MORE "FLOGGING LADIES."

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2757, 15 March 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

MORE "FLOGGING LADIES."

The Kolnischo Zeitung reports a shocking case of cruelty practised by the nuns of the Franciscan convent at SchOobrun. [ Last March a girl of sixteen was placed | by her mother in the school as a boarder. ; The child, though not absolutely silly, i was rather weak minded, and her parents hoped that intercourse with other children of her own ago might improve her mental faculties. No sooner was the unfortunate girl left unprotected than : the nuns began a broad and systematic course of ill-treatment. For the slightest fault she was strapped down on a bed and whipped unmercifully with a riding whip till'the blood flowed. Another Favourite mode of punishment was to dash jugs of ice-cold water over the un fortunate victim whenever she cried to go home, or expressed a desire for other food than the hard crusts and pieces left from the Sisters' table, that were thrust at her. When; at the end of July, the rr.other arrived at Schonbrnn to take t.he girl away for her holidays she was horrified at the change in the child's appearance; five months ago she had been the picture of health, and now she was reduccd to a walking skeleton covered with bruises. A doctor at Munich, after an examination, declared she must have been half starved and beaten with some blunt instrument, there being hardly a square inch of the girl's body that was not bruised black and blue. The case haa just been brought before the police court 3 at Munich, aud lias created great excitement in that city The sisters pleaded that they were forced to resort to the measures they had adopted by the girl's obstinacy and bad habits, and that they had a perfect right to use whatever means of punishment Uiey thought fit iu their own convent towards tha pupils entrusted to their care. "Out of consideration to their calling," the magistrate stated that he would make the punishment lenient as possible. Sister Beatrix, the superior, was sentenced to pay a fine of £5 or ten ■ lays' imprisonment. Sister Ursula £2 or three days' imprisonment, and Sister Nothburga a fine of £1 or two days'imprisonment. ' The nuns were loudly hooted on leaving the Court.