The Sun. — 1845-10-04 (London, England)

GRATIS.  CHARGE OF CHILD MURDER. Thursday, at three o'clock, Mr. Mills, Deputy Coroner for West Middlesex, held a protracted inquest at the Coach and Horses, Air-street, Hatton-garden, on the body of William Hill, aged six months. Elizabeth Hill, a very young woman, mother of deceased, examined—My husband is a glass cutter, and we reside at No. 26, in this street. About eleven o'clock on Saturday night last I left the baby well and hearty in bed, and went into Leather-lane to buy it some milk. It was then fast asleep. I returned in 15 minutes, and found it dead in bed. The child was not born in wedlock, and my present husband is not the father of it. It was born at my mother's, No. 15, Somers-street, over the way. There was no one in the room when I found the child dead. I had not left it a quarter of an hour altogether. When I went out for the milk I left my husband in the room quite sober, and standing with his back to the fire. As I was going out I asked him . to go on an errand to my mother's, in Somers-street, and he said he would. When I came back he was gone When I took the child from the bed it made a strange noise in the throat once and then died. On passing my band over its head, it had no cap on; I found on the left side, behind and above the ear, a bump as big as the half of a good-sized egg, and a spot of dry blood on the cheek. 1 could see it was a bump from a hit. There was another reddish Lump at the back of the head, not so large as the other. My husband was the first person to come into the room, almost directly after me. I said to him, " Baby is dead; it has been killed some how or other—run and fetch mother." He replied, "Is it quite dead ?" I answered, " Yes, for some minutes." He went and fetched Catherine Shepherd from my mother's (my mother not being at home), and he said he had been to fetch Mr. Mullins, surgeon, of Leather-lane, but that he was not at home. He went out again and fetched a doctor (the summoning officer said it was a non-medical man) from Hatton-wall, wbo merely looked at the child, and said that it had died of inflammation of the chest, and that the bumps on the head were the result of convulsions. When the doctor was gone, I said to my husband, "If you have done it, tell me." He said, " I have not touched the child." I afterwards said, in the presence of witnesses, "You wicked wretch, you have killed the baby. This is the night you have long wished for." He made no answer. The CORONER here inquired where the husband was? and having been told that he was below stairs, sent for him, in order that he might hear the evidence, which now assumed a criminatory character. The accused husband then came into the jury-room, and took a seat. He is a mere youth, of small stature, of -pert rather than repulsive aspect. The inquiry did not appear to affect him in the least. Witness (in continuation)—Mv mother laid out the child, and the next morning (Sunday) I went to an undertaker's about a coffin. I then told my husband that I was sure he had killed the baby, when.he replied, " that it was no use to say anything to me about it, and to have my own way." I asked him on Monday morning to .go to work to get the baby under ground. He said he would not,.and that he did not care how it got under ground. My mother also begged him to go to work, when he said "he would never touch a tool again—that he would go for a soldier." I said, "If you had mot killed the child, you would go to work." He answered, " It I am born to be hanged, I shan't be drowned." By the