The Topeka state journal., 1919-11-15
LESSON TO GIRLS
kffburn Claims Children Bene-
flied by Lansing Associates.
Declares Older Women a Good
Moral Influence.

Topeka today began making in
quiries regarding the states facilities
for caring for the city's diseased girls
many of them mere children in short
dresses
Forstwo hours today DR.. B. K. Kill
burn. IN charge of the state board of
health'ss social disease work. told
Judge James A. Mcclure of the states
method of caring for 100 diseased wo-
men-at the state farm at Lansing.
Frankly Doctor Kilburn1 admitted
that the grade school children who
have been committed to the state farm
met daily with the experiepced women
of the underworld taking treatment at
the states hospital. - ~
But these women" said Doctor
Kilburn. prove to be the best guides
in the world for wayward girls. They
have tasted of the bitterness of such
degradation and their hearts go out to
the girls who have fallen.
Dissuade Wayward Girls.
"I have never known it to fail
these hardened women will spend
hours in endeayoring to dissuade a
Wayward girl from her crooked path,
Such women do more to turn these
girls into the straight and narrow path
than 95 per cent of the women in the
world. who shun such girls and by
their actions make them Bitter and de-
fiant and do much to keep the girls
from bracing up"
The city's probe into the future wel-
fare of the diseased grade school girls
committed to the farm, followed the
filing of a petition for a writ of ha-
beas corpus by F. G. Drenning, To-
peka attorney. in an endeavor to keep
Mabel Crawford, IA, in Topeka for
treatment, rather than to send her te,
Lansing. y.
Drenning charged in the petition
that the states facilities were inadez
quate He also set out that it was not
proper to place young girls with older
women of wicked ways.
Doctor Kilburn stated that the girls
and women were kept on farm
mile north of the state prison He
stated that there were special rooms
for treatment and that they all slept
in wards. .-
DO the women suffering with one
disease mix with women suffering
with the other disease?" Dreaming
asked.
Yes" replied the physician.
Permanent Cure Prescribed.
Continuing, he explained that those
suffering with the most dreaded of the
two social diseases were confined in
the home until the infectious stage
had passed. Then. they were released
with prescriptions for a permanent
cure.
THE danger of infection is passed., -
said the physician 1T is up to the
patients themselves whether they eff
feet a permanent cure"
The physician told Judge Mcclure
that DR.. J. F. AFFORD, state prison
physician, treated the women, assisted
by trained nurse and several women.
He declared the food was wholesome.
Hugh T. Fisher county attorney,
promised Judge Mcclure more testi-
mony concerning the states home
would be introduced later in the week
and also that a detailed statement Of
the work done would be furnished by
Doctor AFFORD. Judge Mcclure held a
decision in >abegance awaiting the in
PRODUCTION of this testimony, and also
the written opinion of the state SUI
preTne court on petitions for writs of
habeas, corpus filed in that court by
other attorneys fighting the states at
tempt to isolate diseased men and
women from the remainder of society.