BABY-FARMING IN FRANCE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 70, 12 June 1869, Page 6

BABY-FARMING IN FRANCE.

HORRIBLE REVELATIONS

The Assize Court at Earn and Garonne has been occupied in the trial of one of the most revolting cases, which exhibits the acme of cruelty, and remains without a parallel in the history of crime. The drama took place at the small town of Montauban, near Toulouse- Eight women, belonging to the " working classes " were arraigned for child murder, debauchery, conspiracy and practising abortion. What is most singular in the whole affair is, that such a state of depravity cpuld have existed for years, under the very eyes of the authorities without being detected. The profligacy was as open as it was shameful and revolting. " Although eight women wei'e placed in the dock, the interest of the trial was con centrated upon two — namely, Delpech and Coyne. The former is 52 years of age, tall, corpulent, and disgusting. She has been twice imprisoned for theft, and kept since a notorious house of ill-fame. She was a " Lady Macbeth," and illustrated her affection for' a child, and would " while it was smiling in my face, Have pluok'd my nipple from his boneles3 gums And dash'd the brains out." She took to " baby-farming," and the " making them into angels." She truly boasted, that infants once entering her house never left it. Poor girls — servants and milliners — entrusted their illegitimate offspring to her care^ paying either by instalments or in a lump sum. She undertook to nourish and cherish the little strangers, or place them in an asylum at Bordeaux. A mother not being able to find her darling in the asylum, as she was led to believe, was the means of discovering a series of brutal crimes — a veritable massacre of innocents. Delpech confessed the murder of nine infants. Her process to drown them in a basin of water — and to bury them in her kitchen, under the stairs, or throw them down the water-closet. It is said she threw two bodies to the pigs, left them to be eaten by rats, and in one instance is suspected of having cooked portions of the remains. A fire shovel dug the grave in the kitchen, and the child, when too long for its narrow cell, was cut up into morsels to fit in. A similar -plan was pursued to pass the remains flown the water-closet. The prisoner confessed the atrocities with a horrible fullness, exhibiting the manner she cut up the children in her lap — laughing throughout the recital with a revolting cynicism. The Judge failed to rebuke the levity of this ogress. She connived at the debauchery of her own daughter (also one of the accused) at sixteen years of age, and a year afterwards, when the girl was confined, she destroyed the ne\v«born babe by pouring vitrol down its throat! Her daughter becoming- subsequently encienfe, she brought her to the woman Coyne, to have aboi'tion practised, and at the same time learn how the thing was dono — setting up on hor own account subsequently — inventing new and hideous instruments, all of which were exhibited in Court, with phials, jars, decoctions, and other articles of the odious arsenal. The skeletons of seven infants, from a few weeks to seven months old, were also displayed. The first patient Delpech practised abortion upon was her own daughter, to ensure her marriage, the future husband being aware of the proceeding. While Coyne's fee for this crime was as low as one hundi'ed chestnuts and a pair of chickens, Delpech's " honorarium " was as" small as two pounds of brown sugar. Delpech, in the most open manner, offered her services to young women as a practiser of abortion. If they chose to sin, she could easily destroy the evidence of it. The only wonder is that she did not circulate cards. She was nicknamed the " bad cat ; " her house was known by the sign of the " white stone." A resident doctor, over sixty years of age, sent girls to her house to have tli£. evidence of his criminal intercourse destroyed. Delpech had some understanding with the porter of the cemetery, and it is supposed two children were by this agency disposed of. But this woman claimed to be religious. On Christmas eVe last she attended mass and received the sacrament ! She laughed continuously throughout the trial — when her husband's death was announced to her in the Court, she laughed the heartier. To make herself " comical," she used a pair of enormous blue spectacles, which the police removed, and she was constantly demanding a pinch of snuff from the lawyers. The Judge docliued to receive her counsel's application to have her examined as a lunatic. Coyne is aged thirty-eight, extremely handsome —fine, intelligent, aristocratic head, wavy chestnut hair, bluish eyes, and a coquettish appearance. She is called " the beautiful prisoner," and though professionally a midwife, practised abortions." She recommended her clients to give their babies to the kind Delpech to be nursed, dividing the profits. The seven will not be sent to the scaffold; the excitement is to know — Will a too'gallant jury hand Delpech over to the executioner? The' trial has moved the whole of France with horror; and several strongminded ladies — some titled — have sat the trial out. — Scotch paper.

"It is no£ often," says the " D,aylesford Mercury," that we near in this colony of a duel, but one was actually fought last Wednesday evening, at Wood's saw mills, by two men named Charles Eandall and John Broughton. Being both enamoured of the same lady fair, a quarrel arose, which it was l'esolved to settle by moonlight, Messrs. Jones and Phillip's, Mr. Wood's clerks, finding the foolish fellows determined to settle the dispute by an appeal to arms, agreed to act as seconds. The belligerents were accordingly placed twelve paces apart, on an immense heap of sawdust, and care having been taken that the barrels should be leadless, the weapons were discharged. As neither was wounded, the duelists insisted .on a second and a third shot at each other. Previous to handing the pistols back for the last fire, they wore both loaded with red currant jam, and some of the spectators seeing one of the combatants apparently bleeding from the forehead, exclaimed 'He's. hit.' The wounded man, however, declared h.e did not mind the injury, and would have insisted on a fourth shot, had not the seconds declared the ' honour ' of both satisfied. Two holes had also been secretly bored iln-ough. the hat of the other firereater, and for some time he believed that he had a very narrow escape. Both men engaged were all seriousness, and neither flinched in the slightest degree. It was only after the hoax was fairly over they were made aware of the practical joke that had been played at their expense."