JANE TRAINER, a colored child, about ten years old, in the possession of Mrs. Rose Cooper, alias Porter, (a woman admitted by her counsel to be a common prostitute,) was brought before Judge Duer, of New York City, by a writ of habeas corpus, which had been applied for by Charles Trainer, the father of the child, (a free colored man, who had followed the parties from Mobile to New York,) and who desired that the custody of his daughter’s person should be granted to him. [June, 1853, and previous.] Judge Duer decided that it was not within his jurisdiction to determine to whom the custody of the child belonged; the Supreme Court of New York must decide that.  Judge D. proposed to both parties that the child should be put into his hands, and he would provide a proper person for her care and education, but the woman (Porter) would not consent to this.  She evidently designed to train up the child for a life of shame, and perhaps of slavery also.  The case was brought by a writ of habeas corpus, before Judge Barculo, of the Supreme Court, sitting at Brooklyn.  The effort to serve the writ was at first defeated by the notorious New York bully, Captain Isaiah Rynders, acting, it was said, under the advice of James T. Brady, counsel for Mrs. Porter.  For this interference with, the law, Rynders and some others were arrested and taken before Judge Barculo, who let them off on their making an apology!  The second attempt to serve the writ on the child was more successful.  After hearing counsel, Judge Barculo adjudged “that the said Charles Trainer is entitled to the care and custody of said Jane Trainer, and directing her to be delivered to him as her father,” &c.  In giving his decision, Judge B. said, “It is not to be assumed that a child under fourteen years of age is possessed of sufficient discretion to choose her own guardian; a house of ill-fame is not a suitable place, nor one of its inmates a proper person for the education of such a child.”  Jane Trainer’s mother was afterwards bought from slavery in Mobile, Alabama, and enabled to join her husband and child.

     In 1854, Charles Trainer obtained a verdict in King’s County
     Court, New York, for $775 damages, against Rose Cooper.

[N.B.  Though not strictly a case under the Fugitive Slave Law, this is very properly inserted here, as the whole spirit of the woman, of her counsel, and of the means he took to accomplish his base designs, was clearly instigated by that Law, and by the malignant influences it brought into action against the colored people, both slave and free.]