and after walking some distance with the witness back to Austell, she left. Later in the day she was seen at the St. Blaize highway bridge, which is about five miles from St. Austell. She was then resting the child on the bridge. The attention of a witness was called to the child crying very much, but no further notice was taken of the matter. In the afternoon a little boy named James Coombes, saw the body of a child in the river, a short distance from the bridge, where the prisoner had been seen standing a few hours previously. The child was quite dead, and on an examination being made by IMr. William Pearse, surgeon, he gave it as his opinion that the child had either met with its death by drowning or from a blow which it had received, on the side of the head, where some extravasated blood was found. The prisoner was apprehended on the following Monday, at her brother's house, a short distance from Liskeard, and acknowledged to the police that she had buried her child. Several witnesses were called, and proved the identity of the child. Mr. Carter for the defence, contended that the point of identity was insufficient to convict the prisoner, but, supposing that that was proved to the satisfaction of the jury, he submitted that there was nothing more likely than that the child became troublesome in its mother's arms, and accidentally fell over the bridge into the water.  The jury found her guilty of manslaughter, and the learned judge transported her for life.