LEFT WITH THE BABY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8698, 18 December 1899, Page 4

LEFT WITH THE BABY.

A PECULIAR MELBOURNE CASE. A peculiar case of child desertion waa brought under notice at an inquest on the body of a female infant at Melbourne last week. The mother of the child, it appears, made an appointment with a duly registered nurße in regard to placing the_ child out. When they met, which was in the street, she noticed that the young woman's dress was opened, and advised her to button it up for fear of catching cold. The nurse put one arm under the child, and then the mother let it go, and had not the nurse taken it altogether, it must have fallen. Having both hands free the woman fastened her dress, and, turning round, she looked up Grattan-street. A little way off a gentlemanly man was standing. " Oh, there is the father," exclaimed the J young woman. The nurse, who Btill held the child, suggested that he should be sailed, but the mother of the child rejoined, " No, that would annoy him." She would go across and speak to him. She did so, and when within a foot of him she darted round the corner, and never so much as looking at him, disappeared from sight. The nurse still had the baby. She then went up to the man, and asked him if he knew the woman. He replied, "No." Then the nurse spent six weeks trying to get the child off her hands, but could Dot. Later on the child waa almoet burnt to death in a fire at the nurse's house. Subsequently it died from disease of the brain and lungs.