Mr. G. C. T. Bartley, of Ealing, in a short
letter to the Times, describes one of those cases of cruelty which seem so inexplicable, from the entire absence of motive. He found in the Brentford Union, Isleworth, 17 infants, aged from 18 months to 7 years, kept in two attics, one, the day-room, 18ft. by 15 ft., and the other 181t. by 22 ft., with a foul closet attached. The charge of them is entrusted to an old pauper of 79, and a young woman ; and -though the children are "as healthy as it is possible for them to be," none of them have been out of the attics for nine months, or it may be, ever since they were born, for nobody in the Union knows when they were last in the air. There is every reason to believe, nevertheless, that the Union has a doctor, a chaplain, and a workhouse-master, not to mention a Board of Guardians, including, it may be safely assumed, at least one man who does not think childhood and poverty crimes sufficient to justify nine months' close imprisonment, without exercise even in
a yard. •
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