The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1909-07-22
Typhoid Mary" Says That She
Is Prosecuted.
Ningles With Patients and
Doctors ON the Island.
WON'T ACCEPT TERMS.
Refuses to Change Her Name
and Leave State.
Will Go Insane if Unjust I'm
prisOnment Continues.

New York, July 22.-''Before God
and in the eyes of decent men my
names is Mary Mallon. I was chris
tened and baptized Mary Mallon. 1
lived a decent, upright life under the
name of Mary Mallon until I was
seized by the health department of the
city of New York, two years and four
months ago, locked up in pest house
and rechristened Typhoid Mary the
name by which the world has ever
since known me-"
Dramatically raising her hands.
Mary Ma11on opened her lips for the
first time yesterday to tell the public
the story of her Incarceration in the
pest house at North Brother Island,
although she-has never been sick
day In her life and has every appear
ance of being in perfectly good health,
in spite of an Imprisonment which
would drive most people insane.
The confinement of two and a half
years, which by the refusal of Justice
Erlanger last week TO release her
seems to indicate the life she will live
y until she dies, has little changed Mary
Mallon from the stout, jovial cook
who was loved by the children in
Every family in which she was en-
}oyed. She is still jovial and, if any
Eing, little stouter. She Is still
owed by the children, for, in spite of
the fact that the health department
swears she scatters typhoid bacilli
everywhere SIlG goes, Mary A1a4iOn is
permitted the freedom of the island,
and the doctors are glad to have her
nurse the children who are there with
every kind of contagious disease.
Cooks and Washes for Doctors.
Not only does she nurse them but
she prepares their meals She is al
lowed to mingle freely with all the
other patients on the island, and she is
employed by both doctors and nurses
to do their finer pieces of laundry for
H..
island frequently go to her room and
eat the good things she has cooked.
Apparently doomed to life imprison-
ment on a barren island in the East
river, although she. has committed no
crime, Mary Mallon feels that there
are two kinds of justice in America.
She feels that she has not been given
the benefit of the reasonable doubt"
which is allowed even to murderers.
She feels that she has been flung into
prison without a fair trial denied the
privilege OF seeing her lawyer and given
no chance to clear herself from al i'm
Frisonment without precedent in the
annals of crime or science in this coun-
try.
..AIl the water in the ocean wouldn't
clear me from this charge, in the eyes
the reporter. ''They want to make a
showing; they want to get credit for
protecting the rich. and 1 am the vic
tim. It is a huge bluff, and nothing
more LII 0oper. IN ms report Wnlcn
brought me to where I am, mentions
seven or eight cases where typhoid &C.
CURED in families where 1 had worked
He did not mention the families
worked for in which there was no ty-
phOid. He did not see fit to mention
the family I always lived with in the
Bronx when I was out of work. and
Y here slept with the children without
ever giving them typhoid.
Determined to Win Justice.
"Will I submit quietly to staying here