Watertown Republican

ENGLISH WORKHOUSE SYSTEM.

An infant has been killed in Wigan Workhouse under circumstances of great horror. It appears from the evidence given at the inquest upon the body of this little victim of scandalous mismanagement, that when illegitimate children are born in the house, they are taken from their mothers and placed under the care of nurses in the infant ward. This may be necessary, and, therefore, right; but in the selection of nurses the Wigan authorities appear to act in the most reckless and heartless way. One of these dames, examined at the inquest, stated that she was seventy-three years of age, and had lost the use of one arm by a stroke of paralysis. She was too weak to carry a child, but could sit with one on her knee. Another choice specimen of a nurse was seventeen years old, described by the doctor as "imbecile," and her talk was so "soft" that it was with difficulty she made herself understood.

Such being the condition of the nurse-power in the infant ward, we are not surprised that when Susannah Bannister, the mother of the child, who has just been workhoused out of the world, gave up her infant, she requested that it might be placed in safer hands than those of Kitty Dawber, the idiot girl. The assistant matron, however, declared that nurses were scarce just then, and a better one than "soft" Kitty Dawber could not be found until some fresh woman entered the house.

When the "soft" Kitty was in possession of her tender charge, she stripped the little creature with the intention of washing it. She took her station in front of the fire, with a bucket of what is described as "very hot water" by her side, into which she plunged the hapless child, scalding it from head to foot. Idiotic Kitty Dawber paid no attention to the little creature's screams, but perseveringly rubbed it with flannel. This part of the horrible process being finished, Kitty took the child on her knee and rubbed off large pieces of skin from the red, scalded flesh with a coarse, rough towel! The paralytic woman saw the error of this proceeding, and exclaimed to Kitty, "Does't na see thou'rt rubbing all the skin off?"

This awful but grotesque tragedy was performed on Monday. The poor child lingered in agony till Wednesday, when death released it from workhouse care. Kitty Dawber was apprehended, and the local magistrates are exercising their wits to discover the amount of guilt an idiot girl manifested in ignorantly boiling a baby, under the delusion she was giving it a gentle wash.-Weekly Times.