INHUMAN TREATMENT OF A GIRL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2399, 25 August 1892, Page 3

INHUMAN TREATMENT OF A GIRL.

The following particulars of the treatment of a girl of 15, for which Mr and Mrs Goodgame have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment at Wellington, are given by the Wairarapa Star : —The child whose clothes were simply filthy, and literally swarming with vermin, was taken to Dr Hosking, Aho declared that never in the course of his existence had he met with a case in which a child had such maltreatment, Her body was simply black with bruises and weals, evidently inflicted by kicking and the use of a stick, whilst her head is a mass of wounds and sores, made by the same weapons, the blood even now oozing from many of them, whilst shp has been rendered almost stupid mentally by the misery and suffering she has undergone. From statements made it appears that the inhuman mother made a practice of sending the child to a creek about half a mile distant every morning, in all weathers and ip an almost nude state, to wash herself, that she was forppt] jpto the paddocks to split and chop woqd with a heavy axe until her hands wore so cut and raw that it is xlow impossible for her to close them, while she was systematically belabored with a stick and kicked and gijfied until she was in the state above described.- Strange to say the girl is most ro'mwud fq give evidence against her fiendish mother, despite tire in juries she has received at her hands, The child’s name is Maud Thompson, her I mother having married twice, the second time taking unto her as a better half a man by the name of Goodgame, marrying him. at Wood villa. It appears that ever since her last jpavringe she has been hi the habit of torturing the offspring of her first union in the most terrible manner, evidently in the hopes of ridding horse!i of an encumbrance. When the poor girl was found on Saturday last by Mr Dale she had a little short bodice of thin calico on that reached down to her waist, and below that a thin petticoat, though it can hardly bo designed by that name, inasmuch that it was so thin that it practically afforded her no covering at all, and in fact, as regards all bodily clothing, the child was naked, Her hands were bleeding, and her head in such a mass of contusions that it does not present its natural shape. The young lads in the neighbourhood who have been iu the habit of going out rabbit shooting have been implored by her to shoot her and put her out of her misery, When asked what she was beaten for she replied because she stopped atnigufc on tiie hills, being afraid to go home, and this

I <i wring the l ist month in rain and frost. Her bedding at home consisted of a few very dirty bags, and her sleeping accommodation is v orse than is provided for a dog.