A DREADFUL STORY.

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 442, 18 March 1875, Page 2

A DREADFUL STORY.

The Manchester Guardian says : — At the Staleybridge Borough Court, Wm. Blun<jett> Thomas Blundell, Wn>. Henry Knott, Thomas James Knott, and Samuel Powell, all children, the eldest of whom was eight, and the youngest five years of age, were charged with havin stolen a purse containing £1 4s 3d, the property of Ann Jane Fielding, of Caroline street, and Ellen Blundell, mother of two of the prisoners, was charged with receiving the same knowing it to have been stolen. The mother was also charged with having been driinlf and disorderly on the same occasion. The chief constable said that from inquiries he had recently frade he did not think he should be able to proceecUwAth the charge of feloniously stealing on the part; 'of the woman, and he should have to ask for the discharge of three of the boys. It appears that about twenty minutes past ten o'clock on New Year's Eve Con. stable Relton apprehended the woman for being drunk and disorderly in High street, and after locking her up he went back to a passage near to the Victoria Inn, kept by Mr M. H. Bradley, a member of the Town Council. In that passage he found the youngest child, a lad five years of age, helplessly drunk, with a bottle of whisky in his possession. The child had to be carried to the police office, and the robbery having been discovered, the other lads were apprehended. On account of the child's age, he should ask for the youngest i Blundell ta be discharged, and should also ask for the discharge of Powell and Andrew, and for the others to be remanded till Monday. The charge of drunken and disorderly conduct against the woman was then proceeded with. The chief constable said the woman had dfeen systematically instructing her children to steal, and a great nilmber of purses had been stolen, and money taken from houses in the neighbourhood. She regularly sent her boys out begging. On one occasion one of the boys brought home half-a-sovereign, and when asked where he had got it from, she said he had earned it by getting in coals. Mr Marsland said the whole of the sunxmndvngs of the case were of a dreadful character. Here they had an infant five years of age in so-drunken a state that it had to be .carried to the police office, He had known the woman and her children for many years, and a more despicable character than she was he thought he had never sqen or heard of. For a young child like that of five years of age to be brought there was perfectly disgraceful, and for the eldest child, eight jears of age," to be subject to such an awful example was abominable. The Mayor told the woman she

pnsonment with Jiard labor, for being dtm^k lad disorderly, and the tywp would be' remanded, togive the chief constybl^'nme to get up the case.