TALES TOLD BY WAYWARD GIRLS.
Investigating Charges Made Against the Matron of the City Prison.
Her Statements to Those Who Had Been Committed to the Magdalen Asylum.
WHAT SOME INMATES SAY.
A Gold Pin and Other Articles Belonging to Kittie McGrath in Mrs. Gilmour's Possession.
San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 12, 1897
The Finance Committee of the Board of Supervisors yesterday investigated charges made by Secretary Frank J. Kane of the Pacific Society for the Suppression of Vice against Mrs. Letitia Gilmour, Matron of the City Prison. Kane's witnesses were girls who had been committed to the Magdalen Asylum.
Ada Wilson, seventeen years old, testified that while she was in the prison the Matron told her that when she came out of the Magdalen Asylum she would be worse than when she went in; that the girls were put in cells, their hair cut off, and that she should go instead to the Girls' Training Home. The witness stated that the Matron wanted her cape and hat, saying that they would be taken from her at the asylum, and offered to give another hat in exchange. "She said that my cape and hat would do for either herself or her daughter to wear,” Miss Wilson stated.
Winnie Norton, sixteen years old, testified that the Matron said to her: "God pity the girls who go to the Magdalen Asylum."
Isabella Mulcahy, aged seventeen, testified that Mrs. Gilmour told her that her hair would be cut off in the Magdalen Asylum, that she would have to scrub, and that the food was not as good as in the City Prison.
Kittie McGrath, aged seventeen, testified that she gave her breastpin, purse and gloves to Mrs. Gilmour in the prison when the latter told her that they would be taken from her at the asylum and that she would never get them back. She stated that she was well treated at the Magdalen Asylum. Other girls who testified made similar statements.
Rose Hines, aged seventeen, testified that the Matron told her that the Magdalen Asylum was not a proper place for girls, and that she should go to the Girls' Training Home.
Anna Fitzgerald, aged seventeen, stated that Mrs. Gilmour said of Kane: "Every girl he gets hold of he puts in the Magdalen Asylum. Many an innocent girl there curses him."
Mrs. Gilmour testified that at least forty girls who have been sent to the Magdalen Asylum this year were under her charge in the City Prison.
General Barnes, her attorney, compared this number with the number of witnesses found against her. E. P. Mogan, attorney for the prosecution, replied that more wit- nesses could be brought from the asylum if necessary.
Mrs. Gilmour produced a pasteboard box in which she had kept Kittie McGrath's articles. The pin was a gold bar with two alleged diamonds. General Barnes thought that the pin, purse and gloves were worth about 25 cents altogether. Mrs. Gilmour said that the McGrath girl was arrested on account of her companionship with a young waiter, who had given her the articles. "She did not wish her mother to know that the waiter had given them to her, and wanted me to keep them for her until she got out of the Magdalen Asylum next January," the Matron testified.
Mrs. Gilmour declared that Ada Wilson's story about her cape and hat was utterly false, as were the stories told by the girls that they would have their hair cut off. She said that she has no interest in sending girls to any institution. Kane, she said, presented charges against her last May, but she said that she had no unfriendly feeling against him.
In reply to a question by Mogan she said that she did not know that for three years complaints about her have been made at the Magdalen Asylum. She has been Matron for seven years and five months, being appointed by the Board of Supervisors and the Police Commissioners.
Mogan inquired why she had not given the McGrath girl's articles to the property elk of the Police Department for safe keeping. She answered that she intended to return them herself. On cross-examination she said:
"I think it a good thing to keep some girls from going to the Magdalen Asylum. I have spoken this way since the Training Home started. The Magdalen Asylum is a proper place for some girls. I have heard that girls are well treated there, but when they behave badly they are punished."
Mrs. French, one of the Directors of the Training Home, said that she had met Mrs. Gilmour almost daily for years at the City Prison, but did not know until the charges were filed whether she was a Catholic or a Protestant.
The committee and attorneys agreed that it would be better to keep remarks about religion out of the investigation.
Mrs. French stated that in the Training Home there are about twenty inmates. It is sustained by private charity, receiving no funds from city or State.
Attorney Mogan said that there were many escapes from the Training Home. Mrs. French replied that there have been six in the past two years.
The committee took the case under advisement.