RIOTOUS MAGDALENS.
A Lively Fight at the Potrero Asylum.
GIRL HOODLUMS IN REVOLT.
An Amazonic Miss Refuses Punishment—And Her Companions Assist Her in Knock-ing-out the Police.
Daily Alta California, March 3, 1884
The young girls of San Francisco who bear the brand of Magdalens, and occupy a residence for a greater or less portion of that period of their lives between their fourteenth and twentieth years in the cheerful asylum on Potrero avenue, near Sierra, number year in and year out about 70. Of course there are hundreds, and probably thousands of young Magdalens in the city, but only this small proportion are taken into the Police Court and sentenced to the Industrial School, from which institution they are transferred to the care of the Sisters of Mercy at the Asylum. The mentors have no easy task in the management of their young charges, as any one having an acquaintance with the genus hoodlum, feminine gender, peculiar to San Francisco can well imagine. The majority of their charges are morally degraded, and it is a peculiarity of the species that the younger they are the more depraved they try to be. Still, the Sisters accomplish
A GREAT DEAL OF GOOD,
Though it is to be feared that the brands plucked from the burning are few, and far between. Considering the turbulency of the young spirits in their charge they maintain fair order during the week, and are only called on to exercise unusual discipline on Sunday. Then the girls are allowed the freedom of the yard, and the religious services are all conducted in the open air when the weather permits. The principal difficulty has been with hoodlums on the outside, who congregate on the hill back of the yard and tantalize the prisoners by indulging in all sorts of antics calculated to inspire them with discontent with their imprisonment. Scarcely a Sunday passes without the arrest of some of these young scoundrels, and subsequent punishment in the Police Court for disturbing a religious meeting. Yesterday the Sisters had an unusual ordeal and it was not due to the outside either.
SHORTLY BEFORE NOON
One of the girls in the yard misbehaved to such an extent that the Sister in charge ordered her back to her room. The girl refused to obey, and when the Sister attempted to use force, half a dozen of her companions came to the rescue, and roughly assaulted the Sister. Officer Wm. Burke was passing at the time, and was summoned, when the ripple that disturbed the usual calm assumed the proportions of a Barbary Coast riot. Against such assailants the officer could not use his club, and their number bade fair to overpower him, for by this time the entire school was in revolt. The mild Sisters were powerless in a battle of strength, and could only pray, but this afforded little relief to the overwhelmed officer. One of the young desperadoes in petticoats produced a penknife in the thick of the fight, and gradually working her way through the struggling mob, stabbed Burke in the arm. He had paid little heed to numerous tugs at his hair and mustache, and to slaps and blows from tiny fists, but the blood-letting steel made matters assume
A MORE SERIOUS ASPECT,
And no one felt more happy than he when the gate opened, and Officers Gilfoyle, Price, Davismess, Clifford, O'Connor and Kibby, who had been summoned by telephone from the Seventeenth-Street Station, charged to his aid at a double-quick. Even then the maddened girls were not dismayed, but dividing themselves into squads, they battled with the reinforcements with a hearty good will. The odds were too great, however, and one after another the limbs of the law seized the girls and dragged them into the cells and bedrooms, and then returned for more. Still they did not escape without some hard knocks, and when the last refractory girl was locked up a comparison of damages occupied nearly half an hour. Gilfoyle was unhurt, but had his hat entirely ruined, Burke lost some hair and was slightly cut in the arm, Price lost several buttons, and the remainder showed up a choice assortment of scratches and rips of more or less consequence. For some time after their confinement the girls rattled the doors and shouted, sang and yelled, but they finally quieted down, and by dark the Asylum was as quiet as a country church-yard. A call on the Sisters elicited little information, and they firmly declined to expose the identity of the ringleaders or the original cause of the riot.