PREFERRED DEATH TO SCHOOL.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3468, 23 April 1920, Page 2

PREFERRED DEATH TO SCHOOL.

Declaring -that ‘she would sooner drown herself than go back to school Where she had been caned, a twelve-.Vear-old girl, Margaret O’Keefe, was found dead in a pond at, Seaton Delaval, Northumberland

At the inquest, John Lovell Fraser, the teacher, said he caned her once for copying a. sum He denied having bullied her, although he took the op portunity -to reprinland the class as a whfole He denied also that he used a chair leg or a leg from a bamboo table to punish the child. Her mother said that, as a result of the caning; :1 ring, W-hie hthe child wore, broke, and the edge buried itself in the flesh.

In returning an open Verdict A the jury suggested that, for the purposes of .pullishmellt, the cane should be replaced by a. strap