Baby

A newly-born child died from cerebral haemorrhage.

A 30-year-old woman was tried for its murder but acquitted after it was heard that the case was only one of suspicion against her.

A woman, a widow, whose child it was had lived in Heaton Grove and as she was about to be confined she read in the newspaper an advert that read, 'Child wanted to nurse by respectable people without children, apply Walker's Buildings, Felling Shore' along with the name of the woman who was tried.

The woman said that she then communicated with the woman at Felling Shore who then came to see her at her own home and asked her whether she wished to have the child nursed or adopted, stating that her terms were 5s a week for nursing or £15 for adoption, taking the child off her hands altogether.

The woman later took a cab to Felling Shore where she gave birth to the child and then went home.

She said that on the following Tuesday she received a letter from the woman at Felling Shore that was written on the Monday stating that her child was doing well and had taken the bottle but it was determined that the child had in fact already died on the Sunday from cerebral haemorrhage.

The woman in her defence said that she had written the letter at that time because she felt that the mother might suffer shock at the news considering that she had just given birth.