SHE COULDN'T GIVE UP THE BABY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 217, 22 June 1877, Page 5

SHE COULDN'T GIVE UP THE BABY.

Poor Mrs. Anna Walsh, of No. 56 South Fifth Avenue, New York, called on Superintendent Walling last week for relief. She was i crying bitterly, and wringing her hands : — " I was in the office of the Pennsylvania Railroad, corner of Spring street and Broadway, about an hour ago, sir ; I wint there to ax for ere a job of washing \ or -scrubbing, if they had any; my baby was in my arms, and — !" (with a fresh outbreak), "it was a darlint ! the purtiest baby lyou ever see, sir. What'U Ido at all, at all ! Well, sir, a gentle- * man axed me, in fun like, ay I'd give him my baby. Sure I thought ' he was only humbugging, and wid that he gey the little crathur a cint and put it in her hand himself. Thin he ax'd me to give him the child and I gey it to him, thinking he only wanted to hould it for a minit. But before I knew what he was about he walked straight out iv the place and was up the street a piece before I kern to me sinses enough to folly him. Thin I saw him making his way through the crowd, an' he was gone before I could overtake him. Oh, wirra ! wirra ! what'll Ido ? What'll Ido at all !" " What on earth did you give the man your child for ?" said the Superintendent. " Arrah, sure, I thought he was only foolinV* The poor foolish creature sobbed more bitterly than ever. " What had I letter do about it P" asked Captain Copeland. " Send out a general alarm at once and get a description of the man. Go with that gentleman, my good woman, and he will do his best for you." " Oh, dear ! Oh, dear ! How will I face home widout my baby ? What'll my mother and thim all say to me or think of me ?" said Anna, as clapping her hands frantically again and again she followed Captain Copeland out. Investigation showed that the man who took the child was tall, slender, with gray hair and whiskers, dark clothes, and a tall silk hat. He bought a ticket for Mobile. There was a rather serious sequel to this story. On the same evening a gentleman of prepossessing appearance and benevolent countenance presented himself at headquarters, and, on being introduced to Inspector McDermott, said that he was the stranger from Mobile who had carried off Anna Walsh's child. " I will be frank about the matter," said he. "lam a man of family. I have six children, but every soul of them is darkcomplexioned. They have jet black eyes, and the raven's plumage that you hear so many things likened to is not a circumstance to their hair. Well, I'll admit it's a curious fancy, but somehow I ■wanted a light-haired, blue-eyed child. To-day I was in the office of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, when a ragged, unkempt woman came in, who had in her arms the very embodiment of what I wanted. There was an infant with a chubby face, flaxen hair, and eyes as blue as the sky, but covered with tatters, and, I may add, with a layer of dirt about half an inch deep spread over its winsome countenance. I saw the woman was poor, and I asked her in downright earnest if she would part with the child. She consented, I thought seriously, and so away I carried it. I went to my hotel, presented it to my wife, and now you wouldn't know that little creature in the new suit and the other fixings they have put on it. I really intended to adopt it, but I have no idea of carrying it away against its mother's will. I heard about her complaint here, and so I came to see about the matter." While the stranger was speaking, Detective Jerry Wood entered the office, bringing with him a tearful, dishevelled woman, who seemed a very blustering Niobe, indeed, the moment she caught sight of the Inspector's companion. " There he is," she shrieked, rather than cried, " that's the man that stole my darling ! I want justice upon him here, and I'll have it." The woman was calmed, and, indeed,"was no other than Mrs. Anna Walsh, the missing child's mother. The stranger's desire to adopt her little one was explained to her, and he himself pressed her to go with him to his hotel and see it in its new clothing. The mother, somewhat mollified, in fact, hesitating about what answer she would give, now that a future far beyond her expectations presented itself to her little one, wavered and faltered, and at last went off with the strange gentleman to his hotsl, with her mother's desire to have the infant under her eyes struggling with her wish to see its comfort and its well being insured. At the hotel the mother was shown her child arrayed in apparel the like of which it had never worn before, but the sight only .brought out her maternal instincts afresh, and, clasping the little (|[one in her arms, she claimed it for her own, and indignantly repudiated any advances on the part of its self-constituted pareut. The upshot of the affair was that both mother and baby repaired to their obscure lodgings, the lattei 1 , however, somewhat the better for clothing than it had been on leaving that abode. — Pilot.