A Child Charged with Murder.

Evening Star, Issue 7751, 24 October 1888, Page 3

A Child Charged with Murder.

A mysterious tragedy occurred in Asylum road, Birmingham, on Saturday night, September 1. Mrs Ada Fereday, the wife of a working man, went out about six o'clock in the evening, leaving her infant, six months old, lying in the bassinette perambulator in front of the fire. She also left in the house two older children, her cousin, a boy aged twelve, and a girl aged ten. Mrs Fereday's father was also lying drunk and asleep on a sofa. On her return the boy had gone out, but the little girl said "Oh, look at the blood on the floor." She then found that the infant had been deeply cut near its ankle, and that a table-knife was lying in the perambulator. The girl Alice Forrester stated at first that she h<*d done it as a boy in the street had told her it would bring her good ! luck. The mother took the baby to a surgery, where an assistant sewed up the wound in the foot that was shown to him. Soon after, while nursing the infant, the mother found that the other foot was also bleeding, and on examining that found that it was nearly cut off.' The infant was taken to the General Hospital, where it died about ten minutes after. The police at firßt suspected the mother and grandfather, but were satisfied that they were innocent, and that the fatal injuries were inflicted by one or both the children, whom they retained in custody. The boy states that he went out and knew nothing about it, and the girl, revoking the statement first made to the mother, also professes ignorance. Mr Harris, the sur-

geon of the General Hospital, who examined the child, says it is hardly likely that a girl aped ten, orevenaboy aged twelve, could have inflicted the injuries on the deceased—certainly not with the knife which was found in the perambulator, which was an ordinary table knife, not very sharp. He could hardly have performed the work himself with such an instrument. On this theory he has instructed the police to look out for another knife with a sharper blade. The time in which such iujuries were inflicted would not be long. They seem to have been made with a razor, so clean are the cuts, and two sweeps of such a blade would be sufficient to sever a child's foot—the work of a few seconds—and the child might not cry on account of the force of the shock. At the time the child was brought to the hospital the people had no notion, apparently, that it was dying; they brought it just to have the wounds dressed, bat he saw the serious state of the case, ani caused them to be detained.