Starvation & Cruelty to a child. Only 3 years old By its Own Father and a woman with whom he lived N 1 Brighton street, Cromer Street

Crime broadside printed with an account of a child cruelty case that involved the starvation of a three year old child by his father John Taylor and his partner Mary Beaten who lived at 1 Brighton Street, Cromer Street. Although the child survived its ordeal the broadside notes that when he appeared in Court 'the spectators were horror struck to see the mere skeleton' of a child 'whose flesh did hardly cover its skin and marks of bruises and discolourations'. The couple were found guilty and committed to prison. The broadside, printed in two columns concludes with a poem that summarises the case in verse.

Broadsides recounting particularly gruesome and scandalous crimes and murders were mass printed and cheaply sold to newshungry Londoners. Primarily published by a small number of printers many of whom, such as Thomas Birt, James Catnach and James Pitts were based around the Seven Dials area of London the spelling and grammar was often poor and the details not always accurate.