An extraordinary case of baby-farming has been discovered at Liverpool.
A man named Barns, formerly a solicitor's clerk, and his wife, have been committed for trial on a charge of murder, and it is asserted that they have made a trade of murdering illegitimate children. For the past twelve years they have advertised their readiness to adopt, and the police declare that every year they have received from nine to twelve children, who remain to be accounted for. They affected deep religious feeling, accepted premiums according to the means of those who entrusted the children to thorn, the usual rate being £30, and then, it is alleged, got rid of the children by different means, abandonment being one, and actual starvation another. The defence is, of course, that the children died natural deaths, and the evidence, except as to one or two cases, will, it is believed, be imperfect, the parents of the children being in many cases resolute not to come forward.
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