INFANTICIDE IN FRANCE.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 524, 1 July 1869, Page 2

INFANTICIDE IN FRANCE.

A Paris correspondent thus refers to the recent cases of infanticide in France:—At Montauban, near Toulouse, a series of most abominable crimes have taken place, and under the very eyes of the authorities. Eight women were under their trial for infanticide, and practising abortion. But the " head devils" were two named Delpech and Coyne. The former was a fat brute, aged 52, a convicted thief, and the keeper of a brothel. She confessed having nine infants, entrusted to her to nurse. Her baby farming consisted in drowning the little darlings in a basin of water, then cutting them up to morsels in her Jap, and burying the remains in her kitplion undrr the stairs, or in the water-closet. All this she confessed with a savage glee, describing the process in full court, and in the presence of seven of her massacred innocents. She practised abortion for a fee as low as two pounds of brown siujar, her first patient being her own daughter, aged 17, whose child she had some months before killed after coming into the world, by pouring vitriol and sugar clown its throat. Some of the victims she left to the rats, gave to the pigs, and it is suspected ate portions. The ogress was equal to any inhumanitv. Coyne was a midwife, extremely handsome, and aged 32. She recommended mothers to place their offspring with Delpech to nurse, dividing with that wretch the receipts. During the trial Delpech indulged in continued laughter. She was found guilty, with "extenuating circumstances," "which takes away the penalty of death. The Judge sentenced her to transportation for life, and on retiring she sent kisses of adieu to the audience. She has had the audacity to appeal against her sentence. Coyne was sent to the gallcs for ten years, one woman was acquitted, and the others imprisoned for short periods.