Now! Then! A toddler encounters her father’s opium in their home on Chapel Lane, Hull

30 June 1828: A toddler encounters her father’s opium in their home on Chapel Lane, Hull

Hull Packet. 1828/07/01. Another Death by Poison. Hull. Get it:

Excerpt

A woman, named North, the wife of a labourer residing in a small court in Chapel Lane, who is in the habit of taking opium, had carelessly left a piece of that noxious drug upon a table. About seven o’clock last evening, she missed it; and suspecting that one of her children had taken it up, questioned her closely. The little girl denied having meddled with it, notwithstanding a flogging which the mother administered for the purpose of inducing confession; and the latter concluded that it had been thrown away. After the child had taken her tea, she was undressed and put to bed. She was shortly afterwards observed to change colour, and a slight mucus to issue from her mouth. The mother, conjecturing the worst, conveyed her to Mr Fielding’s, surgeon, where the stomach-pump was applied for nearly an hour, without those beneficial effects which would probably have resulted had it been earlier resorted to. The child soon sank into a state of insensibility, from which it passed imperceptibly into death. The agony of the unfortunate mother is truly pitiable.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.
Abbreviations:

ER: East Riding
GM: Greater Manchester
NR: North Riding
NY: North Yorkshire
SY: South Yorkshire
WR: West Riding
WY: West Yorkshire

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Original

ANOTHER DEATH BY POISON.-It again becomes our painful duty to record one of those fatal results arising from the culpable negligence of parents, the consequences of which must (if not destitute of feeling) embitter their after lives. A woman, named North, the wife of a labourer residing in a small court in Chapel-lane, who is in the habit of taking opium, had carelessly left a piece of that noxious drug upon a table. About seven o’clock last evening, she missed it; and suspecting that one of her children had taken it up, questioned her closely. The little girl, who was about three years old, denied having meddled with it, notwithstanding a flogging which the mother administered for the purpose of inducing confession; and the latter concluded that it had been thrown away. After the child had taken her tea, she was undressed and put to bed. She was shortly afterwards observed to change colour, and a slight mucus to issue from her mouth. The mother, conjecturing the worst, conveyed her to Mr. Fielding’s, surgeon, where the stomach-pump was applied for nearly an hour, without those beneficial effects which would probably have resulted had it been earlier resorted to. The child soon sank into a state of insensibility, from which it passed imperceptibly into death. The agony of the unfortunate mother is truly pitiable.

228 words.