Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1920-04-25 | Page 3 | Girl Describes Father's Cruelty

' GIRL DESCRIBES I ' ; ' FATHER'S CRUELTY 1 : ; WITNESS STAND i Locked in Trunk, Burned With Hot Iron, Among Charges Made By MARGERY REX. , -i Written for International News . Service. NEW YORK, April 2 1. A child t locked three days in a dark cupboard. 1. And again eating out of garbage cans aud drinking "where the horses drank." Instead' of kind caresses, a blow over the head wilh a bit of wood I containing a,E!inrp"riairlL'6'clf6cl''inii frank. Burned with a hot iron, and having a grave dug for her. 'No, these are not spirit suggestions Co have sent across to the shade f Dickens to tell him how he might have improved upon Oliver Twist and Bill Sykes and Nicholas Nickloby merely the story of a pretty little girl who brought her father, John Gallender, into court here to answer to the charge , of fellnous assault. Minnie Gallender said in answer to a question that she was 18 years old. She. doesn't look it if she is. Burnished brown curls tumble over shoulders. She hangs her head bnshfully when she niust tell some unpleasant bit of her. (ale. And now and then she uses some long and unusual word, picked up somewhere, strange sounding from hei. And her naivete and pretty face - ' make a sad contrast to the horrors she claims were inflicted upon hor. Ate Out of Garbage Cans, "i.v "I ran away and was gone for three phz- days," she said. "I know it was three because the sun came up that many times. I ate out of garbage cans, found a bone with meat on it, and a few buns. 1 drank water where the horses drink. "I can't be sure of dates wlen things happened because 1 never went to school much." Yet tho child she is really one has a sense of fairness towards her father, John Gallender. She corrected ' I several statements made about him. "One time I was locked up In the , cupboard for three days and Annie, my little sister, came with a bun for me and she said: "Papa hurt his foot don't make a- nolso or cry." Again "No, my father didn't do that not that part of it he did all the rest of it, though" protesting against some charge that was brought forward against the man In regard to the particular par-ticular number and kind of articles lie threw at her. "Did you wear your hair down then, Minnie?" was one of the quotations put to her. She looked down, lips trembling. Threw Lye at Her. "Never had any hair then," she said quietly. Sho later told that her step- mother threw lye upon her head. She told, too, of an unpleasant epithet called her, first by this woman and later by children who were not friendly. friend-ly. "Only my brother and sister liked me," she said. The cross-examination of the 18-year-old girl was held at the hearing to determine her credibility, so her father's attorney, Samuel Llebowitz, said. Her story is one of unusual cruelty. Yet when one is apt to think she exaggerates, she always stops to correct the defense in what seems to her to be a false impression she has given. Throughout the proceedings, the choleric looking, florid-faced Gallender Gal-lender seemed hugely entertained and turned about to look for approbation. But the most of the evidence caused sympathetic murmurs and exclama tions in his daughter's behalf. For almost two and a half hours the young witness sat under cross-examination. When someone suggested adjournment ad-journment and that the girl might be tired, she quickly denied such a possibility. possi-bility. "I'm not a bit tired," she said, and the examination went on. Gallender has been married three times. His second wifo was Minine'a stepmotner. Two Against Father. Two children fighting against their father. Minnie, with her shining curia and rosy cheeks whose color has Improved Im-proved since her removal from home, rarely showed serious confusion. It will be interesting to see if the defendant defend-ant holds out against the processes of law as avcII as his young refative and opponent. Minnie has a good deal of personal prido as revealed by the nicotics of her nppeai-ance. White silk gloves covered her hands, and seemed incongruous as she held them now and then to show tho width of tho cupboard, where she was locked up, or tho length of the stick which had a nail at one end. And sho didn't seem very happy when asked where she lived, to which her answer was "The Children's Society." nn