Another murder of three children at once. On Wednesday a
woman named Esther Lack, wife of a night watchman in South- wark, was found to have murdered three of her children, aged nine, five, and one. It appears that the woman had recently hal three children at a birth, and ever since that time had been haunted with the idea that they were as oppression to her husband, and that she would not be able to feed her children She therefore cut the throats of three. There appears to be little doubt that though not strictly insane, she is a moody woman, always ill, always " strange," and always very uncertain in her treat- ment of the children. The strangest part of the affair is that there was no actual want in the house, the husband earning 11. a week, while relatives profess themselves perfectly willing to have taken charge of the children. The mother appears to have been under the impression that she would be compelled to go into hospital, and the children would then be " at the mercy of any- body."
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