New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-02-23
WOMEN MOB PESTH0USE !
TRYING TO SEE BABIES
Pathetic Scenes at Philadelphia
Hospital Where Babies
Were Mixed Up.
POLICE RESERVES CALLED
Exhuming of Body Fails to
Clear Up Mystery - One
Mother Finds Child's
Mind a Blank.
nv telegraph 10 The tribune ]

Philadelphia. Feb. 22.-With a mob Of
almost five hundred frenZied mothers b.
sieging the Municipal Hospital for Con-
tagious Diseases and pleading 10 be al
lowed to look through the glass incosed
wards To see that their fever afflicted
babies were still alive. II was necessary TO
send in a call for squads Of police to
prevent determined attack IN the pick
etcd walls OF the institution
Further CONSERVATION was caused when
the tiny body buried under the name of
Mollie Encleman, who was later found
alive. but with her mind blank. and
supposed To he that of Beatrice haui-
man. who through a nurses mistake was
reported as recovered. was found To be a
child as yet unidentified
The tragic miX-up of babies which the
Director OF Health and Charities, NM
Nef bames on dismissed nurse. who is
said To have changed the fever charts al
the heads of the beds which hold three
and four fever stricken infants, culmi-
mated in q baby being returned TO MI
and Mrs Isadore Kaufman, No. 2Hi
Westmont street. as their own enid but
which they refused TO accept as such.
By accident the mother of the child saw
her being carried back into the pest house
after she had received official notice Ci
her death and burial. She was prostrat-
ed with JOY. which later turned to grief
when she found her child's mind a COM
plete blanks.
Mrs. Kaufman. who had been told that
her baby had completely recovered from
af, Of cqarl.f il fem
porahly deranged from the tragic circum-
stances Director Noff took personal
charge of the affair and this afternoon
the grave in Mount Carmel Cemetery
which was marked as the resting place
of the Engleman child was opened IN
the presence OF the chief municipal ply
sician and other city officials. The body
in its rude coffin was carried TO the Mn-
nicipal Hospital, and the sight Of The
coffin drove the waiting army OF grief
maddeped mothers 10 still greater frenzy.
The police were compelled TO make a
pathway through the crowds OF mothers
in order that the body might be carried
i'm where Kaufman and his gricfstricken
wife waited. The lid, was unscrewed and
lifted off. and Mrs. Kaufman. almost
hugginc the coffin to her breast,
screamed:
NO. no. it is not my little Beatrice,
oh. she is not dead, Where have they
taken my Hittle baby"
Kaufman was positive that the child
was not theirs and the hospital authori-
ties are further bafled by this new turn
with one child alive and the other un-
accounted. for the can furnish no other
record FOR tho beautiful golden haired
child which they buried.
For more than an hour the hospital Of
fcials and those from DR.. Neffs Offices
ATTEMPTED 10 convince the kaufmans
that the exhumed body was that Of their
own child This was useless and the
couple begged to be allowed TO search
the wards. where five hundred babies
are being cared for. This was denied
them.
Outside the building there were un-
parallel scenes OF violent emotion.
Many women. large number foreigners,
fell on their knees at the barred en-
trance and begged 10 bc allowed 10 look
on their children for Just an instant. The
news OF the missing Kaufman baby
spread like WIldfire and their screams OF
anguish could be heard for squares.