I determined then and there that I would try by every means to make my mission of benefit to my suffering sisters; that I would show how they are committed without ample trial. Without one word of sympathy or encouragement she was brought back to where we sat.
Mrs. Louise Schanz was taken into the presence of Dr. Kinier, the medical man.
“Your name?” he asked, loudly. She answered in German, saying she did not speak English nor could she understand it. However, when he said Mrs. Louise Schanz, she said “Yah, yah.” Then he tried other questions, and when he found she could not understand one word of English, he said to Miss Grupe:
“You are German; speak to her for me.”
Miss Grupe proved to be one of those people who are ashamed of their nationality, and she refused, saying she could understand but few words of her mother tongue.
“You know you speak German. Ask this woman what her husband does,” and they both laughed as if they were enjoying a joke.
“I can’t speak but a few words,” she protested, but at last she managed to ascertain the occupation of Mr. Schanz.
“Now, what was the use of lying to me?” asked the doctor, with a laugh which dispelled the rudeness.
“I can’t speak any more,” she said, and she did not.
Thus was Mrs. Louise Schanz consigned to the asylum without a chance of making herself understood. Can such carelessness be excused, I wonder, when it is so easy to get an interpreter? If the confinement was but for a few days one might question the necessity. But here was a woman taken without her own consent from a free world to an asylum and there given no chance to prove her sanity. Confined most probably for life behind asylum bars, without even being told in her language the why and wherefore. Compare this with a criminal, who is given every
