AN INHUMAN PARENT.

Evening Star, Issue 4969, 5 February 1879, Page 4

AN INHUMAN PARENT.

A girl named M'Grath, aged fourteen, was brought before the Resident Magistrate's Court at Christchurch as a neglected child yesterday. Her father was put into the wit-ness-box. •Ho prevaricated a good deal, and attempted to make out that when a policeman roused him out of bed at a quarter past eleven the night before he was going down to see after his child. Tho night was bitterly cold, and it was raining hard—in fact the girl would probably have been killed had she not been rescued by the police. Eventually the heartless old scoundrel broke down, and pleaded that if let off he would not do it again. The child was. almost starved, and had not taken off her clothes for fourteen days. She had been in the same lonely pkee since December. 16, and had been obliged on several occasions to beg for fc.ol from the neighbors. At the conclusion of the case Mr Mollish jeaiil the girl would be sent to the Industrial School for two years, to be brought up in the Roman Catholic religion. "Take her away, and let the father remain." To the father : " I won't let yon go without telling you what I think of your conduct. You ought to be'thoroughly ashamed of yourself. You have been bringing your child up as a perfect little savage—as worse than a savage, and what can you expect your children to coma to when you treat them in such a manner ? It was but little wonder your son went to the bad.. A grosser piece of barbarity and neglect I have never heard of ; and now, instead of making anything out of your child Twill take care that you have to pay for her support for the next two years, at any rate. You may go."