Dorothy Nickols came all the way from Minneapolis, Minn., to The Menace office in Aurora to tell the story of a life filled with sorrow by the unspeakable cruelty of Romish devotees---a cruelty that is sleepless, dark and relentless as the grave. And she came honestly---working by the way to pay her expenses on the trip---and she came voluntarily, she came to tell this sad story to The Menace, not in a spirit of vengefulness, but that through giving to our readers plain pictures of the awful conditions that exist behind those grim stone walls and ever locked doors of Chicago's greatest penal convent, she may help in our battle to liberate those thousands of helpless captives.

And there is another motive impelling her to want you to know this story. Dorothy Nichols is still young, only twenty-two years old. She has the same ambition with which God has blessed us all. Above

all things she longs to succeed in life---to succeed in Miss Nichols is a very interesting young lady. In spite of the suffering that has been inflicted upon her. Miss Dorothy is not gloomy or morose, but happy and cheery and very hopeful in disposition. The artist has given us a striking likeness in the portrait which we reproduce herewith.

Miss Nichols was born in St. Louis, but has resided in Chicago since infancy. There she spent her girlhood days. And the pity of it! most of those girlhood days were spent in a penal servitude to Rome! Dorothy's father was a Protestant, her mother an Irish Catholic. From her babyhood Romanism was instilled into Dorothy's very life. There were three children in the family, a brother, George, two years younger than Dorothy, and a sister, Mary Nichols, three years older.

In 1903 poverty overtook the family as the result of the father's long sickness, and the home was broken up. Mary Nichols went to live with a family of devout Irish Catholics in Chicago, the brother, George, remained with the mother, while Dorothy was sent to live with a family named Holm, at Shabonna, Ill. who were old friends of her mother.

So, on the fifteenth of September, 1903, the little girl arrived in her new home. At this time Dorothy was nearly thirteen years old. And what a home! John Holm and his wife were Germans of the most ignorant, vicious type. With them lived an adopted daughter, Alice, who was at this time twenty-one years of age. This home was near a railroad "roundhouse" and was a daily and nightly resort for railroad men!

John Holm proved as brutish as he was ignorant. For four months following her arrival Dorothy was subjected to almost every indignity and familiarity at his hands.

Finally, one day when alone in the house with the

little girl who had been placed in his home for protection. John Holm accomplished his hellish objects, after horsewhipping and overpowering little Dorothy. This took place on the twenty-first day of January, 1904.

That evening Dorothy ran across the street to the home of a neighbor, a Mrs. Schermerhorn, and told her terrible story. Horrified at the tell-tale marks of violence, Mrs. Schermerhorn called in her sister, a Mrs. Wormeley, who lived next door.

The state's attorney at De Kalb, Ill., was notified and the next day Dorothy was examined by a doctor, and John Holm was arrested and lodged in jail at Sycamore, Ill., and the case was brought before the grand jury. In the meantime, Dorothy was given shelter by the neighbors who had befriended her. At this time there was strong talk of lynching Holm.

It is self-evident that a goodly sum of money was raised among the frequenters of the Holm resort to protect this unsavory brute, for just at this juncture the inevitable priest arrived on the scene. This particular priest was no other than "Father" Finn, of Rochelle, Ill., with whom William Lloyd Clark debated at Rochelle, April 15th, 1896 ( see William Lloyd Clark's booklet, "The Great Debate," page 18).

And so the Catholic drag-net was tightened around another little victim. Convent doors are ever yawning to engulf in the blackness beyond all the slimy secrets of inhuman lust, provided, of course, that the rapist, murderer or seductionist can offer financial inducements. So, "Father" Finn showed some bogus papers, that he claimed gave Dorothy into his authority and dragged her away from her friends at Rochelle, Ill., where he placed her in a private family as a kitchen scullion. Here she was safely kept until the first week of the following June. During this time "Father" Finn carried on a daily campaign of bullying and

threatening the helpless little girl and at last he frightened Dorothy into signing a statement exonerating John Holm!

Let us remember that Dorothy was but a little child, that she was born and bred a Catholic, and that to her terrified mind her very soul was in the hands of the priest. John Holm and the adopted daughter migrated to Aurora, Ill., where this unspeakable brute was living in safety and security but recently!

But Rome's diabolical plot, the imprisoning web of the convent spiders, had only just begun. With the devilish cunning of the elementary animal brain that leered out of the priest's little pig-like eyes, "Father" Finn, with satisfied smirk, now informed Dorothy that the next week she could go back to her mother in Chicago. This filled her childish heart with joy. But when finally the great day of "home-coming" arrived she was puzzled to find that two strangers accompanied her on the journey and that she was carefully guarded on the way.

