ABANDONED CHILD.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 27 November 1926, Page 5

ABANDONED CHILD.

A TRAGIC STORY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) ■CHRISTCHURCH, Friday. , On returning home on the night of November 16, the matron of the Salvation Army Maternity Home at. Christchurch found that a month-old 'baby had been left in a dress basket on the verandah. A note was attached which read, “Phyllis Brown, please keep baby -until I call for her.” The mother of the child, a married woman aged 31, appeared before Messrs F. 11. Christian and W. E. Simes, J.P.’s, in the Magistrate’s Court to-day, and pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawfully abandoning the child. Mr J. B. Batchelor appeared for accused. The driver.of one of the service cars running between Kaikoura and Christchurch stated that, accused was one of his passengers on November 16. AH .the luggage she had' was a wicker basket, and she carried a baby. She asked to be put. down at the Carlton Hotel, Bealey Avenue, saying that she would be returning north on the Thursday following. Shq did not do so. The driver of another car said that accused came to him and said that she had missed Pope’s car, and wanted to gpt. back to Blenheim. He .took her as far as Domett, and transferred her to another car fqr Kaikoura. She did not have a baby with her.

A tragic story was told of how the woman after the birth of three previous children had had to go to a mental hospital, and she was now separated from her husband. Senior-Sergeant J. P. Clarkson, of Blenheim, said that he interviewed the accused at Canvastown on November 22. She made a statement, in which she said that she was a married woman living auart from her husband. The baby w r as born in a motor-car on the way to the Wairau Maternity Hospital. Later accused got work at Canvastown, and remained there until November 16, when she came to Christchurch, and left the baby on the verandah of the Salvation Army Maternity Home. She intended it do be kept there for about, two months, by which time she expected to be in a position to put it in a home.

Detective J. Thompson, who was present. at an interview between accused and her father, said that she told her father that she was with her husband in the North Island between last Christmas and New Year. She had had four other children, two of whom were in the Methodist Home, Papanui, one as with her husband’s parents, and the other, about 12 months old, in a home at Sumner. To Mr Bachelor:: On three occasions shortly after the birth of the child accused had been an inmate of the mental hospital. Accused pleaded guilty, and was committed to the Supremo Court for sentence. Mr Batchelor asked for the' suppression of the accused’s name, saying that the case was one of the tragedies of life. An order was made accordingly. Pending her appearance before the Supreme Court accused is to remain at the Salvation Army Home.