ABSTRACT
Mr. Payne held an inquest on Friday, on the body of William Waters, a child fifteen months old. The father, who is a private soldier, is abroad with his regiment in New Zealand, but the mother had been reduced to sell her only article of furniture, a bed, in order to get food. The child used to lie upon the bare boards of the room, and fell into a state of serious emaciation from the want of proper nourishment. The mother was refused aid from the fund for the relief of the soldiers’ wives because her husband had enlisted in a wrong name. The child had been sent to the workhouse, but was afterwards sent back to the mother. The jury found “That the child died from disease of the mesenteric glands, brought on by the want of food and exposure, and the jury think that Roberts, Mr. the relieving officer, is highly culpable in sending back the child when the mother was not in a fit state to receive it, and hoped that he would be strongly censured for his conduct.”
