CHILD TORTURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7808, 12 September 1903, Page 4

CHILD TORTURE.

r - , ■—+ _ ! NEIGHBOURS DENOUNCE A FATHER'S CRUELTY. i *. • Sentence of four months' hard labour was ' passed on William Ward, of Chaplin Road, I Willesden Green, London, for feajocfcvus t cruelty to his illegitimate son, W^liam, a f child of six. p " No doubt," said Ward, coolly, in Court, » "I used too much force in trying to bring J him up as a man and a. credit to the nation, i and lam sonry for it." l Evidence was given by Mrs Tupier, re- ' siding an the same housie-, that she had seen > Mrs Ward pull the boy out of bed by his hair, drag him so to the landing to wash ■ him, and baing his head against tho table i while the washing proceeded. " Oh, mother, ' don't," the child would cry, but Mrs Ward [ continued to ill-treat him, t-slling him that ■ he ought to be dead. Such incidents, stated Mrs Turner, were often witnessed. On one occasion she exclaimed to the woman Wa_d : * " I wouldn't serve a cat or a dog: like that. ~ Why don't you kill him and have done with J- it?" child was not naughty, but appeared "afraid of his own shadow." On a certain Sunday the father had him stripped, and thrashed him after dinner with a cane that was split at the end. The child '__ screamed for an hour, and the neighbours, roused by the noise, Gathered in front of the Bouse to protest. -When they knocked at tlhe froiut door a step-daughter of Ward's took the ran© to Mrs Turner and asked her tb burn it. Ward opened a window and '. 'told the people outside, according to one '. witness, that he should correct his child if he liked. After the thrashing a doctor found the little boy covered with bruises and cuts. He thought the split cane would oau.se the cuts. The wounds varied from ono to four ' inches loni*. The magistrate, in passing sentence, said ■, he cnuld not trust himself to speak of _ Ward's conduct. L At prc.cnt the- boT, who had ■bee-n with . his father only three months, is in a children's home. It wa. 1 ! stated that he bad not cried since he left Chaplin Road — to which he will never return;