WHOLESALE INFANTICIDE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2424, 12 November 1892, Page 4

WHOLESALE INFANTICIDE.

Sydney, Nov. 8.

A sensation was caused to-day by the discovery of four more bodies of children in the yard of a house previously occupied by the Makines. The ir quest on the bodies found last week is proceeding under difficulties, the decomposed state of the remains rendering it impossible for the medical men to say what was the cause of death. Nov. 10. Makine and his family have resided in a number of premises, which the police are now searching. They are suspected of being connected with the death of a child found recently making twelve in all. Many of the bodies are converted to adipocere, rendering identification impossible.

A Sydney telegram in the Hobart Mercury gives the following particulars of the case :— ■'* What appears to be a wholesale case of infanoticide has been discovered by the police at a house in Burran street, Macdonald Town, occupied by a family named Mackine. From Juno to August Inst the household consisted—as far as can yet be ascertained —of the father (John Makine), aged 45, a labourer; Sarah, his wife, aged 42; Blanche and Florence, his daughters, aged respectively 17 and 14 years, and an infant. It appeared that the latter was always crying. The family left the house on August 22, and since then it has been empty, applicants to rent it complaining that the drains appeared to be in a bad state, and the landlord put on men to remedy the supposed complaint. While working they discovered the bodies of two newly-born children buried about a foot under ground, and reported the matter to the police, who arrested the family, when the baby the neighbours had seen in Barren street was missing. The back yard attached to the bouse was dug up and five other bodies of infants discovered, all buried in the same way, none being covered with more than a font of earth, and the bodies apparently had not been buried more than a few weeks. Subsequent inquiries show that the family were siegnlirly migratory, and that at each change of residence the ordinary system of engaging a cirrie" was dispensed with M ckinn tvmaejf always appearing to command the use of a horse and cart. The yards r.f -d] the houses occupied by 1 his familv are to he dug up. At each residence the neighbors were struck by the sounds of an evercrying baby. Lithe house a number of cards were found annonnci"g that, Mrs Mackine was a ladies’ nurse and professional midwife.”