At the station in Chicago they were met by a Catholic probation officer named Cronin who explained to Dorothy that he would take her to her mother. But instead, Cronin took her to the court house where an old maid, Miss Curtin, another probation officer, took charge of the little girl on her "homeward" way. They boarded a street car and rode within a block of Dorothy's former home. On leaving the car Dorothy joyfully turned toward the home, only to be roughly jerked backward with the explanation, "Your mother has moved!"

After walking two blocks, Dorothy, at the direction of her black-garbed guide, crossed the street and they walked along the high-board fence surrounding the Chicago's old (or former) "House of Good Shepherd," on Orleans street, between Hill and Elm. Turning

in and passing through the gateway the outer door swung quickly open and in a few hurried moments Dorothy found herself amidst a dark, forbidding interior, with three doors locked between her and the street!

Confronting the now frightened and wondering child was a brawny nun at whose side hung a huge bunch of keys; bursting into tears Dorothy sobbingly asked, "But---but-----isn't this----a place------for bad girls?"

Answered the burly man scornfully, "Yes, and that's just why you are here!" Then seizing frail little Dorothy by the shoulders this female child-slaver shook her viciously and roughly flung her headlong into a far corner of the room, where she huddled, a badly bruised bit of humanity.

Several coarse-featured, scowling nuns had now gathered around the hysterical Dorothy. Kneeling before her jailers, the little captive begged them to tell her what she had done that was so bad, and put up the pitiful plea that she had "always----tried----to----be----good." For this the nun who had admitted her, struck the child a stunning blow with the huge bunch of keys, the while another over-grown nun soundly boxed the helpless Dorothy's ears, while a third nun to whose black robe she was clinging brutally jerked her to her feet, saying, "Get up, get up---we'll have no stage performances here!" And that was the "Good Shepherd's" reception of Dorothy at the hands of His "doves of the temple!"

"I hardly have the heart even now to tell you of some of the terrible things and the awful conditions behind the walls of both of the Chicago 'Houses of Good Shepherd,' I mean the old one and the new. You see I was a prisoner in both. I have read that story in The Menace of 'Cecelia and the Yellow Silk Kimono,' and like thousands of other girls who have

been victims of Catholic convent slavery, I can say that every word of it is true. Only Cecelia didn't tell all she knew."

We were seated in The Menace office, Dorothy Nichols and the writer. From the great outer business office arose the subdued hum of the busy workers, the drowsy drone of the huge perfecting Goss presses came to me faintly, as I answered---"No, Miss Dorothy, the truth is that Cecelia told much that we did not print for decency's sake---but tell us something of your every day life in those Chicago penal convents---the food, clothing, sanitary conditions, the work you were forced to do, anything of interest that you remember."

Well, I was simply kidnapped and "railroaded" as they say, into these convent-prisons without ever being in court or before a judge, and without a single chance to gain my freedom," continued Dorothy, "and there I was kept a prisoner for nearly three years.

"In the first place, you must realize that you can never fully understand this 'Good Shepherd' convent system unless you have lived in one of their 'houses' and could see the every day life there from the inside. For instance, just to show you the system by which they are able to deceive the outsider, suppose that visitors arrive to go through the institution. If these visitors could only see what goes on quickly and silently while they are being 'entertained' in the parlor, how their eyes would be opened."

And Dorothy's own fine blue yes were very earnest as she continued: "Instantly there is a great hustle and hurry in all the different departments, while the scenes are being shifted and the 'tableaux' are arranged. Long practice has made the nuns expert and swift. Every girl must appear contented and happy. Every nun in charge of a class rings a bell and all the girls are herded and thrown into a class-room

pell-mell, helter-skelter. The nuns and the 'old girls' (or stool pigeons) stand at the door pushing, crowding and shoving the girl-prisoners into the rooms headlong. Chairs are arranged in apple-pie order, while aprons are passed out to the girls, brushes are given out and every girl's hair is hurriedly smoothed back, order comes out of seeming chaos, and in a few moments all the girls are demurely seated, trying to appear happy. Embroidery, needle-work, and even musical instruments are given the girls. Then the nun in charge of each class makes a little speech warning the girls that one word or look that would arouse the visitor's suspicion will mean the 'cat-o-nine-tails!

"Then the unsuspecting visitors are ushered in, and they exclaim, 'Oh! How perfectly lovely; how sweet and contented! Little girl, you ought to be happy with such a nice home and these sweet 'sisters' to mother you!' to some poor girl who hasn't had a real meal for two or three years and who can't lay straight at night on her poor, little corn-husk mattress because her flesh is all cut to pieces from the cruel thongs in the hands of the 'sweet sisters!'"

