SHOCKING TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2540, 12 May 1881, Page 2

SHOCKING TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.

[Bt Telegraph.] Auckland, May 11. The Waikato police have laid three informations against Shepherd a Whatiwhati settler, for ill-using John Muir and Elizabeth Hill, children from the Home for neglected Children. One information charges Shepherd with tying Muir to a dray and flogging him with supplejacks; another with knocking down and cruelly beating the girl; a third with neglecting to provide them with proper food and clothing, A constable went to the farm to investigate the matter. One of the children so treated is a boy about eleven years of age, and the other is a girl. It is said that the boy was lodged in a place little better than a pigstye. His food was thrown to him like a dog, and he had even got nothing better at times to eat than new potatoes. He had tried on more than one occasion to escape but was retaken. Another boy had bolted and succeeded in escaping. The constable saw quite sufficient on his arrival at the place where the boy was lodged, and heard enough from bis lips to warrant him in removing him at once to Hamilton. He then returned for the girls. The charge against Shepherd for ill, treating the boy named Muir was dismissed,the evidence being contradictory. For an assault on the girl Hill was fined £5, or three months. The Magistrate directed the police to find the man who it was stated witnessed the assault on Muir, but who had absconded from Shepherd’s service, and if his evidence corroborated the children’s to indict the defendant for perjury.