CHILD SLAVES TORTURED.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 137, 10 June 1911, Page 17

CHILD SLAVES TORTURED.

I ■ " I VICTIMS OP INHUMAN MONSTERS. UNBELIEVABLE CRUELTY. LONDON, April 20. Horrible and systematic cruelty to children seems to be on the increase in the Old Country. Hardly a week passes which does not produce some case in which child torture and starvation figures, a-cd some of them present features that are truly appalling. At 'Worcester Guildhall the other day three people were brought up and charged with having subjected a little orphan girl to inhuman treatment for five years. The accused were Mrs. Mary Dorcas Wilesmith, her sou John, and a farm bailiff named George Turner, employed by Mrs. Wilesmith, who keeps a dairy farm just outside the city. The girl. Florence Pastorfield, was obtained from a Thornton Heath orphanage when 6he was seven years old, and it was alleged that she: Had been whipped while naked, till she Wed. Had three pla-tefuis ot salt robbed into •the cuts. Been forced to crawl on hands and knees up the stairs while Turner was using the whip on her. Been kept at work for four or five years from 6 a.m. till midnight. Never been allowed out. 'Had to sleep on the floor. 'Had water thrown over her to awaken her. Been thrashed with a steel ruler. The officer of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, who took •Florence *rom the clutches of her mistress, described his visit to the house. I "I Tveot in with Inspector Smith. There •was some delay in opening the door, bin it was at length opened and we were invited into the dinrngroom and told that Mrs. Wilesmith was at the telephone. W< went upstairs to the bathroom. Mrs. Wilesmith told us through, the door that she was having a bath, bo-t we had seen thai she was dressed and we entered. Flossie was standing in the middle of the room, and beside her was a pail of water. "The child's face had just .been washed. She was in a shocking condition, trembling and apparently in a condition of abject terror. Her eyes were swollen and red, 'her ha-nds were grimed, and her neck dirty. CBven now it had .been impossible to get the dirt out of her hands; they were worse than the hands of any charwoman I have ever 6eeu." •A ragged skirt, a dirty chemise, a torn woollen "sweater." a pair of stockings in •holes, and a broken pair of shoes worn into lioles were produced by the Inspector, ■who said that these garments were the only clothes the child had on when she was taken away. As the inspector hrousht the clothes singly from a handbag the indignation of those in court—maiuly women—could not be restrained, and they broke into cries of "Shame," and hiesed. The demonstration was renewed when the inspector added there were 34 scars, in addHion to many bruises, on the child's 'body. There was a further charge against Turner and John "Wilesmith in <-onnection with their treatment of a little workhouse lad in their enrploy. Turner, it was alleged, sought to punish the boy for stealing some milk by cutting the knuckles of his hands, scraptng the wounds with a freshly-sharpened ta-ble knife, and then rubbing salt into them. It was furrhcr alleged that he and Wilesmith had stripped the boy, .bound him. played a hose on him, dragging him about the floor the while. The lnedical evidence was lo the effect that the chUd was in a wretched physical condition, and that his hands and body bore marks consistent with the boy's statements as to his treatment -by accused. All the defendants stand committed for Tial. When they were removed from the "ourt they had to face a very hostile denonstration, and but for the protection if a large number of Ipoficenien they ivonld ihave been lynched by the mob of tiriously indignant women assembled outtide the Guildhall. [The accused were Inter sentenced to raryrmj terms of imprisonment.—Ed.]