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Kentish Gazette. Tuesday 02 August 1864.
Child born under a tent in a lane without assistance.
On Tuesday, and inquest was held at the "Duke William Inn," Hartley,
before W. T. Neve, Esq, coroner, and a respectable jury, of whom Mr.
William Unicume was chosen foreman, touching the death of the female
infant child, aged five days, of Celia Turrent, the wife of Henry
Turrent, a travelling tinman, which was supposed to have died from
suffocation. Judith Kemp, the wife of William Kemp, of Hartley, labourer, deposed
that on the afternoon of the 15th instant, Henry Turrent came to her and
said his wife was in labour up the lane, and asked her to come and see
her; on going she found the mother under a tent by the side of a road;
she told her she had just been delivered; the child was lying at her
feet and exposed to the sun. She then covered the child up. The mother
said she had been delivered a month earlier than she expected; after
doing what was necessary she left the child with the mother. She visited
the mother again on Saturday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and found the
child going on favourably. The child appeared to fret at times; it was
laid on some straw on the ground. On Thursday morning Turrent came for
her again about six o'clock, and told her the child was dead. She went
to the mother immediately, and found the child lying at the side of its
mother, quite dead. Turrent stated to her that the child died of
convulsions. The parents said they were asleep at the time it died,
there did not appear to have been sufficient straw for the child to have
been smothered, as there was a sheet over the straw. Dr. Jobson depose that on Thursday afternoon, he, with Mr. Easby, made a
post mortem examination of the child. They found no external marks of
violence; the child was very small and might have been a fortnight
before its time. On examining the brain they found the blood vessels
congested, and the brain itself very soft; there was a considerable
quantity of serum covering the brain, being the effect of previous
congestion; the lungs were healthy; in his opinion the congestion of the
brain and consequently effluxion upon the brain, nothing would be so
likely to cause it as the exposure to the sun soon after birth, and the
heat of the tent, and the fact of the birth having been premature, would
cause a child to be susceptible to heat. William Easby, of Cranbrook, assisted to Mr. Deans, corroborating. The jury Returned a verdict, "Died from natural causes." |
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Maidstone Telegraph. 5 June 1869.
Leaving horses on the highway.
William Merritt, wagoner to Mr. White, timber merchant, Maidstone, was
summoned by Superintendent Morgan for leaving a wagon and horses on the
highway, in front of the "Duke William," at Hartley, on the 3rd of May.
Defendant admitted the fact, and further stated that he had done the
same for the past 10 years. He was partaking of refreshments at the
"Duke," whilst his horses were also eating from their nose bags.
The magistrates thought defendant should have left someone in charge of
the horses as they might have run away.
A young man name Waghorn was summoned for a similar offence at the same
time and place.
The Bench fined defendants 2s. 6d. each and 11s costs.
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