INFANT LIFE PROTECTION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12426, 15 February 1901, Page 2

INFANT LIFE PROTECTION.

•A SERIOUS BREACH OE THE LAW. [Per Press Association.] AUCKLAND, Feb. 13. Harnett Ann Clegg ’pleaded not guilty at,the Police Court to having, in consideration'of a money payment, adopted 1 an infant without having a license to do so. Sub-Inspector Mitchell stated .that the defendant had applied to the Court, for a license but the application had been refused. The mother of the infant, a girl of nineteen, stated, that Mrs Clegg adopted the child when it was a- fortnight old. It died .about three weeks later at Mrs Clegg's house. Witness gave the defendant £lO on the day the latter applied for a. license, and £2O after the infant’s death, to cover expenses. She did not know that the defendant’s application for a license had not been granted. Defendant deposed that nothing yvas said about money when she proposed to 1 adopt the infant. She did not know till after the child's death that her application for a license had been refused. She accepted £lO as a present to pay legal expenses of the adoption. (SubInspector Mitchell pointed out that the legal expenses amounted to £3 12s). Witness, continuing, said she took the child because she ■ loved it. She liked a baby girl. The £2O was given her as a. present to pay the burial expenses. She did everything possible for the baby, and she had a letter from Dr Lowe stating, that the infant’s death was in no way due to want of proper treatment on her part. His Worship, in giving judgment, said, he absolved the defendant from any neglect of the. infant, 'but a serious breach of the Infant Life Protection. Act. had been’clearly proved. ’ He was afraid- that this, system:; of trying to adopt children was growing into "proportions which might almost be called baby-farming. The defendant would be convicted and fined £lO and costs. 17s.