SHOCKING CRUELTY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2465, 11 February 1881, Page 2

SHOCKING CRUELTY.

A case of extraordinary parental cruelty occupied the attention of the Melbourne City Bench on January 31st A Mrs Mary Oliver, residing at North Charlton, was charged witii ill using her stepson, aged three years. The principal witness was a Mrs Bunagc, a neighbor, who deposed that hearing the boy scream she looked through Mrs Oliver’s gate, which was ajar at the time, and saw her box the child’s cars most unmercifully. She then threw him with violence on to the flagging and undressed him. She next held him under the water-tap, his face 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. Some one 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 the tap to continue running. The medical evidence was to the effect that the boy was literally covered with weals up to the buttocks, evidently inllicted with some pliable instrument —a strap most probably. On the shoulder-blade and head were large bruises. The child, when taken to the doctor, was quite exhausted, shivering, and his hair was matted with water. The child had been very severely treated ; and in the doctor’s opinion the Jogging was injurious. The defence was that the child’s face had been placed under the tap merely to wash it! The humane Bench, whilst agreeing that the child had been very cruelly treated, considered the defendant had undergone a good deal of punishment by the exposure of her conduct, and lined her T 4, which was at once paid.