Alleged Concealment of Birth

Hastings Standard, Volume X, Issue 5415, 30 January 1907, Page 2

Alleged Concealment of Birth

INQUEST. The inquest on the body of the infant child found in the racecourse lake on Bth January was resumed yesttniay afternoon. Continuing his evidence Dr Nairn deposed that if the child had propel care at birth it would have lived. The mother told witness she had fainted, and when she- recovered found tha child lying head downwards in a receptacle in the room, and he concluded that the umbilical cord had been cut without being first tied, and the shock of seeing the IO3S of blood from the child had made her faint. The fact that she was alone would, under the circumstances, have made it possible for her to faint, but considering that she had had a baby four years ago, without being ill, it would be unlikely that she would be ill with the second baby. This, however, was not conclusive. She could not be very ill if she went about her usual work three, or four days after the birth, but sh« might have been bad enough to faint. Examined the woman later, and found that she had given birth to a child about a week previous to his axamination. The woman was very nervous, and was suffering from a severe shook. She told him she had given birth to a child on Wednesday, January 2nd, in the bathroom of the \lbert Hotel. It was possible, but not at all probable, that the child was born in the position she said she found it, Sergeant Smart deposed that, in company with Detective Hill, he went to the Albert Hotel on the 7th January. Asked a woman in tbs washhousc, who gave the name of Mrs Hill, if the child found on the previous evening was hers. She replied " No." She was looking very ill, and, after sitting down, said the child was hers, and had been born on the previous Tuesday evening. She said she kepfc it till the Saturday night and then put it into the water, which witness took to mean tha racecourse lake. She said she fainted when the child was born, and, when she came to, found it dead. 1 Witness took her to the police station, where she made a voluntary ■tatemenfc and signed it. Tha woman said that no one knew she had the child. The statement she m»fle was similar to what witness had said. There were no signs in the room of any preparations for a birth. She had been in tha district for fcur years. To a juror: The woman said that she had put the oliild into the water herself. In reply to the Deputy-Coroner, Mr J. C. Westell said the woman did net desire to give evidence, or see the necessity for doing so, on the face of the. evidence. After a few minutes' retirement, the jury returned the following verdict: ' That in accordance with the medical evidence the child's death was due to want of attention at the time of birth."