A Female Fiend.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 73, 25 October 1884, Page 5

A Female Fiend.

"Truth" says : I have seldom read anything more scandalous and disgusting than the report of the inquest held by the Birmingham Coroner on the body of the child Lily Evans, "the Lilliputian wonder and the smallest Midget in the world." From the evidence it appeared that this unhappy infant was " let " by its mother to a showman named Baker for 30s a week. It was exhibited every five minutes from nine o'clock in the morning till ten at night, and was kept awake for the purpose. Meanwhile the mother was almost continually drunk, and systematically neglected to feed her offspring. When it was dead she wished to sell the body for £20, "but did not understand the law !" The medical evidence showed that the child died of convulsions, aggravated by being exhibited and by want of proper food. lam sorry to see that this fiend of a woman got off with merely a severe censure from the jury. But what are we to think of the law which permits people to make money out of such abominable cruelty as this? Surely it i about time that the police were empowered to put a stop to any performance or exhibition which is carried on with danger to the lives either of- human beings or animals.