CHILD LOST AT WOODEND.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2698, 30 November 1882, Page 3

CHILD LOST AT WOODEND.

On Tuesday morning Mr Richard Whitlow, of this place, took a little boy and girl, the latter aged about two years and a-half, with him to the field. After staying there for some time he reports that he missed the little girl, and made search for her without avail. In the evening he informed the neighbors, who organised a search party, and they thoroughly searched the country round the place at which Whitlow reports last seeing the little one. During the night a lamp was put up at the place where it was last seen, to assist the searchers. At 5 a.m. on Wednesday Sergeant McDonald, of the police force, stationed at Kaiapoi, who had been apprised of the matter, came on the ground, and, with the Rev. W. H. Gossett, Church of England clergyman, who had been very active in assisting to find the child, organised a party on foot and horseback, which scoured the country for about a mile round. The land near it may be stated as somewhat wild, barren, and for a great part swampy. Towards the close of the day the little tracks, which had been traced a quarter of a mile to the north of the place where the child was last seen, were picked up again about a mile to the southward, in a damp overgrown ditch. Here the child’s hat was found, and the steps traced into the mud and out of it again. Search was kept up till a late hour, but by last accounts the child had not been recovered. Whitlow’s wife is in the Asylum, and has been- for some time, and the child, he says, is by a woman who is at present keeping house for him. It is said that the children were frequently straying, and very much left to themselves. Great sympathy has been shown by the public of Woodend for the fate of the little one. Tip to the time of our latest report the search had been unsuccessful.