"Tell us about this 'cat-o-nine-tails' you spoke of, and about some of the punishments inflicted on the girls," I suggested.

'That is the worst punishment, I mean the most brutal, that is inflicted in the Chicago 'House of Good Shepherd,'" said Dorothy. "It is just what the name indicates. This is the punishment usually for saying things to visitors in the parlor detrimental to the institution or for impudence to a nun. The nuns, assisted by the 'old girls' (trusties or stool-pigeons), strip the offender and throw her naked upon the bed, where she is held outstretched while the nun lashes her bare flesh till it is raw and bleeding and the nun is tired and exhausted. The whip used consists of a leather handle and nine long, keen lashes---this is

called the 'cat-o-nine-tails.' Each lash leaves a bleeding welt, nine long, bloody cuts every time a blow is struck with it! There were a number of other and more ordinary punishments, such as pounding the girl's across the bare knuckles with sharp edge of a two-foot hard rubber ruler, depriving the poor girls of food, and starving them into subjection.

"And such food as it was! Ugh!" And Dorothy shuddered at the recollection. "In the old Chicago 'House of Good Shepherd' there were about three hundred girls, in the new one, to which we were moved in the spring of 1906, a thousand girls were imprisoned---this, like the other, was only a great penal 'sweatshop' filled with power sewing machines, under-fed, unpaid girl-slaves---and misery. Our food was exactly as described by 'Cecelia,' slops, refuse, garbage, and 'comebacks' bagged over the city by the nuns. Not only that, but as a usual thing this nasty, unsavory mess was actually alive with cock-roaches! Meat was a rarity, but occasionally some Catholic grocer or butcher would donate some spoiled or decaying meat to the 'sisters'---for 'sweet charity's sake'---and I have often seen white maggots crawling over our meat---it was fairly alive with them!

"On Catholic 'feast days' we usually had a treat of jelly donated by some of the wholesale houses---always with the reasons for the 'charity' crawling through it in the form of ants---or else one would find the reason in the smell!

"But I remember twice that we girls had a real treat---" and Dorothy laughed in reminiscent glee, "and someone you have read about was to blame---or should be thanked?---for it, too. It was 'Priest' F. J. Barry, chancellor of the archdiocese of Chicago. I was reading his record in 'Father' Crowley's book, 'Romanism, A Menace to the Nation,' just the other day. Mr. Crowley rightly describes this priest, Barry,

as a drunkard, gambler, and several other unmentionable things. If your readers will turn to pages 47, 63 and 443 of Mr. Crowley's book they can read this priest's history for themselves. I remember that he is named on page 47, and also appears as 'No. 24' in Mr. Crowley's list of unsavory and criminal priests.

"Now, this 'Priest' and 'Mother' Josephine, the nun in charge of our class, cordially hated each other, and Barry delighted in playing practical jokes on her. The other nuns were all in love with Barry and helped him outwit her whenever possible. I remember him quite well, as he was a constant visitor at the 'House of Good Shepherd.'

"At the old 'house' there was a small lot of grass that was more than sacred. This teeny lawn was the apple of 'Mother' Josephine's eye. I remember it was guarded by a sign, 'Keep off the grass,' though no girl would have dared to so much as set foot on it. One day 'Priest' Barry came out to visit the nuns in his usual hilarious condition. By some trick this wily priest had gotten his old-time enemy, 'Mother' Josephine, off the scene and had two men take a barrel of nice, ripe apples up to the nuns' balcony above the sacred plot of grass. During the 'recreation period,' when all the girls were on the walks below, 'Priest' Barry suddenly emptied the barrel of apples into the grass shouting lustily, 'Go to it girls, help yourselves!' Well, no second invitation was needed and after the half starved throng of girls had scrambled madly after the apples you can imagine what the grass looked like!

"But that afternoon and evening came the aftermath! We girls did 'penance' till we wished we had never seen an apple. But the 'priest' had scored one on 'Mother' Josephine.

"One Christmas eve this same 'Priest' Barry came out to the 'House of Good Shepherd,' to sing 'mass'---

you know the Catholics have 'midnight mass' Christmas eve, really three 'masses'," two 'low' and one 'high'---and Barry was in great demand because of his splendid voice. But too much 'celebration' overcame him on this occasion and he fell asleep at the altar, and one of the nuns finished the service for him, and the 'altar boys' carried him out!"

