The Case of Eliza Armstrong.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 1488, 23 October 1885, Page 2

The Case of Eliza Armstrong.

' [London correspondent of Exchange] . i This case threatens io become celei brated ; and as it relates to the now [ notorious proceedings of the Pall Mall , j Gazette and its secret commission, I [must, though it is still iubjudice, say :i few words about it. In the celebrated account of the investigation pursued by the Editor of the paper and his assistants, a harrowing tale is told of a certain little girl, named Lily, who was allnged to have been drugged and ruined at a house of ill fame, and equally alleged to have been actually sold by worthless parents for the sum of £5. Indeed," 1 the article is headed a " Child of Thirteen Sold for Five Pounds." The date of the transaction, some ; verses written hy the poor child m a letter to her mother commencing " As I lay down m my bed,.' some little forths come m my head," Ac, and a variety of minor details confirm the conviction that the case referred to was plainly that now known as the Eliza Armstrong .episode. It appears froth what subsequently transpired that a Mrs Armstrong, a woman living with her husband m Marvlebone. had been applied to a few days previous to the above-mentioned sale, by a woman who was, apparently, a friend, or, at least, known to a certain Mrs Broughton, who lived m the same' street as Mrs Arm-nu-aaff. Tho woman, now known as » mi' 3 Jarrett, sam siiu >»t»rt*eaa DO .- vant—a girl of aboni 13/ and Mrs Broughton sent her on to Mrs Armstrong. This woman, haviug'a daughter of that; age, after some objections, agreed, on beine- assurred by Mrs Broughton that, her friend was respectable,to let her child Eliza go to the place. From first to last, as Mrs Aimstrong' alleges, not a farthing of money passed between' them, but wages were agreed upon, and Mrs J^rrett was to get her some new clothes. As a matter of fact, Mrs Jarrett was con- 1 nected. with the Salvation Army, and was employed by Mr Stead, the editor and chief director of the P all Mail Gazette, to procure for him a girl m order that he might be able to say such things could be done. The child, it seems, was sub/ sequently proved by a midwife . to be, intact, and then subsequently Mrs Jarrett appeare to have procured choloroforui and made a pretence of drugging her after they had retired to bed; Mr Stead being subsequently admitted to the room where they Doth were; but the child, hearing a man's step, screamed, when Mr Stead immediately retiredj . Directly after this extraordinary proceeding the - persons concerned left the house, and thegirl, instead of entering Mrs Jarrett s employment, as she was lad to expect, was handed over to the Salvation Army as a sort of brand plucked from the burning, and by them sent to their, headquarters m Paris, and subsequently to a place .of service m the south of France, Borne 400 miles away. All this time the fiction was kept up that the father and mother were immoral Deople who had sold their child, and tiiat she herself was being thus mercifully preserved from destruction. Whilst thus exiled from her country she wrote her mother several letters, but none of themj it seems, were allowed to go; but m one of them occurs the lines already referred to, by which the identity of the case with that sensationally recorded by the Gazette is thus established. It was the publication of this story that ultimately led Mrs Armstrong to fancy that her child was therein des6ribed, and as she heard nothing from her and could not by herself trace her whereabouts she applied to the police. This application becoming known to Stead and his friends appears to have caused the transfer of the child to the south of France. Ultimately she was recovered and returned to her parents, and Mr Stead, Mr Bramwell Booth, Mrs Eebecca Jarrett, and some others have been arrested on a charge of abduction, and the case is now on hearing at Bowstreet. It need hardly be said that the proceedings are watched with extraordinary interest, and it is difficult to con- , ceive what possible line of defence can be taken up. The facts are practically undisputed, and though, of course, no allegation is made that the child was subject to any outrage except at the hands of the midwife, it yet seems certain, m the absence of evidence to the contrary, that the thing was, as the counsel for the crown alleges, a got-up affair. The only excuse for Mr Stead, whose motives, no doubt, were honorable, is that he must have been deceived by his agents into believing that the child was sold m the manner pretended, i and he then worked the whole tale up so as to be as sensational as possible. I Evidently he is an excitable man, and being surrounded by the shrieking sisterhood, has been induced to pass the \ boundary line between truth and talse- | hood m the enthusiasm of the new crusade. There is little doubt the case must go for trial, and if proved, the violation of the law is so flagrant that it is difficult to see how punishment can fail to be inflicted. Of course, it may turn out that Mrs Armstrong has concealed something, but there is no evidence of it, although she did get drunk tho night her child went away, but this she declares was through a quarrel with her husband, who was m total ignorance till too late j that the girl had been sent away. j