Connecticut western news., 1879-09-10
A Girls Terrible Suffering.

A Girls Terrible Suffering.
 AN INHUMAN woMAN's BRUTAL TREATMENT
 OF HER WARD.
 The Cincinnati Commercial contains the following horrible recital of fiendish brutality perpetrated by woman resid- ing near Portsmouth, Scioto county, Ohio:
 "Miss Hattie Parker is the name of a poor girl whose terrible sufferings are below related. She is generally called Belle Graham, but her name is Parker. She is about 16 years old. She was taken from the infrmary fourteen years ago by Mrs. Silas B. Graham, ostensi- bly, to adopt as her own child, but really as servant upon whom she could wreak the inhumanity of her inhuman heart when in one of her tantrums. The par ticulars, as near as we could get them, of the latest outrage on the poor child are as follows: Last week, when iron ing large washing which she had pre- viously turned out of the tub, dog belonging to the family entered the room where she was ironing and soiled the floor. Mrs. Graham entered the room at the moment, became very an- gry, and commenced violent assault on the girl for permitting it. All the apolo- gies to Mrs. Graham were without avail. The woman applied the whip without remorse, while the blood gushed at every blow from the quivering flesh of the wretched girl, who had been stripped by this time and made to lay across 8 table, with her back to the blows, until she was mass of blood, when she was turned over and the lash piled along her bleeding body from her feet to hel head. It seems almost impossible the girl should have lived through this. There is scarcely place on the body where one can put finger down with. out sticking it into gaping wound made by the lash, but she did live After this modern Xantippe had ex. hausted her strength in beating her now helpless and trembling victim, who is fatherless and motherless, she plucked red-pepper pods, tore them asunder, in serted them in the bleeding wounds and watched the writhing contortions of the sufferer before her with grin ot delight. +>. Her fertile brain had still other tortures in store, as soon as she thought her victim in g physical condi tion to bear up under additional suffer ing. This time it was salt and water which was sprinkled over the wounds of the helpless one. The agony of { human being under this treatment ii hardly to be imagined. Certainly suffering could be no more excruciatine and painful under any circumstances What is known as the heoric treatment adopted by some physicians as las resort in some terrible forms of disease burning the flesh off the back with a1 iron at white heat-is dreadful in thu amount of agony it causes, but that ii nothing compared to strong brine, sucl as that used by Mrs. Graham, ant poured into wounds made on the bod. of her victim. This was not all. Mrs Graham had still another instrument o torture. As soon as the effects of thu salt and water were deadened, she gav' the sufferer sufficient rest to appreciat the additional agony in waiting for her This time it was hammer or hatche that the monster used. Bending thu feet of the child forward on the floor she began pounding the nails out by tn roots, and her feet are now, as is he whole body, horrible to look upon The she monster had still anothe torture to inhict on her helpless victim It has been a custom with the monste to whip the girl until she bled profusely and then put pepper pods into tn wounds, soak them with her blood ant then compel her to eat them. On seYera occasions the brute has turned the gir face downward and called in three or four young devils and caused then to put on twenty-five lashes apiec' across her naked back. Her ingenuity in the way of preparing torture ii almost beyond belief.
 A dark rumor is now circulating that two other children adopted into thiI family mysteriously disappeared ana have not been heard from, but we car trace this to no trustworthy source The woman appeared before Squire Gilson, Tn obedience to a summon served, and was bound over to thu Common Pleas Court in the sum O $500.