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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 173, 20 August 1878, Page 4

A considerable sensation was caused in Melbourne in December last by the mysterious disappearance of the infant son of MrsE. A. Potts, of Eitzroy. The child was taken from Mrs Potts' little girl by a strange woman, who disappeared with the child. Every endeavor was made to discover traces of the woman and the missing child, hut without avail, and the task had almost been given up as hopeless. "We now learn from a Melbourne paper thafc on the evening of the 31st of last month, Detective Edelsten arrested a woman named Mary Agnes Eitzgibbon, 24 years of age, on suspicion of having stolen the child, and she was lodged in the city watch-house. Ifc appears that the woman is married to a man who is a shoemaker by trade, but the couple have not lived on very amicable terms. It is alleged that the woman some time ago forwarded a telegram to her husband, who was up country at the time, stating that she had been confined of a child in the Lying-in Hospital, but upon inquiries being made it was found that this was not true. The woman recently gave the child out to nurse, and from certain circumstances which were brought to light, Mrs Potts was communicated with in the matter. Oh Monday Mrs Potts called at a house in Carlton, where the child was being nursed, and upon seeing the child she immediately recognised a distinct likeness between the child in question and the infant she lost some seven months ago. Mr Pottts, however, who has also seen the child, is not so positive as to its identity. The woman Eitzgibbon most emphatically states thafc the child, which is in a very neglected condition, belongs to her.