Section 97-5-1 - Abandonment of child under age six

If the father or mother of any child under the age of six years, or any other person having the lawful custody of such child, or to whom such child shall have been confided, shall expose such child in any highway, street, field, house, outhouse, or elsewhere, with intent wholly to abandon it, such person shall, upon conviction, be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not more than seven years, or in the county jail not more than one year.Codes, Hutchinson's 1848, ch. 64, art. 12, Title 3 (32); 1857, ch. 64, art. 57; 1871, § 2528; 1880, § 2752; 1892, § 1001; 1906, § 1078; Hemingway's 1917, § 805; 1930, § 824; 1942, § 2050.