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From the Crazy Vault

A Bizarre Discovery: Two Tramps Find a Newly-Born Infant on the Railroad Tracks

Two tramps, traveling from Leesburg, VA to Baltimore, MD, made a bizarre discovery on the railroad tracks near College Park, MD: a newly-born white infant. Read the full story here!

1 min read

This is bizarre, and probably not something you would see in the papers today. We found this printed in the Washington Post on July 17th, 1895.

Hyattsville, Md., July 16.–Two tramps, purporting to be traveling from Leesburg, Va., to Baltimore, Md., found Monday morning about 2 o’clock, near College Park, a newly-born white infant, lying in the middle of the tracks of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The baby was almost nude and was bruised about the hips and head.

The men say they were attracted by the cries of the child, and immediately awakened Mr. David Brown, who lives at College Park. The latter took the baby into his house, and Mrs. Brown washed and dressed it. The little thing is very pretty, and it looks as though the parents might be cultured and refined.

Unfortunately there is not a State institution where the child can be taken, and Justice of the Peace Carr is making an effort to have the child taken to one of the Asylums in Washington or Baltimore.

Some suspicion attaches to the two men who reported the finding of the infant, and an effort has been made by the authorities to ascertain their present whereabouts without success. The child might have been brought there by the men who were paid for their inhuman act.

The theory that the child was dropped from a train is not given much credit, as the blow in falling upon the rough stones, it seems, would have instantly killed the little one.

railroad tracks
railroad tracks

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