| Isabelle Maclean the wife of the man committed on Saturday, was brought up by
Police Sergeant Geddes charged with being drunk and disorderly and causing an
obstruction in Northampton Street between nine and ten o’clock on Saturday
night. The defendant who protested with tears that she had never before seen the
inside of a Police Station, but whose appearance very much belied her assertion
carried in her arms a poor emaciated child of about five years of age. The
Superintendent of Police said there was no doubt this little object was carried
about by the defendant to excite compassion, the child’s knees being in a
dreadful state of disease. On the bandages in which the poor little creatures
were enveloped being removed, a sight was presented which fully substantiated
the superintendent’s statement and caused almost everyone in the court to turn
away in pity mingled with disgust. The magistrates sent the defendant to the
House of Correction for fourteen days with hard labour and directed that the
childshould be sent to the Union. (1858) |