AUNT'S CRUELTY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1648, 15 January 1913, Page 7

AUNT'S CRUELTY.

■/..■..,..;--;..:. :♦—"- —;■;':. ■'■;:.] NEPHEW PROM SOUTH AFRICA.; ' Miss Matilda Louisa Catherine Hallen,' of Royal York Cresoent (! Clifton, was fined ,£lO and Court fees at Bristol Police Court oh December 3 for cruelty to her nephew, Frank Hallen, aged.ten, the son of a doctor residing at Somerset' East/ South Africa. > ... ! ' '.'•,'. .' . ' It .was stated.'for' the prosecution that she brought'the boy from South Africa in January last'and put him at school, in Clifton.-. In April she made the boy take hold of 'a hot frying-pan, which burnt his left ■ hand severely. ' She then made him put the', injured hand in scalding; hot waterr 'She strapped the child on the bed daily while she.massaged the hand. She also hit'him with a stick, and eventually .the boy| ran ; away. The police referred the case to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, by whom the case was ibrought to.. Court,. .'■ ' The medical evidence was to the effect that.the injured hand was permanently crippled. .. .' , ' The. boy; in cross-examination, said he did hot-think his aunt wilfully burnt him.";/''!'.. ■'•, • ';'.-'., ■~ ■■ • ■■. ,The defendant, giving evidence, said the boy was difficult to deni with, but.Sho had never treated-him cruelly. Sho did not know the frying pan and the water were so hot." She had received a complaint from the school regarding the boy's conduct and irregularity. She prodded him with a stick to.make him go to school, because she did not want further trouble. Besides, being .fined, the defendant was ordered' to pay .£s'towards the costs of the society, who would have the custody of the boy until tho'father could bo communicated; with., ...