WHIPPING A CHILD.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 829, 16 March 1909, Page 4

WHIPPING A CHILD.

A CHARGE OF ASSAULT. PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS DIFFER. At the S.M. Court, Palmerston, yesterday morning Archibald and Ada McMinn were charged that on February 26 they assaulted a child under 14 years of age named Heber McMinn. Defendants pleaded not guilty. Ellen McMinn, grandmother of the child, stated she had had him in her custody over four years. The boy had always been delicate. On the day in question he had been tieing a piece of string on to his kite when his little sister pulled it away from him. The boy called her a little beast and his mother ran after him and beat him. Witness stated she did not think it w*as the boy's fault. Subsequently Ada McMinn went out and met her husband at the gate and both came back together, the latter catching hold of the boy 'and ill-using him\ He then cut a stick from a willow tree, took the child from witness and went .into a room, where she J aeard defendant beating him. The beating was a severe one. Her son iiad a very violent temper and shn had always been afraid for the child. By Archie McMinn '. She had never heard the child call her a liar. The case was not one of petty spite. She did not remember defendant getting 41 "hidings" in one day from his father. . . Leslie McMinn stated Mrs Archie McMinn had met her husband at the corner of the street on the day in question and said something to him, whereupon he came in, grabbed hold of the child and took him into the room where witness heard the boy screaming. Afterwards he caw defondants walking away from the house with the boy in front of them and Archie switching him across the legs. Alexander McMinn, grandfather of the child, stated that he was a particularly obedient child. The boy had not been spoiled or pampered. By Defendant: He had not given defendant 41 hidings in one day. He doubted > if he had given 41 hidings in all his lffe. The Magistrate stated he did not think cause had been shown why there should be any interference in the matter. The parents probably had a different way of bringing up the child to that of the grandparents. He dismissed the case.