A NEGLECTED CHILD.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12394, 7 January 1901, Page 3

A NEGLECTED CHILD.

DISTRESSING SCENE IN COURT. Rose Berkley, a little girl aged six years, yds charged at the Magistrate’s Court on Saturday morning, before Mr Bishop, S.M., with being a neglected child, in that she lived with a reputed drunkard. Detective Fahey stated that the child’s mother was in a chronic state of drunkenness, and lived a far from reputable life. He gave a number of dates upon which he had visited her and found her drunk, with drunken men in the house, while the child was roaming the streets. ' Detective Livingstone gave similar evidence. The woman was well-connected, and had an income sufficient to keep her, but was a hopeless drunkard. The mother admitted that she was a drunkard, but begged that the child might not be sent to an industrial school. She would send her to some person capable of properly looking after her, and could afford to pay. Growing excited, she defied the police to take her child frenr her. Mr Bishop said that the Magistrates were always Unwilling to take’ a child from a parent, but where the interests of the child clearly demanded such a course they could not hesitate. The child wofild be committed to Burnham. The woman then seized the child and made for the door, crying that no one should take her girl, hut was stopped. . , Eventually both mother and' child, weeping were taken to the Police Station in the police van. The child was sent to Nelson by the steamer on Saturday night to the Stoke .Industrial! School.