Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-10-17
A NEW HORROR.

"a WOnaasa'sa Experience In the Neav York
Mdgdnzene's 4syZstn,.
New York Special to Cincinnati Enquirer. |
Rachel 0'Neil is about 10 years of age,
and has twice been an inmate of the Magda-
len asylum in Eighty eighth street. She is
a slender girl, of medium height, with long
yellow hair and pale countenance. She lived
with her mother in West Third staeet I'M
til August, 1877, when she became an in
mate Of the Magdalen asylum, that she
might be reclaimed from her wicked ways.
She remained in the asylum little more
than six months, and her conduct was such
that the matron pronounced her a good girl;
but she fell into bad ways again, when she
was again committed to the asylum on her
own acknowledg ment that she was fit sub
ject for its discipline. One week ago she
escaped from the asylum by scaling the
fence. She told her story to Justice Otter
bourg in the Jefferson Market police court,
making grave charges against the manage
ment of the institution. The justice had
received from other sources complaints Of
the severity of the discipline in the asylum.
Mrs. Battersby, the matron Of the asylum,
and Mr.. Battersby, the chaplain, were pres
ent at the hearing,
Mrs. :Battersby. the matron, declined to
kiss the Bible, preferring to affirm. She
said that there are at present forty five girls
in the asylum, twelve of them committed by
magistrates. Her lawyer had in his hand
the affidavit of Rachel O'Neil. This afida-
Wit charges that ssonce Rachel was locked up
in cell for thirty-two hours, during which
time she had no food except one bowl of
soup, !" and makes other charges Of a less So
rious nature. Mrs Battersby affrms that
on one occasion only did she remember of
furnishing the O'Neil girl, and that was
when she and another girl got into fight,
and the O'Neil girl carried knife to her
room with the ayowed purpose of stabbing
the other girl. One of the girls threatened
to commit murder. Mrs. Battersby took the
O'Neil girl down stairs to the floor on the same
level with the kitchen, and confined her in
q small room five feet four inches by four
feet in size. No furniture was in the room
except bench on two sides of it, and light
and ventilation were obtained through a
small hole near the door. The matron could
not say how long the girl was kept there, nor
what she had to eat. She was informed that
the O'Neil girl and another inmate intended
tottry to escape, but she did not remember of
saying, as the affidavit of the girl alleges,
that she would sstake the kinks out of
Them aa a
Rachel interrupted and said, with much
emotion, that on the occasion of her first
commitment she was put in the cell and
kept there for thirty-two hours with only
one bowl of soup to eat, and that she was in
there on two other occasions once for
laughing, and once for calling girl into her
| room after o'clock in the evening
Justice Oterburg then questioned the ma
tron, and seemed to be in fair way to
elicit from her an unconscious admission of
the! substantial truth of the girls story,
when her lawyer suggested that the asylum
was private institution, and that those who
had charge of it ought not to be cover
handled, bully -ragged and cross examined
Justice Otterbnrg explained that the inquiry
had progressed just far enough to have done
the worst that could be done, if the institu-
ton is not blameable. It had been shown
that there are cells there, and that inmates
had been limited in their diet as a part of
their punishment; and if the institution is
strictly private one, the showing was so
much the worse. Still, if the lawyer OBJ
jected he would not ask another question,
although he would otherwise have asked
probably hundred more. He would allow
the counsel to withdraw Mrs. Battersby from
the witness stand. The witness was with
drawn and the case came to an end. The
justice said that he would not at present
take action in regard to recommitting Rachel
to the asylum.