The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1917-12-14
YELLED {: |. e. WOMEN J ! \ {:
BARE T0R'T!uR| /:
OF DRUG F|ENDS
Good Standing Of Witnesses
Who Tell Of Scourge Shown
By Manners.

NEW YORK, Dec. 14.-The bitter
experiences of women and men torn
on the rack Of the drug habit were
told at tho hearings being conducted
by the joint legislative committee to
get facts from the drug addicts them
selves on which legislation for State
hospital may be framed. a hospital
which they can enter without the ig-
nominy of being ad1udged criminals.
The impressions produced by sob
bing yelled women were vivid. And
they were not of the type one usually
associates with the drug habit They
appeared from their dress and their
manner of expression to be women Of
good standing, and it is known that
one of them is a woman who years
ago was one of the best known act
resses on Broadway. -7'.% e''4'#
Habit Formed in Hospital.
Aside from the fact that they show
ed once more the drug habit to be
prevalent among men and women
rather well up in the ladder of human
society, they also made evident the
great danger in administering drug
to re licve pain after an operation or
during an illness. The four women
identified before the committee only
by the designations, MRS. A, B. G. and
p, which added to the suggestion OF
mystery and made their stories even
more effective than they might have
had they been without the wells and
the lack of identity-all said they had
become victims Of the drug habit with
out knowing 1t. opiates have been Civ.
man who testified said that he had
taken it to relieve rheumatism.
Senator George H. Whitney. chair
man OF the committee. opened the
meeting by reading an outline OF the
work which the committee proposes
to do, working on the theory that "a
drug addict Is a mal!gned and perse-
cuted victim of a definite disease"
+ s''' Weapon Of White Slavers.
''The part played by narcotic drugs
in recruiting young girls for white
slavery and in keeping them there
has been brought to our attention"
said Senator Whitney. +'@
All the witnesses emphasized the
torments they went through in the
private hospitals where they sought
relief. suffering so great that often
they were forced to flee and reiinquish
the money they had paid in the ex-
pectation Of being cured. And yet SO
hard did they try to rid themselves OF
the habit for the sake of their fam
lilies and their own self-respect that
they often went back and went
through the same unhappy experience.
The story of Mrs. A.. a well-dressed
woman whose face was concealed by
a heavy purple veil. is typical. She
characterized her experience in san
i,ariuin as horrible" The drug was
taken from her after three days, and
she suffered SO that she pleaded to be
allowed &c go, and finally they did
discharge her Her desire after ieav-
Ing the sanitarium was greater than
before she entered She went TO an
other private hospital, where she went
through the same experience.
Hr experiments in getting cured"
cost her thousands of dollars and near
ly ruined her husband - w
~ Given Morphine on Discharge.
Only her love for him and for her
sister, she said. drove her again and
again to the agony Of these so-called
cures. When she found she wasn't
cured after her first treatment she