HORRIBLE TREATMENT OF ORPHANS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2299, 31 December 1891, Page 3

HORRIBLE TREATMENT OF ORPHANS.

Startling testimony was given at Dublin at the trial of the Rev. Samuel Cotton, rector of Carnogh, County Kildare, charged with criminal neglect and ill-treatment of children in the Carnogh Ophanage. Cotton has conducted the affairs of the Orphanage for many years, and has received large sums of money by subscription. The Children's Society during the investigation found the children in an emaciated, filthy condition, covered with parasites. The toes of one it was testified rotted off. Another, a girl, had been chained by the legs to a log. The rooms of the Orphanage were found in the filthiest possible condition. In the kitchen was found a baby six weeks old, covered with rags, and dying of cold and inanition. Other children in the same apartment were crowded around a small fire, almost frozen and half starved. All were weak and sickly, and their growth was stunted by the treatment received under Cotton's management. The sanitary condition of the whole establishment is horrible. Some of the beds used by the unfortunate children are merely old boxes and packing cases filled with stale hay. It was also shown that the children were kept in a perpetual state of terror by Cotton, and it would be difficult to imagine a more deplorable or blameable state of things. Cotton was committed for trial.