Baby

The body of a newly-born child was found in the Aire and Calder Canal at Royston.

The body was found by an unemployed miner whose attention was attracted to it by a gloating bass in the canal. The body was wrapped up in brown paper that had then been placed in a blue raffia bag. When he drew it to the side and opened it he found that it contained the body of a male child about two months old.

When the pathologist examined the body, he said that it had a broad cloth ligature tied round its neck, knotted on the left hand side. He said that the cloth was so tight that the skin was projecting between two of the turns round the neck.

He said that the child had had a separate existence but had not lived long, probably only for a few respirations and that it was possible that the child had suffocated or asphyxiated.