A STRANGE CASE.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 958, 13 November 1882, Page 4

A STRANGE CASE.

: A laborer named James Greenhalgh was arrested in Melbourne on a charge of having on the 6th nit." wilfully murdered his illegitimate child, Selina Ann Greenhalgh, aged about nine months. The child died in the Melbourne hospital shortly after admission on the 6ih instant, from the effects of suffocation, caused by irritant acid, traces of which were found about the throat and clothing. An inquest was subsequently held, at which it was disclosed that on the 6th inst. a general servant named Elizabeth Cook, the mother of the deceased, left her child with Greenhalgh in the Flagstaff gardens while she went to Spencer street to inquire after lodgings. The child was then in good ;health j but on her mother’s return in twenty-five minutes she was frothing at the mouth and vomiting as if some injurious compound had been administered during her absence. Greenbalgh had a bottle of medicine in his possession at the time, which was composed principally of muriatic acid, traces of which were subsequently discovered upon the' child’s clothing, and it was supposed that he had given the child some of the medicine during the mother’s absence. He denied having done so, but the'circumstances surrounding the death were of such a suspicious character that the police obtained a warrant and arrested Greenhalgh oh the cap al charge.