Odger's English Common Law

CONCEALMENT OF BIRTH. 309
child was afterwards found in her room or in a box of hers
or in some other place to which she would have had access.
Thus a woman apparently pregnant, while staying at an inn at Stafford,
received by post on August 28th, 1870, a Rugby newspaper with the Rugby
postmark upon i't. On the same day her appearance and the state of her
room indicated that she had been delivered of a child. She left for
Shrewsbury next morning carrying a parcel. That afternoon the dead
body of a newly-born child, wrapped in a Rugby Gazette of August 27th,
1870, bearing the Rugby postmark, was found in the ladies' waiting-room
at Stafford railway station. There is a railway from Stafford to Shrewsbury ;
but, as there was no evidence that the woman had been to the Stafford railway
station, it was held that there was no sufficient proof that the body
found there was that of her child. 1
(iii.) The endeavour to conceal the birth is the gist of the
offence, and the secret act of disposal must be done with a
view to such concealment. It is always open to the prisoner
to urge that no concealment was intended and to prove that
she had told her friends of her condition before her confine-
ment. So, too, the fact that she had made preparations,
e.g., by summoning a doctor or making clothes for the child,
would go far with the jury to show that no concealment had
been intended. 2
4. Attempt to commit Suicide.
It is a misdemeanour at common law for any one to attempt
to kill himself; for suicide, if accomplished, is a felony.
This offence is triable at Quarter Sessions, and is punishable
with imprisonment for two years with hard labour. 8
It has
been decided that attempted suicide is not an attempt to
murder within 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, s. 15."
5. Ill-treatment or Neglect of persons unable to take care
of themselves.
If, as we have seen, death results from or is accelerated by
ill-treatment or neglect, those who had charge of the deceased
may be indicted for manslaughter. .
But our law also deems
such conduct criminal where death does not result. If a
i B. v. Williams (1871), 11 Cox, 684.
2 B. v. Eigley (1830), 4 C. & P. 366.
8 R. v. Mann, [1914] 2 K. B. 107.
' R. v. Burgess (1862), L. & C. 258 ; and see ante, p. 282.