CATS ON THE BED

Hawera Star, Volume L, 23 October 1930, Page 7

CATS ON THE BED

V DEATH ok an infant. REREAVED .MOTHER'S GRIEF. , Painful scenes attended a recent inquest at Liverpool on u .iive-mpntli-old baby, named Patrick William, Stewart. The' young la,£her was in the Wit-ness-box' describing' how lie was summoned to the child’s bedroom and rushed off to the hospital with the infant- wrapped in a blanket when Mrs Stewart entered the courtroom. She staggered forward in a half-fainting condition, and liad to be assisted to a -seat. There .she sat- moaning and crying in distraught tones , “Oh, my baby! My heart's breaking for my lit-tlo son.” Affected hv his wife’s distress the husband broke down and wept as he continued his evidence. Replying to the coroner, Mr Stewart declared that there- wero ‘‘thousands of cats iu the district,” and they were always running upstairs into the houses. Mrs Stewart had to be assisted into the witness-box. In a sobbing voice she described how, about 8.30 p.m., for the first time, she put the baby in the boil to sleep. She usually left it with her mother next- door, but on this occasion her mother was not well. At nine o’clock Airs Stewart went, upstairs again and found two grey cats sitting at the bo-tom of the bed. “Then,” she added, “I saw another cat iumn from the bed. I chased them out and then looked at the baby. Something seemed to be wrong with him. T touched his hand and felt it was cold.” At this point the young mother broke down again and called in piteous tones for her dead child. The coroner mentioned, that he no<ticed a hair, probably a cat’s hair, on tho lip of the child when he saw it-. He thought tho probable cause of de&tli was the overlaying pf a cat on the child, although there was no definite evidence to show it. _ A' verdict of “Death Horn suffocation” was recorded. '