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Newspaper Page Text
n w.Vv,-s?-swvwW'fl JANE WHITAKER SHOWS ROTTEN TREATMENT IN COURT TO UNMARRIED MOTHERS BY JANE WHITAKER Do you keep a book of such occur rences with men? Did you keep a memorandum of the times you stay ed with him? Was that the night you stayed with him or the night you promised you would the next time? Did you ever stay with ? If we prove your statement about this night is a lie will you admit all your testimony is a lie?" "I appreciate how you feel," Judge Sabath said, as I indignantly asked him why a girl, already doomed by society to wear the scarlet letter while the man goes unmarked, must be subjected to such further indig nity. "But what can we do? There is no doubt that many girls are frightened so they do not tell their stories as they should. Not long since a girl left the witness stand and the courtroom rather than submit to such an examination, but the law gives the man the constitutiona right of a hearing in open court. If he agrees I may hear the case in chambers, but he must agree. I always make it a point to ask and will continue to do so, that both par ties agree to have the case heard in chambers, but that is all I can do for the girl." "It isn't alone a question of the girl," Ass't State's Att'y Arkins said. "The girl is presumed to be as guilty as the man ; the matter is one of the support of the child, and it is really the child who is on trial. No condi tions should be allowed that would hurt the child by causing the mother shame or embarrassment that would prevent her telling her story. "There is no question but that try ing such cases this way handicaps the state in its prosecution, for a girl of 18 or 19, who is the victim of a. mistake, will become so ashamed that she will not be able to tell a con tinuous story. "There is a sentiment against hearing these cases in chambers. The Whenever the lawmakers in Springfield have been-asked to pass a law amending the present shame ful one covering illegitimate children their answer has been, as they promptly defeated the amendment: "If you make it any better there will be a lot of women blackmailing men; women do it now under the present law." Yesterday, and many other yester days, listening to a bastardy case in the court of domestic relations, the wonder occurred to me how any girl who is not sin-hardened and an ad venturess has the courage to endure the indignity she must suffer to gain what the present law gives her, 15 cents a day with which to clothe, feed, shelter and educate her child until it is 10 years old. The man is entitled to a hearing in open court the while--in the jury box and on the benches are men and women, very frequently merely curiosity-seekers, who sit absorbing every salacious bit of the testimony. The lawyer for the man invariably adopts bullying tactics. He bellows so that not a word of his insolently worded question may escape the list ener in the farthest corner of the room. He may even, and he fre quently does, demand that the girl sit in the witness chair so that she faces the entire room and is pilloried by the curious eyes that greedily look into hers. In the case yesterday a modest girl of perhaps 19 blinked back tears as she answered questions in her at tempt to prove the fatherhood of her three-weeks'-old baby. She is an or phan, and a charity lawyer was there in her interest The lawyer for the man yelled at her: "You say you had intercourse with this man in October; how do you re member you stayed with bjn then? m