“DEVIL INCARNATE.”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3592, 3 August 1912, Page 10

“DEVIL INCARNATE.”

MAGISTRATE’S UNSPARING CONDEMNATION OF FOSTER MOTHER OF NURSE CHILD.

There was no mincing words in the magisterial comment -ait- Marylehone recently in a case of cruelty to a four-year-old nurse child, for mdiiclx sentence of six months’ hard labor was passed on the foster mother. The woman is Ellen Colenutt, wools both young and married, of Christchurch Residences, Lisson Grove- She had been keeping the child, it was stated, for 2s 6d a week. A doctor said the child was fairly well nourished, hut when he examined it on May 15 there were nineteen bruises, as if the child had been struck with a blunt instrument and pinched, besides several weals on its cheek. On June 6, when he saw the child again, it had scarcely a sound inch on its body. On the child’s forehead were ten short weals, which appeared to have been caused by a cane split at one end. All these injuries were about- two days old, and there were several others older. A lodger said the child cried frequently, and she had heard it say, “Don’t heat me, mummy.”

The defendant expressed regret. In passing sentence the magistrate described the case as a “fiendish.” one, and said the child must have looked upon the. defendant as the devil incarnate and upon its own existence as a verifiable hell.