A WARNING TO PARENTS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1655, 3 November 1887, Page 3

A WARNING TO PARENTS.

Sydney, Oct. 25. A startling circumstance has been recently brought to light in a fashionable quarter of Paddington, the details of which should cause parents to exercise the utmost precaution in connection with the supervision of their children at the hands of nurse girls. The facts of the case are to the effect that the heads of a w,ell-known household not long ago had occasion to quit Sydney for a week or two. In their service was a young woman in whom the utmost confidence was placed, and the parents left home under full belief that their family would be carefully looked after. Upon returning, however, it was found that three young members of the household were seriously unwell; the youngest, a little girl, was so indisposed that the services of a medical man were necessary. That gentleman immediately detected the symptoms of gradually administered narcotic poison, and he has expressed the belief that the child will be seriously affected during life from the effect of its absorption, even should nothing worse ensue. Inquiries were at once instituted, with the result that the domestic in question confessed that during her employers* absence she was in the habit of taking walks with her intended husband, and that with a view to “ putting the babies to sleep ” her custom had been to dose them with laudanum and chlorodyne. The children are still under medical attendance and their nurse has been dismissed from her situation.