CONCEALMENT OF BIRTH.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17610, 13 November 1922, Page 12

CONCEALMENT OF BIRTH.

YOUNd COUPLE SENTENCED. (SPECIAL TO "THE press.") DUNEDIN, November 11. In the Supreme Court to-day the Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, in sentencing Stewart Cecil Harland and Heatherbelle Harland for concealment of birth of their child, said: "Of killing your child you have been acquitted. The offenoe of which you have been found guilty is a much less serious crime. It is of disposing of the dead body of your poor infant with intent to conceal the tact that you, Heatherbelle Harland, were delivered of It. It is a harrowing story and I do not desire to dwell on it. How anyone could have strangled your child, I cannot conceive. A poet has said that there is nothing in the world more beautiful, or sweeter, than an infant child. I must assume that you were not the slayers of your first-born. Your treatment however, of its poor body after it was. deqd, was revolting, and 1 should think that in the years to come you will never be able to efface the sad memory of your conduct. I pity you for haying to bear such a burden.. Perhaps. you may never have another child and this one that might have been a comfort and a blessing to you, you have lost. I sentence you, Stuart Cacil Harland, to five years' reformative detention. As for you, Heatherbelle Harland, the jury, with' a chivalry ever-present amongst our people, have thought fit 'to recommend you to the mercy of tlip Court because of your youth. ' The sentence imposed ~on you is reformative detention for two and arhalf years, believing that the pricks of conscience for lihe :way you have treated the body of your first baby will ever be present with you and, that you will so sorrow over your crime that you will in time be reformed and become a good woman."