New-York tribune., 1920-04-03
lIFFANY &CO!
FIFTH AVENUE * 37nSTREET
FINE CHINA PLATES
MINTON CAULDON COPELAND
GROWN DERBY DouLToN
Father Is Charged
With Branding Girl
With Red Hot Iron
Brooklyn Man, Held for
Trial for Torturing II.
Iear-Old Daughter, De-
mics Alleged Treatment

John Gallander, a modeller in clay
en- the vaudeville stage, was held for
examination yesterday in the New Jer-
sey Avenue Police Court, Brooklyn. on
charge OF felonious assault made by
his seventeeny year-old daughter Minnie,
who declares that ne and her step
mother, now dead, tortured her for
months.
She says that the diversions of the
family included branding her with a
red-hot poker or stove lid litter, stick
ing needles into her, throwing knives
1t her, Jabbng her with an lcepick
or a screwdriver. tying her in chair
as target for crockery, breaking off
end pulling out her teeth with pliers
and pouring scalding water on her.
When company came to the house
or when the family was moving from
che house to another. she says. she
was locked in a trunk and fed on
whisky. 1t was in a trunk, she says,
that she left England when her father
came to the United States about three
years ago.
According to Assistant District At
torney Helen Mccormick, affdavits
made by the four children of Minnie's
late steDmother will be introduced
against Gallander in confederation Of
her statements. The Assistant District
Attorney said that Albert, Minnie's s
ton-year- old stepbrother, said in his
affidavit that he once had taken pair
of pliers at his mothers command and
broken oft five of Mlnnies teeth.
The young woman is said to have
about 100 scars on her body as the
result Of the treatment she suffered,
although she escaped from her fathers
home at $50 Grant Avenue, Brooklyn,
May II. 1918, getting out through a
cellar window.
Late that day she was picked up
unconscious on Jerome Avenue, Wood
haven, Queens. apparently having
trudged some three miles eastward
from her home. She was sent to the
Hospital of Mary Immaculate in ia
maica. When she regained her senses
she gave her name as Florence Smith,
being still under the spell of fear said
TO have been instilled into her SO hide
ously
II was three weeks before she could
leave the hospital. A needle is said to
have been removed there from one of
nicked out Tha Chldren's Society
placed her in home in Yonkers, and
more recently she has been under the
care Of the Big Sisters.
Not until about a month ago, on the
eve Of her first communion. did Minnie
tell Of the horrors of her past life.
She spoke then, it is said, only because
she thought it wrong to enter the
Church under name that was not her
own. Divulging her true name led to
the story of her escape and her reason
for running away from home.
Then the investigation was started
which led TO the arrest Of Gallander.
Minnie's four stepbrothers and step
sisters were taken by the Children s
Society in the course Of the investiga-
tion. Her stepmother died a few
months after the girl ran away, and
her father has married for the third
time. He is fifty-eight years old He
entered q general denial Of the charges
against him.
District Attorney Lewis of Kings
County announced that he would take
charge Of the prosecution himself and
described the affair as the most afro
cious case Of alleged inhuman treat
ment on the part Of a parent to a child
that has ever come to my attention."