"RIGHT TO KILL."

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19148, 3 November 1927, Page 9

"RIGHT TO KILL."

1 —_ DRAMATIC LONDON COURT CASE (BT CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COrIRIGHT.) (ATTSTBALIAX AXD N.Z. CABLE ABSOCIATIOS.) LONDON, November 1. For the second time within a week reference to the suggestion of the right to kill was raised in Court, following a dramatic story from Tonbridge.

Mrs Margaret Delvinge, aged 31, was charged with attempting to kill her mother, Mrs Margaret Waite, who was in hospital suffering from cancer. The prosecution set out that Mrs Delvinge visited the ward) in the temporary absence of the matron, and administered poison. Dr. Newton, who was in charge of her mother's case, 'phoned Mrs Delvinge, saying: "What did you give your mother?" Mrs Delvinge' replied: "I gave her arsenic, about an ounce. I got it from the surgery in the absence of the dispenser." A second doctor said that Mrs Delvinge summoned bim and said: "1 have given mother arsenic in order to save her weeks and months of suffering before death came." Other medical evidence' concerned Mrs Delvinge's mental condition. She was committed for trial.

[At the recent trial of Albert Davis, who was charged with having killed his infant daughter, Mr Justice Branson said: "This is a heartrending story, for the father was driven to distraction by the suffering of his child and took it upon himself to put an end thereto. It gives food for thought. Had this poor child been an animal instead of a human being, then, instead of the father beinji blameworthy, he would actually lmve been liable to punishment had he not done it."]