Page 2 Advertisements Column 2

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 83, 24 August 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

FATHER TERRORISED BY SEVENYEAR SON WANTED BEER AND CIGARETTES. Extraordinary statements were made at Macclesfield Police Court recently concerning a boy not yet eight years of age, who has reduced his father to a state of abject submission of his will. The boy's name is John Harding Hansell, and he is three months short of eight years old. lie lives at his father's homo at Boilington. His father is a cotton operative. Mr. 11. E. Smale made an application that the boy should be sent to an industrial school. The father admitted that he had' no control over the boy. On many occasions the boy had told him to go and get him beer and cigarettes, and when he (the father) had refused the hoy had struck him with a brush, the tongs, and a "doilv peg." The hoy also kicked him severely when in Bed. and had caused an abscess to form. This had prevented the father from working. This conduct had been going oil for a year. Neighbors said they had often heard the boy ill-treating his father. ; When people went to the father's help the boy locked all the doors. The father dare not refuse to get beer and cigarettes for the child. " The bov was sent to an industrial school till 16, and the father agreed to pay 2s a week towards his maintenance.