Show goldben DA W N SYNOPSIS theodore gatlin adopts a baby which he names penelope in a final effort to solve his matrimonial troubles but his hi wife has his never wanted her and their affairs end in the divorce court ten year old penelope is in given into the keeping of mrs gatlin at a baseball game a ball strikes penelope on the nose close mrs gatlin spirits the child to europe gatlin retires from business wills penelope all his money and Is about to begin a search for or his daugh ter when a motor accident ends his life some ten ton years later in san francisco stephen burt Is a rising young it trist he ile Is presented by dan me namara chief 0 of police with a new pa tient nance belden a girl with a d dual ua personality for which her saddle nose was in part responsible mcnamara does not think she Is a responsible criminal and nd obtains burt a expert testimony in court lanny the doctor a faithful office nurse la Is won over to her cause despite nance a hard boiled exterior CHAPTER III stephen elbowed his way into the courtroom nance belden saw h in and from behind the bars of the prig pris oner boners s dock waved to him and called cheerily hello steve silence you youl I 1 the bailiff warned her ber nance made a face at him then observing stephen lay finger to up in a warning gesture she tossed her head tilted her chin and bent upon the judge a cold and defiant stare the bailiff opened the door of the prisoners dock and beckoned to her nance belden the judge queried d have you anything to say as to why sentence een tence should not be pronounced upon you your 1 I ive ve got a mouthpiece the girl retorted ask him himl prom a chair beside the counsels table a young man arose may it please the court the public defender has withdrawn from this case and I 1 am now counsel for the defendant my name Is david tyrrell I 1 am reliably informed your honor that following a fair and impartial trial this defendant has been convicted of t the he crime of which she stands accused and Is now before the court for sentence mr tarrell your client Is now un der a suspended sentence from the superior court tor for the crime of grand theft she was there sentenced to two years in san quentin penitentiary but paroled for two years less than two months have passed since she was paroled and today she stands before the court for sentence under a charge of petit larceny the defendant evi dently la Is incorrigible and I 1 intend to remand her to the superior court for commitment under the old charge of grand theft I 1 1 I thank your honor I 1 have been retained in this apparently hopeless case for the purpose of adducing a sound reason why this defendant should be neither sentenced under the pres ent charge nor remanded to the su perlor court for commitment under sentence for the former crime to that end your honor I 1 ask leave to present an expert witness to testify to the mental irresponsibility of my client one moment please mr tyrrell your action would be merely wasting your time and that of the court I 1 shall remand the prisoner dimmed abely to the superior court with a request to the judge thereof that her case be taken up immediately I 1 sentence this prisoner to ninety days in tl e county jail jall but the sentence will be suspend ed during her good behavior for one year from date A bailiff will conduct you your expert witness and the de fondant at once to department number six of the superior court and I 1 will immediately telephone to the judge and request that he listen to your ex pert witness As they entered the superior court the he judge glanced at a document which ch evidently had reached him from the police magistrate s court I 1 mr tyrrell I 1 understand you desire to present some expert testimony in an effort to prove the mental irresponsibility of this defendant nance belden I 1 may state that I 1 have already been in tele phonic communication with doctor blethen and have had a complete report from him on this case you may proceed however to present your side of it who Is your witness dr stephen burt your honor and tyrrell indicated stephen I 1 know all about doctor burt the judge said pleasantly I 1 had him in tny my court a year ago as an expert wit ness in the matter of the carter will case he nodded to stephen this court Is very much interested in get ting at the facts in this case and it Is obliged to you for your voluntary at what Is your professional opinion of this girl girls a mentality I 1 have not had a fair opportunity to study her your honor stephen replied hence I 1 am not in a position to give the court more than a snap de cislon elsion how long have you studied her about thirty minutes your honor II 11 in in in I 1 doctor blethen examined her lier on three different occasions his examinations embodying a total of about six hours time with all due deference to my dis colleague collea gue stephen ed with his singularly charming sm ie le six hours Is not usually cons dered more than sufficient time to form an approximate opinion which subsequent investigations may muy set at var ince if this girl were to become a patient of mine today I 1 should devote denote miny many weeks to an effort to demon demonstrate strite tint thit my original opinion re begird m ird ng her was wag in error Is she crazy V pator nor burt not nt ID in the sence ehst n P e st gt marily warily by PETER B KYNE copyright by bell syndicate sem ice employ the term your honor I 1 should say rather that her psyche psychology agy ogy Is 1 ab normal that she Is neither moral nor immoral but unmoral for instance when I 1 asked her why she stole silk stockings she told me quite frankly that she did it because there were runs in all her old stockings that reply was very illuminating As I 1 talked further with her I 1 noted her valiant moods and quickly came to the con elusion that she Is suffering from dis so clation by reason of shock in other words this girl who doubtless in hap pier days possessed a single personality and that a normal one has now ac ele qu