Baby

The body of a newly-born female child was found in a garden on Brookland Road, Stamford Hill.

It was found by a Leadenhall Street shipbroker in his garden.

There was a cut in the cheek of the infant and a wound in the throat  2½in long and two other smaller wounds to the neck.

It was determined that the cuts had been made whilst the child was alive and that its cause of death was the wound to the throat. However, the doctor said that he could not say that the infant had been completely born at the time of its death.

The Coroner then noted that there was a curious point of law in connection with the case, that being that if the child was criminally injured during birth and died before it was completely born that that was no murder or crime.

He stated that the Attorney General in the House of Commons had stated in 1878 that if in the course of birth a mother, midwife or any bystander deliberately inflicted any injury upon a child before it had an entirely separate existence, that not only had murder not been committed, but that there was no punishable offence under law.

The Coroner noted that that was the law at the time and that he thought that jury would agree that it should be altered.

The jury then found that the injuries had been inflicted by some person or persons unknown, but that there was insufficient evidence to show that the infant was completely born at the time of its death.