HORRIBLE CHARGES OF BURNING INFANTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 784, 22 June 1864, Page 6

HORRIBLE CHARGES OF BURNING INFANTS.

A married woman, named Devenish, the wife of a gardener, of Broomfield, is now in the custody of the police in her own house, on the charge of having murdered her newly-born child. The "Essex Herald" says it was thought by the neighbours that she was about to be confined, but she engaged no nurse or doctor, and at about seven o'clock on Friday evening one of the neighbours suspected something might be wrong with her, and tried the back door, but found it fastened, and knocked several times without receiving an answer from within She then went away and returned with one or two women, when their attention was attracted by a shocking stench, as of something burning, and looking over the top of the kitchen shutters, they saw Mrs Devenish stooping orer a very large fire, adpareutly watching something burning; what it was they could not see. They then spoke to police constable Barker about it, who started off disectly to Cheimsford, and gave information to Superintendent May and Inspector Simpson, who went at once to the house, and found the door unlocked, but latched. They knocked at the door, and receiving no answer they walked in, and found a large fire in kitchen, with the hearth cleanly swept, and the frying -pan on the fire containing some large slices of fat pork. Mrs Devenish denied to them that she had been recently confined. Inspector Simpson found what he describes as a quantity of fatty matter on the bars of the kitchen stoves, as thoogh flesh of some kind had been placed on the fire by way of accounting for this appearance on the bars, should suspicion be excited. He poked out the fire and found at the bottom of the grate a quantity of partially charred bones, which Mr Wheeler, a surgeon, pronounced to be, in his opinion, those of a newly-born child, and the same medical gentleman also found, on examination, the woman had been recently confined, in October last an inquest was held on another of this woman's children, a boy of 13 months old. In that case Mrs Poliard, a neighbour, on going into the kitchen, found the child, head downwards, in a pan of water, and the mother apparently asleep on the sofa; and the general impression then was, that while the mother, who was in ill-health, was lying in a semi-comcious state on the sofa, the child crawled into the kitchen, and, in trying to raise itself by holding on to the top of the pan, overbalanced itself and fell in. The coroner's jury returned an open verdict of " Died from suffocation." The husband of the woman, with whom, it is said, she lived unhappily, was in a public house at Cheimsford when his wife was taken into custody. He was quite ignorant of the fact until an acquaintance remarked that he ought to be at home, and, on his asking why, told him that his house was full of police officers, and his wife accused, of murder; and on reaching home he found the report too true. The woman is at present too weak to be removed, and the police have provided a female attendant for her.

The " Western Times" reports a romewhat similar case. Elizabeth Hawkins, 20 years of age, was charged at the Cullompton Petty Sessions, on Monday, with having concealed the birth of her child, and her father, Robert Hawkins, was charged with aiding her in committing the offence They lived in a small cottage on .Whitedown, about three miles from Cullompton. On being charged by the constable, she admitted that she had been confined, and said that the child had lived but five minutes, and that her father" took it 3 body away. She had prepared no baby linen, as she did not know she was goiDg to be confined. When her father was charged, he said, " Cheel, sir, her han't had no cheel, her only miscarried, that's all." At the station house he said, "On Sunday week last I was in bed. I heard my daughter moaning in the adjoining room, though I laid on a bit longer. I got up and went out in the room, in her room. I asked her what was the matter, and her said her inside was burning; though 1 went out, and when I came in again her had got a cliild. The child was dead. Her asked me to take it down. I took it down, though I put it behind fire." On the following day the constable sifted the ashes and found some bones that a Mr Potter, a surgeon, said were the bones of a fully developed child. Some of the bones and a great deal of the vertebrae was perfect. He could not say whether the child was born alive or not. The father maintained the child was dead, but the chairman reminded him that his younger daughter, eight years of age, had said that she heard the child cry when he took it from its mother, and when he put it on the fire.—The case was adjourned.