"BLACK CAP FARCE"

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4959, 23 February 1937, Page 2

"BLACK CAP FARCE"

0 A MEASURE TO END IT. The text was issued recently of a Bill which has for its object the abolition of what has been called the "Black Cap Farce" in infanticide cases, says the "Daily Telegraph.'' If it becomes law Judges will no longer have to pass sentence of death on mothers who are now by custom invariably reprieved. Entitled the Infanticide Bill, the measure, which has Conservative and Socialist backing, that under certain conditions a woman who "wilfully causes the death of her child under the age of eight years" may be convicted of infanticide. It is proposed that a woman shall be guilty of infanticide, and not murder, if at the time of the "act or omission" which caused the child's death (a) she had not fully recovered

from the effects of giving birth to the child; or, (b) she was "in such distress and despair arising from solicitude for her child, or extreme poverty, or other causes, that by reason hereof the balance of her mind was then disturbed. For such an offence the woman may be dealt with and punished as if she had been guilty of manslaughter, the jury being empowered to return a verdict of infanticide. Nothing in the measure would affect the power of a jury upon an indictment for the mui'der of a child under eight to return a verdict of manslaughter or of guilty but insane, or, where the child is newly born, one of concealment of birth. The Bill was introduced by Mr. J. Jagger (Labour, Clayton), and its "backers" are Mr. Arthur Greenwood (Labour), a former Minister oif Health; Mr. Pethick-Lawflence (Labour), Mr. Vyvyan Adams (Conservative), and Mr. Lovat Fraser (Nat.-Labour).