"'Mr. Gardiner, the clerk of the Manchester union, while registering the causes of death, deemed the cause assigned by a labouring man for the death of a child unsatisfactory, and staying to inquire, found that popular rumour assigned the death to wilful starvation. The child (according to a statement of the case) had been entered in at least _ten_ burial clubs; _and its parents had had six other children, who only lived from nine to eighteen months respectively_. They had received from several burial clubs twenty pounds for _one_ of these children, and they expected at least as much on account of this child. An inquest was held at Mr. Gardiner's instance, when several persons, who had known the deceased, stated that she was a fine fat child shortly after her birth, but that she soon became quite thin, was badly clothed, and seemed as if she did not get a sufficiency of food.... The jury, having expressed it as their opinion that the evidence of the parents was made up for the occasion and entitled to no credit, returned the following verdict:—Died through want of nourishment, but whether occasioned by a deficiency of food, or by disease of the liver and spine brought on by improper food and drink or otherwise, does not appear. "'Two similar cases came before Mr. Coppock, the clerk and superintendent-registrar of the Stockport union, in both of which he prosecuted the parties for murder. In one case, where three children had been poisoned with arsenic, the father was tried with the mother and convicted at Chester, and sentenced to be transported for life, but the mother was acquitted. In the other case, where the judge summed up for a conviction, the accused, the father, was, to the astonishment of every one, acquitted. In this case the body was exhumed after interment, and _arsenic was detected in the stomach_. In consequence of the suspicion raised upon the death on which the accusation was made in the first case, the bodies of two other children were taken up and examined, when _arsenic was found in their stomachs_. In all these cases payments on the deaths of the children were insured from the burial clubs; the cost of the coffin and burial dues would not be more than about one pound, and the allowance from the club is three pounds. "'It is remarked on these dreadful cases by the superintendent-registrar, _that the children who were boys, and therefore likely to be useful to the parents, were not poisoned_; the female children were the victims. It was the clear opinion of the medical officers that infanticides have been committed in Stockport to obtain the burial money.'"