AND EAST CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND NEWS. NO. 440 - Eighth Week in Quarter Registered for Transmission ABroad. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1874. PRICE 1D. __________________________________________________ CHARGE OF CHILD MURDER. ANN ELLIS, domestic servant, aged 22 years, neither reads nor writes, was charged with feloniously, wilfully, and of malice aforethought, killing and murdering her female infant child, at the township of Ambleside on the 17th of January last. The HON. A. ELIOTT appeared for the prosecution. Prisoner was undefended, and his Lordship requested MR. BRADLEY to watch the case on her behalf. On being arraigned prisoner said she did not kill the child. The case excited the deepest sympathy in the court. The poor girl seemed to be suffering under considerable mental depression, and his Lordship ordered her to be accommodated with a chair. MR. ELIOTT having detailed the circumstances at length to the jury, MR. BRADLEY submitted to the Judge that there was not sufficient evidence to support the grave charge of murder. There was no evidence of malice prepense or aforethought. THE JUDGE: I can't say there is no evidence, but perhaps you might advise your client to plead guilty to the concealment of birth. - By the sanction of the Judge, the charge of murder was withdrawn by counsel, and the jury, by the direction of his Lordship, returned a verdict on the minor offence. His Lordship, in passing sentence, said: Ann Ellis, you have pleaded guilty to a charge of having had a child, and then endeavouring by secretly disposing of the body to conceal that fact. You have been indicted of a more serious charge of actually taking away the life of that child. Looking at all the evidence that would have been given against you, the court sincerely hopes that that charge was not founded on fact. The court also hopes that the child you produced was dead, and that you did not attempt to take away its life; but that you secreted the body in a way to avoid the shame of having giving birth to a child. The legislature on account of the number of cases of this kind has made this offence punishable with two years' imprisonment, whether the child was dead or alive, to protect the lives of children; therefore, the law had made it a very serious offence. The sentence of the court is that you be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for four calendar months.