The Otaki Child-Murder Case.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 192, 15 December 1893, Page 2

The Otaki Child-Murder Case.

♦■ The following letter from n> woman appears in the Manawatu Farmer : — A young women has been arrested at Otakion a charge of murdering her infant. While I mast not palliate such an offence, I cannot but feel deeply for the poor creature, and every mother will sympathise with her too. Wrong-doing ends in shame and disgrace for a woman, as this case proves, but as a woman, having novt a voice in public affairs, I contend that the man who brought this young women into a condition that led her (it is alleged) to take life, should have his name coupled with hers in the news* papers. I believe that under such circumstances as the present the one who gave that life is guilty as the one who took it, and the sooner we, women, get fair legislation on this matter the sooner our sex will get proper protection. The Great Teacher said, " It must needs be that offences come, but woe unto that man by whom the oftonce cometh." Man's laws, however, have not been just towards women. A women is shunned by society for certain reasons, while the man is as welcome to it as ever he was, and he even boasts of his con* quests. Sir, in addressing this letter to you it is in the hope that my own sex >nay be aroused to think and act for our weaker sisters. Who can picture the mental suffering which this girl endured as she looked for* ward to her time of trouble. Then in desperation a rash act is committed, and relentless Fate, instead of aiding her, uses the very act to hurry her into the prison cell, with a tarnished name and a blasted life. Young women, think of her. Young women, think of her ! Mothers, pity her ! But what of the man ? Is he to be sheltered by the law ? The law answers that it has nothing to do with him, and so, while the woman pines in gaol, he walks abroad without a care. It is •not right. It may be Law, but it is not Justice, and I appeal to my own sex — to honorable men, and to our representatives in Parliament, to bring about a change.