Page:Darkness and daylight (1897) Campbell.djvu/190

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
176
DREADFUL CRUELTY TO CHILDREN.

on the Society's books, was sentenced for one year, and the Judge regretted that he could not order a hundred lashes in addition.

Next follows a case numbered 23,891 in the Report: An anonymous communication received by the Society stated that a child of six years, living with her father and stepmother at No. 403 East One Hundred and Twenty-first Street, was inhumanly treated. An officer called at the apartments and found Jennie Lewis, a tiny, frail child, six years of age, upon her knees, brush in hand, scrubbing the floor, her face covered with bruises. "Mamma has gone out walking," she said, "please go away, for if she comes back and finds I have let any one in she will beat me," — and the little form shivered from fright. The officer tried to quiet her by assurances that she should not be hurt. Her face and body were much discolored and covered with bruises, and her emaciated arms were patched with red spots from pinches. The child at last told her sad story. She once had an own mother, but did not know where she was now. Her "papa's name was Mr. White, now, but it used to be Mr. Lewis." Her own mamma, who, she added, "is dead, I guess," was good to her, but this one bent her and never let her go downstairs, and "yesterday she took me by the hair and jammed my face on the floor, — that's why it looks so now;" and then with a frightened start she added: "You must go now, or I will get beat again."

Examination showed that the father had abandoned his wife and taken the child, going off with another woman. The child's real mother, who had searched for her in anguish, knew nothing of her whereabouts until the newspapers published reports of the case as prosecuted by the Society, when, still hoping to find her child, she inquired at the Society's office and learned the whole truth.

The mother rejoiced as over one risen from the dead, and as she proved honest and worthy the Society gave her the custody of the child, — injured it may be for life in weakened body and crushed spirit, but at least certain of love and care.

Turn now to the Gallery in the President's room in the