Glasgow Courier. — 1859-12-24 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

UNISTAXPED 3D  HORRIBLE ATROCITY.  COMMITTAL OF A WOMAN FOR WILFUL MURDER.  The horrible details of the Lernoine tragedy in France have found, we are sorry to report, a parallel in Derbyshire. For some time past it has been known to several of her neighbours that a young dressmaker, residing at Shipley, and named Sarah Aldridge, had been encieras. A few days ago it was noticed that she had been poorly, and had evidently been delivered, but nothing was known with respect to the child, more than the currency of the horrible report that it had been boiled and given to the pigs ! This report reached the ears of Superintendent Hudson, who at once took measures to investigate the matter, and the result was the arrest of -the young woman Sarah Aldridge, and also her mother, who is known by the same name. The particulars of this appalling crime will be gleaned by a perusal of the following evidence, taken before Mr V.%iston and a respectable jury, at the Railway Hotel, Ilkeston, on Saturday last. The two females were present in custody. Mr Superintendent Hudson, on being sworn stated —From information I received on the evening of Thursday I went to the house of the prisoners, about seven o'clock P.M. ; the two prisoners were in the house-place. I said to the younger prisoner, "I suppose you know who I am, and what I have come about; I am going to put some questions to you, and you had better be very careful how you answer me. Have you been in the family way!" She said," No;" the prisoner's mother made answer and said, "No, she was poorly, and the neighbours raised that report, and said she had given it to the pigs." I told the elder prisoner not to interfere, as she would have to answer for herself. I said again to the younger prisoner, "I caution you to be most careful how you answer. I shalt have you examined by a doctor." After the examination, I apprehended both prisoners on the charge of .doing away with the child, and to the charge I received no answer. I took them to the police-station, and kept them apart in two separate rooms. I said to the younger prisoner, "If you had a child dead-born you ought to have told ice so, ml shall have the garden dug over to-morrow." She said, "I have had no child, and I did not know that I was in the family way." I then went to the elder prisoner and said, "'rliis case is worse on your side than your daughter's." She said, " We did not give it to the pigs, but it was not a whole child; on Monday week my- daughter went up-stairs, and after a short time cried out, and when I went up I whipped it up, and took it out and buried it in the cpmer of the garden near some pea-rods." I said to her, "Before I have the Child taken up tell me particulars, if the child got hurt by falling from the mother during the time it was born or otherwise." She said, "Ng, it received no injury, and never breathed. I then went and took up the child. Dr. Eaton was with me while taking up_the body. Dr. Eaton was then examined, and corroborated the evidence of Mr Superintendent Hudson, respecting examining the girl, and he described, from the post mortem examination he had made of the body, that the child had received several injuriaa, andhad been buried alive, from the trace of earth having penetrated into the lungs and windpipe and in the head. The Coroner, after remarning to the jury that the elder prisoner alone was liable, then summed up the evidence, and the jury at once returned a verdict of "wilful murder against Sarah Aldridge the elder," who WU then committed to take her trial at the assizes, which open to-day.