The next complaint was more successful. Mrs. Higdon was accused of
caning two Barnardo children, discourtesy to the managers, and our dear
old friendly complaint, fire-lighting, once more. These complaints, like
the previous ones, were completely false and unfounded. During these
complaints Mrs. Higdon was helping the reverend gentleman with his
lantern entertainments.
_John Bull_, referring to the matter, says: “The role of scape-goat was
reserved for the schoolmaster’s wife.”
At the last election the schoolmaster, with five labourers of his own way
of thinking, was triumphantly returned to the Parish Council. Room was
made for them by the unseating of the rector and the leading farmers. In
these striking circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that the
managers of the school should have entreated the County Education
Committee to remove them “to a more genial sphere of work.”
An early opportunity was found to charge her with the ill-treatment of
two of her pupils and—whisper it with bated breath—“intentional
discourtesy to the rector’s wife.”
That two respectable teachers should be hounded out of house and home
simply upon the testimony of a poor Barnardo waif—who privately denied
what she publicly confessed, excusing herself by saying “she would have
been thrashed by her foster-mother if she had not said so” seems beyond
belief.
Still the fact remains that Mrs. Higdon did not cane the child, as the
whole of the school children can prove. She does not belong to the cane
family. Furthermore, the sequel to this complaint proves her entire
innocence. Pity, indeed, is it that those who were seeking excuses for
her removal could not find a _single_ parent or child belonging to the
village to complain of Mrs. Higdon’s treatment of them.