A Dreadful Charge.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 211, 20 October 1888, Page 2

A Dreadful Charge.

[PER MAIL STEAMER,] A mysterious tragedy occurred in Asylum Road, Birmingham, on Saturday night, Sep tember 1. Mrs Ada Fereday, the wife of a working man, went out marketing about six o'clock in the e vening, leaving her infant, six months old, lying in the bassinette peram bulator in front of the fire. She also left in the house two older children, her cousin, a boy aged 12> aQ d a g> r ' aged 10. 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 Eaid, “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 had done it as a boy in the street had told her it would bring her good luck. The mother took the baby to asurgery, 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 fcot was also bleeding, and on examining found that it was "nearly out off. The infant was taken to the General Hospital, where it died about ten minutes after. The police at first 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 tfia statement fir made to the mother, alioprofestes ignorance. Mr Harris, the surgeon of the General Hospi'al, who examined the child, says it is hardly likely that a girl aged ten or even a boy aged twelve, could have inflicted the injuries on the deceased—certainly not witn the knife which was found in the reram. bubitor, wljich was an ordinary table-knife’ not very sharp. He could hardly have per ' formed the work himself with such an insti u” ment. On this theory he has instructed the police to look ont for another knife with a sharper blade. The time in which such injuries 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 bo sufficient to sever a child's foot—the work bf 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, app wently, that it was dying ; they brought it just to have the wounds dressed, but he I ■aw the serious state of the ease, and caused f tbflm to be detained, '