ABANDONED CHILD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22779, 15 January 1936, Page 4

ABANDONED CHILD

WOMAN’S PATHETIC STORY ADMISSION OF GUILT (Per United Press Association) CHRISTCHURCH, January -14. The pathetic circumstances which led to a child being abandoned at Woolworth’s on December 20 were related in the Magistrate’s Court this morning, when Delia Kabbitt, aged 25, a domestic servant, pleaded guilty to a charge of abandoning Gordon Nathaniel Brown, a child under the age of two years, and was committed for sentence.

Two statements made by Rabbitt disclosed her reason for wishing to be rid of the child. “ I thought he would be better looked after,” she said in one statement, which contained, the information that she was a single woman. Waldon M’Claren Matthews, employed at Woolworth’s, described finding the child, which he held up to view in the shop. The shop was particularly crowded at the time the child was found. Later the child was handed over to the police. Nora Fitzgerald, a housemaid at the New Railway Hotel, said that on December 20 Rabbitt booked in under the of Mrs M’Donald Rabbitt. She had two children, a girl and a boy, with her. The following morning witness noticed only one child with the woman. Rabbitt, in a statement to the police, said her parents knew nothing of the two children, and she had decided to return home. She left the girl with a friend. She suggested to Nathaniel Brown, well-borer, now of Master ton, but at that time of Greymouth, the father of the children, that the boy should be put in a home. Brown said that if she did their names would be brought up, and he suggested that the best thing to do would be to leave the child where he could be picked up by a constable, and no one would know who left him. She was entirely guided by Brown. Brown gave her money for her fare from Greymouth to Christchurch. Rabbitt added that she took the boy to Woolworth’s, and while she was at the counter the boy walked away a bit, and she saw a girl pick him up. On the spur of the moment the accused walked out of the shop. She thought he would be better off in a home. She saw, while on the way to Dunedin, that the boy had been found, and she felt relieved. She made no attempt to claim him, and intended to leave him so long as he was properly looked after. _ It Brown had not suggested abandoning the boy she would not have done it. Brown had always maintained the children, although there was no court order.

Rabbitt pleaded guilty, and was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence.