parts, and a discharge ensued in consequence, it would certainly be a species of violence; but, in the present case, there was nothing to show me that any friction had taken place externally, or that any attempt had been made to do anything wrong. I am confident that the discharge was not, in any respect, the consequence of friction from the penis of any man. If there is off" a prisoner. I had, however, in common with my professional brethren who were present, a much higher object in view: that of explaining to the court and the public the delusion under which the whole case was got up, and of showing that the crime had not been committed. It was manifest, however, throughout, that the court was rather against the prisoner, and that the crown counsel earnestly sought a convic-violence, it would cause pain, but I could tion. Prof. Geoghegan swore with regard to the state of uncleanliness in which he found the child, and said she had "a chronic disease of, I should say, several weeks' stand find not a trace of violence upon this child." The first witness examined for the de- One would have thought that this evidence fence was Mr. Cusack; that portion of his might have induced the crown to give up testimony which particularly bears upon the case; but the lawyers only took it up the case is as follows: "I examined the the more determinedly, and, seeing that two children (Cosgrave, the prosecutrix, disease from natural causes was established, and Delmere); both were affected with the changed their hand, and endeavoured to same complaint. They were filthy, and prove, by the subsequent witnesses, that, achad a discharge from the pudendum. There knowledging the child was in the diseased was a crust surrounding the parts upon the state described at the time the crime was true skin, which arose from the deposits committed, still penetration between the from the discharge. This child had not the labia, without what might be styled vioslightest mark of violence; and it was sim-lence, but as a simple application of the ply a case of a disease which all medical parts, might have taken place; as the chief men have met with, and which is very com-justice described it, the introduction of the mon among children who are strumous, or parts without force, and even to the "hunbadly cared, or who have been in contact dredth part of an inch." with each other. It is usually found in low life, but sometimes it is found in the better walks of life, where children have suffered from other complaints tending to weaken the constitution; and, I confess, I was hor-ing. In my opinion, it was not possible ror-stricken at the time to hear that the pri- that the disease could be of one week's soner at the bar was accused of such a standing, and I am further of opinion that crime. I was as convinced as I am of my the disease could not have resulted from existence, that there was no violence offer-violence of any undiseased man. Had the ed or attempted upon this child, and that assemblage of appearances I witnessed rethis was a common disease which is uni-sulted from violence on the part of an unversally known to the profession. I conversed with Sir Astley Cooper on this very subject, and I entirely concur with what appears in his lectures, that numbers have suffered unjustly from such charges as the present, being fabricated by the mothers of children." This evidence, which was given in a very decided and energetic manner, seemed to produce a considerable sensation in court; on which the lord chief justice and the crown counsel cross-examined the witness to a considerable extent, in order to show that, although there were no marks of violence, "a penetration between the labia, accompanied with force, but not suffi-it was of long standing-and, second, if cient to do any injury to the surface," might have occurred. In answer to this mode of putting the question, the witness said: " If the penis was brought into contact with the diseased man, there would have been other signs of violence present, which were not visible in this case. If violence had been committed upon this child by a man lying on her upon the hay, so as to hurt her in that way, I think she would not be able to walk over to Ship Street in the evening and home again the next morning." The crown pressed this witness also upon the subject of the friction alluded to by Dr. Ireland. His answer was: In my opinion, violent friction by a man against the private parts of a child could not have possibly produced the disease I saw, because-first, 66 there had been sufficient violence to produce such a copious discharge, it would have produced other signs that were not present in this instance." Mr. Corballis, thers for the result of violence; and also to show that no crime had been committed. Fortunately, the court retired for a short space, and time was thus allowed for sending for the lady who was the principal wit Q. C., then put the following question, which evidently threw overboard all the previous medical testimony, and is one upon which the most serious consequences may hereafter hinge: "Is it possible that, supposing the child to have had this disease atness for the alibi. Regarding this portion the time of the alleged offence, a man might, on the 15th of July, have introduced the extremity of the penis between the labia and no further?" Dr. Geoghegan said: "It is; but, if such an attempt were made, considering the great disparity of the parts of the man and child, I think it could not be done without a certain degree of laceration." of the defence, it will be enough to say that it was satisfactorily proved that from halfpast nine in the morning until half past three in the afternoon of the day upon which the crime was said to have been committed (between twelve and one o'clock), the prisoner was engaged driving, and never returned to his stables. The crown, thus foiled, endeavoured to break down the alibi by a lengthened cross-examination, but ineffectually, as, by a very remarkable concatenation of circumstances, the usual time for the man's return to the stables was interrupted upon this particular day, and he was, upon the whole, nearly seven hours without returning to the stables. A child might possibly mistake or forget the day, but the mother and sister had fixed the precise date with such certainty as to leave no loophole for escape upon this point. Dr. Churchill was next examined, who gave similar testimony to the foregoing with respect to there not being the slightest evidence of violence, and that the disease was ordinary infantile leucorrhoea. He was cross examined at considerable length, in order to elicit an admission of the point on which the crown then relied-that "slight penetration, without giving pain," might, notwithstanding the state in which the children were, have taken place. His answer was: "I think penetration in a child so Upon seeing the turn the alibi took, the young, and where the organs are so dispro-lord chief justice rather testily said to Mr. portionate, would give pain." Each of these Rolleston, one of the prisoner's counsel, three medical men also deposed as to the" Why didn't you give us the alibi first, healthy state of the prisoner, whom they had minutely examined. instead of treating us to a medical dissertation?" He very properly answered, that The counsel for the defence now said, he did not like to produce a lady in court, they saw clearly that, notwithstanding the and that he thought the medical evidence high medical evidence which was brought would have been quite sufficient. The forward, the crown were determined upon court then appealed to the crown counsel as a conviction, that the court were with to whether they could possibly go on with them, and that, if the jury brought in a ver- the case after the alibi. The case was then dict of guilty, the man would certainly given up, and an issue having been handed be transported; that there was no use into the jury in both cases, that of Cosgrave, offering more medical testimony, and that just related, and also the child Delmere, nothing but the alibi, to which I have al- the jury, by direction of his lordship, acready alluded, could possibly save him. It quitted the prisoner. was therefore thought advisable not to pro- Now, with regard to the case of the child duce any more medical witnesses, but to Delmere, to which I have already alluded have recourse to the alibi, which was not at page 157, and who swore before the mabrought forward in the first instance for two gistrate to the committal of the crime upon reasons: first, because it would be neces- the 15th July, at one o'clock, the same day sary to produce in court a lady whom the and hour upon which the child Cosgrave prisoner was driving through the town at said she had been violated-upon procuring the time of the alleged offence, and for more copies of the informations two days after than two hours afterwards; and, secondly, they were sworn, I was much astonished to because I myself, and a large body of the find that the date of the offence in this case profession here, were most anxious to have was three days different from that sworn to in a full medical inquiry into the case, in order the first instance, in the viva voce testimony. to show what the disease really was which I immediately applied to the magistrate for had been mistaken by the infatuated mo- an explanation of the circumstance. He to her that the disease the child had was nothing wrong, she was perfectly satisfied, and is now most grateful. I saw the child with Mr. Dwyer about a week ago (August 10). It was delicate and puny-looking; there was some swelling and considerable redness of the labia and external parts, from which, as well as from the vagina, there was a considerable yellowish dis informed me, that he had himself observed the peculiarity of the different date being in the informations which were read over to the child when she came to swear them (after the prisoner had been removed, and the solicitor and myself had left the office), to that which she swore to originally; but that he passed no remark thereon. The clerk who took down the evidence said he had destroyed his notes. Both the ma-charge; but, as the child was kept exceedgistrate and clerk were subpoenaed to the Commission, and would have been examined as to the circumstance, had the crown not given up the case. Both children being tutored, as I believe, into the recital of the same story, they naturally stated that the crime occurred upon the selfsame day and hour, a circumstance which must have attracted the attention of the person who subsequently prepared the information at the police-office, and who must evidently have seen that such an incongruity would have tended to the acquit-curred in the early part of July, one child tal of the prisoner. ingly clean, there was very little excoriation or eczematous rash. Mr. Dwyer was well acquainted with the affection, not only from the description given by Cooper, but from his having had a similar case about eighteen months ago, the particulars of which he has given me, and in which, upon the discovery of the discharge by the mother, she brought an accusation against a man who lodged in the same house, and upon whose knee she saw the child sitting some time before. In Dr. M'Clintock's cases, which both oc was aged three and a half, and the other four and a half years. Mr. Hughes, one of those medical men who appeared on behalf of the prisoner at the Commission, had a case of the nature of the foregoing some time ago. The following is his letter to me upon hearing of the accusation brought against Kane : "A woman brought a daughter of hers, a child apparently under seven years of age, to Jervis street Hospital, stating that she wished to have the girl examined by the surgeon on duty, as she was afraid that the child had been recently abused by a married man, a fellow-lodger of hers. I consequently examined the child, and found her labouring under inflammation of the vagina, accompanied by a profuse mucopurulent discharge. There were, however, no marks of violence on any part of the person of the child; and, after a most care. ful examination of the person of the accused, no trace of disease could be detected on him. The case was investigated at Henry. street Police-office, by Mr. O'Callaghan ; and, as I looked on the case as one of simple vaginal inflammation, which all metro It is unnecessary to enter into the details of the five other cases of vaginal discharge in young children, to which I have already { alluded. In the cases at the Pitt Street Dispensary, the symptoms were somewhat similar to those which formed the subject of the late trial, but the mothers being of a decenter class, and keeping their chil dren cleaner, the extent of disease was not so great. The ages of the children were four and seven years. In that aged four, the mother entertained the same cruel sus. picions, until assured by Dr. Croker of the nature of the affection. In the former case the disease was discovered on the 28th June, and in the latter the 15th of July, the date assigned to the two last cases of violation. The last case which I have heard of occurred about ten days ago. An intelligent woman, residing in a garret in Golden-lane, one of the most unhealthy localities in the city of Dublin, discovered a vaginal discharge in one of her children-a girl be tween four and five years of age. Greatly distressed at the circumstance, she informed her husband, who most properly desired her not to mention it to any of her neigh-politan surgeons not unfrequently meet with bours, but to take the child to a doctor. She brought it to Mr. Dwyer, of Camden street, and, in great anxiety, stated her fears as to the nature of the discharge her child had got. Upon his offering, however-to use his own expression-" to take his oath" among the children of the lower classes of society-the result, in some cases, of extreme uncleanliness; in others, of neglect of the bowels, irritation from the presence of intestinal worms, dental irritation, etc. etc.--the magistrate veryp roperly dismissed the case. named Fitten, was on guard at Kilmainham Hospital on Friday, the 15th August, 1851. Two little girls, daughters of a pensioner, named Fitzpatrick, one aged 61, and the Dr. Beatty, in the article "Rape," in the other about a year older, were remarked Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine, says playing with him during the course of the that in the year 1831 a man was arrested day. In the evening he was seen sitting in the city of Dublin, on a charge of rape with the children upon a bench, and subsecommitted on a child, the only evidence of quently with the younger child on his lap. which was the presence of a purulent dis- Upon the Tuesday following, the younger charge from the pudendum. Popular opin-child complained to her elder sister of havion, as is usual in such cases, ran highing a discharge. The mother was in the against him, and it was only through the habit of changing the children's linen twice positive opinion of an intelligent surgeon a week-on Sundays and Wednesdays. On that the case was explained, and the man Wednesday she remarked the young child's liberated. A case of a somewhat similar linen soiled with a yellowish discharge, nature lately came under the observation of which she found proceeded from the genithe writer. A lady and gentleman cametals. She at once asked the child who had to his house one evening, in a state of great been with her, particularly upon whose lap alarm and excitement, accompanied by their she had lately sat. Fitten, the soldier, child, a girl of four years old, whom they whom both mother and sister had seen her stated to be affected with a terrible disorder, with upon the Friday evening, was named, communicated to her by some person in and the usual course of interrogating (as their employment. They had previously subsequently appeared on the trial) was shown the child to an apothecary, who gone through. The woman rushed with confirmed their worst apprehensions, and at her child to the nearest medical practitioner; once declared that the girl had got a clap. he confirmed her suspicions by telling her On examination, the parts were found in a the child had gonorrhoea. The mother and state resembling that just described, with child proceeded at once "from the doctor's a free purulent discharge; and it was with shop" to the police-office, and made their no small degree of pleasure that the writer complaint; the soldier was arrested; four was able to console the parents by assuring or five informations-which I have exathem that their child was labouring undermined-were sworn by the child as to the no uncommon affection, and that a few days fact; by the mother, as to the discovery of would set all to rights. It has rarely fallen the child's state; by the sister and two solto his lot to witness a more sudden tran-diers, as corroborative evidences of the child sition from grief to joy than this announce-being seen with the soldier at the time and ment effected." Such will, I am sure, be place specified; and by the medical man, the feelings of every humane man-such I as to his having examined the child, and believe to be the bounden duty of every found her private parts in a state of great educated and benevolent practitioner who inflammation, and with a discharge very meets such cases-no matter whether em- much resembling gonorrhoea." The man ployed by the police, performing the office was committed to prison. He was exaof a surgeon or physician to a public insti- } mined, and found perfectly free from either tution, or consulted in private. Such ex-gonorrhoea or syphilis. The case was tried planation should be given in mercy towards the infatuated parents, and the threatened, in some cases the tutored child, as well as in justice towards the accused, and also for the credit of the morals and religion, as well as the honour of the country. The last notable case of this description, which occurred in Dublin, until the date of the present epidemic, was more upon the type of Cooper's, or in accordance with his description, than any I have read of for some time. A soldier, of the 7th Dragoons, before the Chief Baron at the October Commission, 1851. From the amount of corroborative evidence, it was believed there would be a conviction; and, as the man did not bear a very good character in his regiment, there was but little sympathy for him. Mr. Coffey was retained to defend the prisoner. He informs me that as I have already mentioned in a previous part of this communication, as a peculiarity in such cases-he at first felt some hesitation in undertaking the defence of such a case, from several of the parties concerned, as well as an examination of the informations, may be relied upon. It was made a subject of strong observation to the jury, by the prisoner's counsel, that, had the unfortunate soldier been affected with disease, he undoubtedly would be convicted upon the medical testimony, although the man was undoubtedly innocent. Sir Astley Cooper says that he had met thirty such cases in the course of his life, and concludes his observations by saying: especially as, from a perusal of the informations, he thought the prisoner guilty. A medical friend, however, drawing his attention to Cooper's description, he at once saw the similitude, and, acting upon the suggestions therein contained, finally suc ceeded in having the man acquitted. The child swore that the act was committed while she was sitting on the soldier's lap, with his cloak around her. In the crossexamination of the corroborative evidence of the soldiers, it appeared that the sentryan armed man-was walking up and down{“I am anxious that this complaint should be within a few yards of them the whole time, known by every one present, and that the and must have heard the child cry if any remarks which I have made should be cirforce had been employed. Mr. Coffey also culated throughout the kingdom." In the took the precaution of examining the place celebrated case recorded in the early ediwhere the offence was alleged to have been tions of Percival's Medical Ethics, and committed, and directed a surveyor's mea-which occurred in Manchester, in 1791, the surement of the ground to be made. The child absolutely died of the disease, and result was curious, showing that the crime, a verdict of murder was returned by the if committed at all, must have occurred coroner's inquest, against a boy, from the within ten feet of the sentry-box, and with- suspicion that violence had been offered. in view of a guardhouse, which was but "Not many weeks elapsed, however, bethirty feet from where the prisoner sat with fore several similar cases occurred in which the child in his lap. The medical man, in there was no reason to suspect that external his examination, differed from what he violence had been offered; and some in swore in his informations, and then stated which it was absolutely certain that no such that the appearance which he observed, the injury could have taken place." Now, swelling, discharge, etc., "might be the this is exactly what recently occurred in result of violence.' This difference, in his Dublin. First comes the case of Geogheopinion, somewhat like what occurred at gan against Tracy, tried before the Rethe late commission, weakened his testi-corder at the beginning of summer. Not mony in the minds of the jury, particularly many weeks elapsed, however, before eight as he admitted, on cross-examination, that similar cases occurred, in five of which sushe had treated the child for several days for picions and accusations arose; and in three gonorrhoea. The prisoner's counsel read of which the crown prosecuted at the late the statement of Cooper. The surgeon of commission, although offered satisfactory the regiment bore testimony to the healthy proofs of the non-committal of the offence, condition of the man, not only at the time or what perhaps lawyers think of more conof his arrest, but immediately before the sequence, proofs of the impossibility of finddate of the offence, as, being a soldier, heing the prisoners guilty. Before disposing had inspected him weekly. He also bore testimony to the nature of the disease with which children are sometimes affected, and stated that he had met several instances of the kind described by Cooper. The Chief Baron, in charging the jury, said it would be a very happy thing for all parties concerned, if the jury could, after the evidence, come to the opinion that the crime had not been committed, and that the whole was a mistake. The prisoner was acquitted. The case excited much interest, but, owing to the nature of the examination, did not appear in the newspaper reports. The foregoing statement, however, which I received And of the celebrated Manchester case, it is but *See Beck's Medical Jurisprudence. |