A SAD CASE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1989, 2 January 1890, Page 3

A SAD CASE.

An exchange saysA painful and somewhat curious case has occupied the Charitable Aid executive and the police of Timaru during the past day or two. A youn? woman named Warne, aged about twenty-three, was in service in Temuka,. and a month ago gave birth to an illegitimate child. She lodged ' with ■ the person who nursed her, a Mrs Dyson, until Friday last. She was weak and ill, and as Mrs Dyson could not afford to keep her, and the doctor considered the ease a fit one for the Hospital, he recommended the young woman to go to the Timafu Hospital, tOn Friday Mrs Dyson got a conveyance and drove the young woman to Timaru, first going to Pleasant Point, where the girl’s mother lived, to seo if sho would take charge of her. The mother could not, or would not, take charge of her daughter seeing the state she was in, but she accompanied her and the nurse to Timaru to see about admission to the Hospital. There was a little delay in getting this, as the parties had brought no certificate or other documents from Temuka, and Dr Hogg, who was called on behalf of the Charitable Aid Board, deferred giving an order until he heard from Temuka. The girl’s medical attendant there in reply to queries wrote that she had suffered for ten days from a severe sore throat; and feverishness, but there was nothing infectious or contagious about her complaint. Dr Hogg made a further examination of the young woman, and he declared her throat affection to be malignant diphtheria, He gave an order for her admission to the Hospital, but advised that she be placed in a separate ward and given a separate attendant. This was arranged; the girl was taken up on Saturday morning and she died there on Sunday. On the Saturday, when the sick mother was taken to the Hospital, her infant was left at the 'boarding-house where they had stayed for the night, in charge of its; grandmother, She demurred to this, but- was told she was the proper person to keep it, at alb events for the present. &he was not content to keep it, however, and, getting a cab, topk- it to the hospital, where it was refused admission in the absence of a proper order. The woman then acted upon a suggestion or the cabman that she should take it to the Charitable Aid She took it there .and laid it down in the passage and drove away. On Monday she was charged before the Mayor, as a J.P., with abandoning the child, and a witness was called to show that Mrs Warne made no sign, and was going away, even after being spoken to, without a word. Defendant herself, however, declared that she knocked at a door to call attention to the child, and saw that someone was ceming, before she left. In defence she offered the excuse that she could do nothing with the child. She would not take an illegitimate child to her home; they would.not have it at the hospital; she could not leave it in the street, and 'she thought she not do better than r take it where they charge of such children; The police were early informed of the abandonment, and the child, after examination, was sent to the hospital, being found to he in very precarious health from deep-seated eruptions. The information against the grandmother was laid as a warning to others, as if such modes of getting rid- of illegitimates were allowed it would lead to great abuses. Mr Boss, in view of all the^circumstances, however, and with the concurrence of the police, dismissed the information.