PAGES FROM THE PAST - A NUN STORY

The exasperation of the people knows no bounds!

For breaking her vow of chastity, a nun was forcibly kept in close confinement in a dark cell for a long number of years.

An anonymous notice apparently written by a female hand, reached the criminal court, immediately took serious investigations. The convent was one of the strictest female orders. People passed these sombre cloister walls without even suspecting the fearful tragedy being enacted within for twenty-one years.

In a dark infected hole adjoining the sewer sat, or rather covered on a heap of straw, an entirely naked totally neglected, half insane woman, who at the unaccustomed view of light, the outer world and human beings, folded her hands and pitifully implored, "I am hungry, have pity on me, give meat and I shall be obedient." The hole, for it could be hardly called a chamber, besides containing all kinds of dirt and filth, and a dish of rotten potatoes, was deficient in the slightest decent accommodation. There was nothing, no stove, no bed, no table, no chair and it was neither warmed by a fire nor the rays of the sun.

This den the inhuman sisters who called themselves women, spiritual wives, the brides of heaven, had selected as a habitation for one of their own sex and kept her therein in close confinement. For 21 years the sisters had daily passed this cell and not one of them thought of taking compassion on this poor outcast prisoner. Half human being, half animal, with a filthy body, knock-kneed legs, hollow cheeks, dirty head, unwashed for years, came a horrible human being forward such as Dante in his wildest imagination was unable to picture.

The Lady Superior said that the nun had been kept in close confinement by order of the physician because of her unusual mind. This physician had died and the one who replaced him had never seen the poor soul. Such treatment on the opinion of the doctor who treated the nun, is sufficient to drive a person insane.