A most extraordinary case was heard before the Lord Chief
Justice at Chelmsford on Saturday. An unmarried woman named Smart gave birth to a seven months' child in the presence of her mother and Eliza Stark. The child was either strangled with a garter and buried in the garden, or born dead and made into a parcel tied up with a garter, and so buried. In either case Eliza Stark saw the act, and she swore in Court that the grandmother strangled the child, that she herself sat by and saw it done, not only without remonstrance, but with the remark, " Please your- self, it is no business of mine." She did not mention the facts, till January 12, the reason being that on January 6, Eliza Smart, the grandmother, had accused her of improper conduct. The Lord Chief Justice charged strongly for acquittal on the capital charge, believing that the witness had misrepresented the facts out of revenge. If Mrs. Smart had been guilty, she would not have ventured to attack the witness. The jury acquiesced in this view, and acquitted the prisoner of all but concealment of birth. Under that view Eliza Stark is a murderer of the worst kind, but apparently she is not to be tried.
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