Employed to kill a pig

The following distressing circumstance occurred at Bilston, in Staffordshire: a butcher had been employed to kill a pig, at a house at that place; and, after having hung it up, he imprudently left his knife behind him, when a boy, about four years old, who had seen the pig .killed, took the knife, and (shocking to relate) stabbed an infant, under the ear, as it lay asleep in a cradle; alarmed at the blood which flowed from the wound, he immediately ran into the yard, to his mother, who was drawing water at a well; the sight of the bloody knife, and the boy's cries, so terrified the poor woman, that the windlass slipped from her hands, and struck the boy with such force on the head, that it killed him on the spot! The distress of the mother, after losing two children in this dreadful and sudden manner, may be better conceived than described.