The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-07-11
CARE OF INSANE.
County Will Provide for the
INDECENT Helpless.
Now Batted Around Between
Jail and Poor Farm.
PUT UP A BUILDING.
Here the Crazed UnfOrtunates
Will Be Cared For.
Not Room in State Institutions
for Them.
PUT UP A BUILDING.

DECISION mas Deen reached by the
board of county commissioners to pro-
vide adequate facilities of some sort
for the care of the INDECENT insane per-
sons in the county, whom the state
board of control either refuses to adj
init to the state hospital or sends back
from there to make room for other pa
tents whose form of insanity is con-
sidered much more serious.
1t is likely that the county commits
sioners will make an appropria ton for
the construction of a special building
out at the poor farm where the insane
persons on the county'S hands may be
properly cared for. Just what they will
do will be decided by them probably at
| their regular meeting on Friday. They
| did decide in an informal way at their
| meeting on Monday last to take some
| steps in the matter and ameliorate a
| condition which, in their minds and the
| minds of all the county officials, ought
never have been given a chance to ex-
| list.
At the present time there are five
women confined in the county Jail who
have been adjudged insane. Four of
! them have been at the state hospital
| for varying lengths of time and have
| been returned to the custody of the
county by the state board of control
under an Interpretation which has been
made by this body of the provisions of
! the constitution and the laws of the
state concerning the care of the insane
under which 1t is held that the state
only has to care for certain classes of
persons who are unsound mentally.
There are absolutely no proper 'facili-
ties of any kind to care for insane per-
sons at the county jail The five adj
judged insane women there now have %
be locked up in cells at night the same
as other women who are serving SEN
fences for crime or awaiting trial. There
is no chance TO give the mentally afflict-
ed the recreation and freedom they
should enjoy and which would probably
be of untold benefit to them. During
the daytime they are of necessity COM
PEELED to mingle with the prisoners,
some of the lowest possible type of hui
mainly, and this is certainly not to their
advantage. Nor should they be COM
PEELED so to do. They are necessarily
criminals in the Jail. There are no
means to provide them with milk and
other little luxuries which are a part
of the dietary of insane institutions and
to which many of them have been ac-
customed for years.
Amy Roscoe. Anna HartShorn, EStal9
Holt. Josephine Giles and Annie LEIGH
are the five insane women now in jail.
All of them with the exception of Mrs.
LEIGH have been inmates of the state
hospital and Mrs. Holt was there for
twelve years before she was returned
to the county authorities a few days
ago, to make room, as the board of con-
troll put it, for another insane patient
from In1S county. annie L61Cn mas
never had an iota of treatment for in
sanity since she was adjudged to be of
unsound mind except to be confined in
Jail. The state board of control has re-
fused to admit this woman to the
asylum because there is no evidence
that she has been resident of the state
or county for six months. Her mental
condition is such that she cannot tell
of her antecedents or where her home
is. And as a matter of fact, in this par
ticular case, the county authorities see
no valid reason why the care of the wo- |
man should be saddled by the state on
Sha county. There is no more evil |
dence that she belongs to Shawnee coun-
ty than to any other locality in the state |
or to any other state, but because of |
her condition and the refusal of the state
to take her into the state |
institution, she is being taken care of by |
the county for purely humanitarian rea-
sons.
AS a matter of fact the county |
commissioners and other county Off |
Gals believe that all of the insane in |
the state should be cared for in the /
state institutions. The state board of |
control has ruled otherwise and load |
ed the county with a number of per- |
sons of unsOund mind and the evil |