SHOCKING CRUELTY.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2172, 10 February 1881, Page 3

SHOCKING CRUELTY.

A case of extraordinary parental cruelty occupied tiie alteration of tha Molbourno Oily Bench on Monday, Jwmary 31st,. A Mrs Miry Oliver, roniding ut North Owlton, was charged with ill-tiring her stepson, aged three years. The principal witness was a Mrs IlijnagH, a neighbor, -who deposed that hearing tbei boy's tcro-im she looked through Mrs Oliver's: gate, which was (.jar at the time, and saw her box the child's ears most unmercifully. She then threw him with violence on to the flagging and undressed him. _ She next held him under the water-tap, his faoe upwards, and kept his mouth open. She turned the tap on, and let it run on him. The water filled his mouth, and he gasped for breath and became black in the face. Someone called at the front portion of the defendant's house, and she then placed a heavy piece of wood against the little boy's shoulder to prevent him from moving, and allowed tho tap to continue running. The medical evidence was to tho effect that the boy was literally oovered with weals up to the buttocks, evidently inflicted by some pliable instrument —a strap most probably. On the shoulder-blade and head were large bruises. The child, when taken to the dootor, was quite exhausted, shivering, and hia hair was matted with water. The child had been very severely treated; and in the doctor's opinion the flogging was injurious. The defenoe was that the child's faoe had been placed under the tap merely to wash it! The humane Bench, whilst agreeing that the child had been very oruelly treated, considered the defendant had undergone a good deal of punishment by the exposure of her conduct, and fined her £4, which was at onoe paid.