CRUELTY TO CHILDREN.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 1950, 27 March 1885, Page 2

CRUELTY TO CHILDREN.

The following case of horrible treatment of children is reported from Dunedin in a presstelegram" The charge against Fleming and his wife of cruelty to children was gone into at tW Resident Magistrate's Court to-day, before Messrs • Fenwick and Gouverey, J.P's. The former informations were of common".", assult, but these have been withdrawn; a and assault resulting in grievous bodihw * harm, substituted. Mr Denniston cuted, and Mr McGregor defended. The case against Mrs Carrie Fleming of assaulting John Fleming, aged 11, was first " ' taken. The boy said some ■ neighbors " followed him home from school on Friday last and said something to his step-mother, : who afterwards gave him a hammering. She made him strip naked, then laid him on her bed in tho bedroom, >face downwards, and beat him with his father's cart-whipall over his back and downwards, It was a sore beating, He did not cry out because fye vfould have got three times woirse, (Sensation in Court, which was crammed, mainly hy women,). In crosa- .. examination, the boy said he sonie-" times naughty, and had hit his sisterwith •• his fist, for which he-had been beaten;p ' *'' : . but this was not on the Friday re-- ~ - ferred to, He was sent to school on the Friday with the knickerbockers sown up, because in the night he had got up, lit a candle, and taken a biscuit, because he felt hungry. One of the : neighbors named Mrs Greatrex said that, she followed the boy home, on Friday/ because she saw him with h(g trousers sewn up as high as they be, and he looked a perfect fright. She told Mrs Fleminsyl - she ought to be ashamed of herself treating a motherless boy so. The bpjy on the Friday was afterwards tafce.n to her house by the police, and she described I: his back as having tlie appearance o| , lean steak. The moused ilvap cowroitted for trial, bajl being allowed—herself in £200,, afld twenties of £IOO each. A charge against Alexander Fleming, " the father, of assaulting the same boy was then proceeded with, The boy gave evidence that he had struck his sister, His father took him out of, bed, took off his night shirt, tied him to the bed, and beat him with tho whip. (Suppressed cry of indignation in Court,) Mary Fleming gave edidence as to seeing her brother whipped at the bedpost. When asked, she said her father had been kind to them, ■ but did not answer, when asked, if she loved him, The hearing of this case was adjourned till yesterday when Fleming. was also committed for trial.: ; ■