“WOMAN’S DARKEST HOUR”

Evening Star, Issue 15516, 11 June 1914, Page 4

“WOMAN’S DARKEST HOUR”

God in Heaven, and you are my only friends, and what will be the end of me He alone knows, for I'm in the stage where taking my own life would not cost me a second thought. The above is an extract from a pathetic letter produced at Wigton (Cumberland) when Thcmasina Norman Armstrong (30), shop assistant, of Moss Side, Cargo, Carlisle, was charged with concealment of birth. The charge arose out of the discovery of an infant's body in a box in a wood near Bray ton, wrapped in a sheet of paper, which bore the address of prisoner’s mother. When arrested in Leeds accused said the child was born in a Barrow-in-Furness hostel on March 20. She did not know whether the child breathed or not. but hid the body, and three days later took it by train to Brayton, and concealed it in the wood. A letter from prisoner was produced by Stephen Cowley Bryan, commercial traveller, Whitehaven. In "this she wrote: — ■#

Well, Stephen, things have reached the very limit at last. lamin a most serious and awful trouble, and have had to fly from homo for my life. . > . I was out of my mind when I did it. You’ll know all probably next week, and when you do be sparing in your judgment. Stephen, believe me when I tell you I’m passing through a very dark hour, and what is to follow God alone knows. I’m in the slough of despond—the very depths of despair. I came here (Leeds)' last night, but dare not stay long. lam absolutely alone, friendless, penniless. Accused further requested money towards an assisted passage to Canada, and added:—

So good-bye, my friend, my only living friend.—E. ... I wonder how many realise Bums’s words: Then gently scan your brother man. Still gentler sister woman; Though they may gang a kennin wrang, To step aside is human. —Medical evidence was given that ihe child had lived for a short time.—Prisoner, who was admitted to bail, was salt to the assizes for trial.