A HUMAN FIEND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5634, 6 December 1879, Page 7

A HUMAN FIEND.

The !New York papers jiirt receivel quote from the Cincinnati Commercial a statement of almost incredible cruelty perpetrated by a weman residing Dear Portsmouth, Sciots County, in that State. Tlio victim was Hattie Parker, a girl about 10 years of age. She was taken from the infirmary 14 years ago by Mis. Silas B. Graham ostensibly to adopt as her own child, but really as a servant upon whom she could wreak lier illtemper. The particulars of the latest outrage on the poor chiM are stated to be as follows : —Fur some trilling olfence she commenced a violent assault upon the girl. She applied the whip without remorse, while the blood i>uslitd at every blow from the quivering llesh of the wretched girl, who had been stripped and made tj lie across a table, with her back to the blows, until she was a mass of blood, when she was turned over and the lash plied along lier bleeding body from her feet to the head. It seems almost impossible the girl should have lived through it, as her boly was covered with gaping wounds. After the woman had exhausted herstrength, she plucked red pepper pods, tore them asunder, inserted them in the bleeding wounds, and watched the writhing contortions of the sufferer with a grin of delight. As soon as she thought h'-r victim in a physical condition to bear up under additional suffering. she sprinkled salt ana wator over the wounds. -As soon as the effects of the salt aod water were deadened she gave the sufferer sutiicient rest to appreciate the additional agony in waiting for her. This time it was a hammer or hatchet that the monster used. Bending the feet of the child forward on the floor she began poumling the nails out by the roots, and her feet are now, as ii her whole body, horrible to look upon. The she mou3ter had still another torture to inflict on her helpless victim. It has bi.en a custom with the monster to whip the girl until she bled profusely, and then put pepper pods into the wounds, soak them with her blood anl then compel her to eat them. Her ingenuity in tlio way of preparing torture is alm jtt beyond belief. A rumour was in circulation that two other children ad'>p'.i d into this family had mysteriously <li.-api oartd. The woman has been bound ov<.r to the Common Pleas Court.