red a secondary personality in plain english two entrels ent rely afferent df d people inhabit the one body the first personality which I 1 shall call A Is the result of acquired in habit education and cepres imposed on society by convention and the code of procedure which we call morals this has been submerged wholly or in part by a second person allty which I 1 shall call B and when B personality rules her she has am nesia nesta for what I 1 have termed her af a quiren or normal instincts out of her unconscious mind then emerge as definite impulses to action the old an tipa thies to such action which we med ical men term conflicts let me illustrate we will assume that at this moment she Is possessed of her personality A and in this state she realizes she has runs in all her stockings that she must have new stockings but she sees some stockings which she can read ly steal normal people often have impulses to steal your honor and nance belden has an impulse to steal the stockings she needs but here a factor intervenes she has been taught taught from the day she man infested thou thought that it Is wrong to steal and this moral lesson has im pressed itself upon her conscious mind with repetition the thought becoming have been a very potent reason for the commission of such an unintelligent act as theft so immediately I 1 corn com fenced to question her as to her f fam ELM ily her past S she be could tell me nothing she Is not at u L I 1 eira sirel that her name Is nance belden and I 1 am satisfied that her in ability to throw any light on her genesis was not born of a desire to withhold that information I 1 behe believe e she has amnesia for a certain period ol 01 her life and we know that such a condition Is usually the result of a severe seere mental shock in such cases the patient usually has an intense des desire e to forget absolutely the unhappy un pleasant or terrifying episode or per son that produced the shock and so in tense Is the power of will in certain highly sensitive people women par ticul arly that not infrequently they succeed I 1 thus amnesia is produced it Is in a sense and your honor undoubtedly Is aware that peo P pie le who have been hypnotized kemem her nothing of what occurs during the hypnotic state I 1 believe I 1 follow you the judge murmured I 1 have shown you why the normal nance belden would not steal but now comes that mental shock I 1 spoke of with consequent amnesia for all of her life that has preceded it or it may be a part of that life with the am nesia comes what we term dissociation or mental disintegration the ancon overwhelms the conscious the acquired required instincts of morality social usage drop out of the conscious into the unconscious and the thoughts and impulses that have lain dormant and defeated in the unconscious are now in the saddle unfortunates who have acquired red dual personalities or a dis socia ted personal ty go from one per sodality son sona allty lity into the other and back again with or without amnesia for the pre ceding state I 1 at a time when nance belden s sec see ond personality B ruled her and she decided to steal those stockings she was acting Z under the impulsion of an idea that could not be combated to steal 4 f AV K this girl who doubtless in happ er days possessed a single personality personal and that a normal one has now acquired a secondary personality a habit dripped out of her conscious mind to become conserved in her un conscious mind conserved there it became a definite part of her person allty her soul if you will thereafter it was not necessary to remind herself that it was wrong to steal she knew it was without having to about it at all and this unconscious knowl edge was her protection in the fleeting moment of temptation aroused by her definite need and the knowledge that lacking money to buy the stockings and faced with the absolute necess ty for acquiring stockings the sole al ter native was to steal them she got no further than that va vague 7 ue conscious thou thought ht immediately the knowledge that it was immoral to steal that noth ing in could possibly excuse theft rose out of her unconscious mind and became a dominating conscious thought now right there appeared the mental phenomenon known among psychiatrists as a complex or conflict in all con flicks the stronger wins and in this part cular men al conflict the will not to steal won instantly it was an older habit of thought it was an ac quiren instinct wheres the impulse to steal was not a habit of thought be cause she had never indulged in theft we say we do a thing on instinct bit b it really we act after due it if incalculably brief cogitation based on reason which is the result of habituation to doing certion things this defendant your honor Is a healthy girl as far as I 1 can judge from outward appearances but she Is what you often hear referred to as high strung and she Is so unusually intel 11 lluent ent that I 1 readily realized there must had become an acquired instinct or at least a very strong instinct there may have been a certain amount of repression against the act at first but gradually that repressive instinct L e her moral instincts once part of her conscious mind but naw relegated to her unconscious mind grew weaker until finally the stronger instinct won and the result Is we have nance bel den up before your honor for commit ment to san quentin penitentiary on a suspended sentence for grand theft have you any theory as to what this mental shock in be doctor burn burt I 1 have a very definite theory as to what prep prepared ired the ground so to speak for the mental shock but T haie haip not the slightest idea of the nature of the shock ibis Is most interesting doctor burt pray explain look carefully at this defendant your honor you see a young woman about five feet five inches high nor mal height for a woman of her age which I 1 imagine to be about twenty one or tv enty two how much do you weigh belh miss bliss belden A hundred and twenty eight steve TO BE CONTINUED |