MARRIED Couple, in good position, wish to ADOPT CHILD; good home; small premium. – Mrs Cory, Post Office, Cardiff.
Bristol Times & Mirror, 15 June 1895
Polly and Arthur had enjoyed six undisturbed weeks alone in Cardiff. They had money in their pockets from a series of lucrative adoptions, although they had arrived unburdened by any of the children for whom they were ostensibly responsible. Arthur had even secured himself a job working as a commissions agent for a London grain merchant, as he had done previously.
Polly had boosted their income, too: she had adopted a five-year-old girl from Bristol for a handsome premium, and an infant, also for a premium. She was bringing up the baby the only way she knew: with an inadequate diet to keep costs down; a laudanum-based “quietener”, for effortless childcare. By the time Polly and Arthur met mother and her new companion on the platform of Cardiff Station in the middle of July, the infant in Polly’s arms was already beginning to fail.
Granny was soon busy tending to two newly adopted infants of mother’s. Living in close quarters with the Palmers, and seeing the condition of Polly’s infant, could only have added to the old woman’s growing unease. During her brief, five-week stay in Cardiff, she watched the infant deteriorate: it rarely uttered a cry, ate little, and then only reluctantly, and slept for hours. And looking at its fragile limbs, granny can have been in no doubt that the child’s death was imminent. However, without the long experience of infant neglect that both Polly and her mother could boast, granny may not have instantly attributed the infant’s demise to any culpable action of Polly’s.
The Palmers called in a local physician, Dr Parr, to certify the baby’s death. Granny may have given the Palmers the benefit of the doubt, but the doctor was not so accommodating. The child had clearly wasted away; a lack of adequate nutrition was indisputable, though whether through neglect or disease was less easy to ascertain. The woman Palmer said the child was hers; that she had given birth to it in the house. Her mother was a midwife by profession, she said. They had moved to the city, and her mother was advertising her services for the accouchement locally in the press. They had done all they could but the infant had simply failed to thrive.
Dr Parr accepted that the child had been recently born to Mrs Palmer. He accepted, too, that the child had perished as a result of diarrhoea and convulsions, but added a codicil to the death certificate that he suspected a lack of attention at birth had contributed to its demise.
The nine-month-old child adopted by mother in Bristol did not remain long in Cardiff. Mother got up early one morning and left the house with him, telling granny that she had received word from the child’s aunt in London, and was travelling by train into the metropolis that day to meet her and return the boy. Granny had therefore been surprised when mother had returned to the house just three or four hours later. It seemed impossible that she could have travelled to London, handed over the boy and returned to Cardiff, all in such a short time. Nothing further was heard of the child.
The two other infants mother had brought into the house at Cardiff went out again so quietly that granny was barely aware of the moment of their departure.
Inspector Robertson of the Bristol Constabulary continued to hunt the woman responsible for abandoning Bertie Palmer on Durdham Downs. He followed her trail to Cardiff where he had no doubt she would still be adopting babies. The Metropolitan Police had long been accustomed to tracking down those who made a living from the sale and neglect of infants by following up small ads. Robertson probably followed their example.
Dyer was an astute woman with long experience of outwitting the law. Whether alerted by a suspicious response to her advertisements, or tipped off about the “quiet enquiries” of the local police, one thing was clear: she knew her time in Cardiff had come to an abrupt end. Taking with her the child Polly had adopted from Bristol, she left the house and boarded a train to London. Nothing more was seen of the six-year-old girl.
The Palmers did not remain long in Cardiff after mother left. Early in August 1895, they adopted another infant and bided their time before making their next move.