"You ask me to tell you something of the cleanliness and sanitary conditions of these Chicago penal convents, falsely called 'Houses of the Good Shepherd,' where I was imprisoned. There is much that I cannot tell but there is one condition that will give you some idea of the rest. In summer the girls were required to bathe once every week, in winter once in two weeks. Here is a very choice bit of Catholic economy; in the old convent the water was only changed for every seventh girl, in the new one the nuns were more liberal and changed the water for every fourth girl! Water costs money, you know, in the city. Many of the girls were the victims of awful and nameless diseases---and the danger of infection in bathing was something dreadful.

"At bathing time an 'old girl,' or stool-pigeon, was in charge of the tubs and examined all the girls' underwear for symptoms of weakness; when such symptoms were found, instead of medical attention the unfortunate victim received severe punishment for alleged 'impurity' or immorality.'"

Dorothy paused and I asked her to tell me frankly and fully what she considered the cause of the almost universal downfall of the girl prisoners after they are released from the "Good Shepherd" convents---to tell for The Menace what that hitherto unprinted condition or teaching is in these penal convents that wrecks and almost ruins the future life of the victim.

"The real answer to your question is well known to every girl or woman who has ever been an inmate of these 'Houses of the Good Shepherd,' but few ever speak of it because---Oh, well, because it is a very delicate subject, and then it would usually bring nothing but suspicion upon the girl who would tell of this awful thing. And few would perhaps believe her; so the victims suffer silently," answered Dorothy sadly, then I saw the light of sudden resolve in her eyes and she continued frankly: "I sometimes think that if the angels can see the ruin and wretchedness here below, they must weep when they see these girl-lives wrecked by thousands every year by the devilish teaching of the unmentionable habit by those she-demons in nun's garb, those 'Sisters of the Good Shepherd!'"

"But, Miss Dorothy, do you realize that what you are saying is a terrible----an awful thing---do you mean to say---?" "Yes, a thousand times yes!" And so, her tones growing even more earnest, calmly and carefully choosing each word, Dorothy continued her exposure of the systematic, cunning and deliberate teaching of ____ _____ to all the little girls under their charge by these depraved nuns.

She described to me, that the vast army of Menace readers might know the terrible truth, how every evening after the children had gone to bed, from forty to sixty little girls in each dormitory in little, single beds crowded close together, furnished with corn-shuck mattresses, after the lights were out these white garbed harpies came silently gliding through, specter-like, scanning each small, girlish form with cold, cruel hawk-eyes. The most powerful of all teaching is that given in the form of suggestion. And the nuns display the cunning of Hell itself in their awful teaching that wrecks mind and body! * * *

And in that little mind this suggestive seed was forever

sown, the seed of suggestion that can never die---and Oh! the harvest of corruption, of ruin!---and the victims, how old were they? Little sisters seven and eight years old! Far kinder that the hand of the nun should have split the little skull wide open with an ax!

Dorothy explained the two-fold reason for this teaching; that those inmates who must be liberated, depraved in body and mind, may find shipwreck in the "red-light" districts in so finally be forced back to these penal "Houses of the Good Shepherd," then as 'Magdalenes'---or that thus with senses dulled and the power of decision wrecked---the poor victims will be content to remain in the convent year after year, so becoming what is there called an "old girl." Dorothy explains that an "old girl" is one who voluntarily remains and is used by the nuns as a sort of "trusty" or "stool pigeon." The "Good Shepherd" nuns grant numberless little favors to the "old girls," and they are better fed and better dressed than the others. They become quite content with their lot. They are all of course slaves to that indescribable habit which usually ends with the grave. Dorothy has talked with numbers of these "old girls" about their condition, asking them if all their natural instincts were dead, if they had no desire for a home, for loved ones, for a better life, and she says in every instance the answer is summed up in the following reply of one of these "old girls," who said, "Why, of course I'd rather be here than anywhere else. I couldn't love any man now, even if I was married to him!"

Because of the lack of space, I have been forced to condense this story and give only the briefest sketch of the experiences of Dorothy Nichols in the Chicago "House of the Good Shepherd." In passing, it is interesting to note that this Chicago "House of the Good Shepherd" is rated and known among the

Catholic "faithful" as the best convent of its class in America. If so, God have mercy on the others!

In conclusion, Miss Dorothy Nichols is a very real, a very much alive, and a very refined young lady. She is no mere image of fiction, nor does she lay buried somewhere in the musty past.......born and reared and enslaved in Catholicism, she is past from the darkness of image-worship to the daylight of freedom. Dorothy Nichols is with The Menace heart and soul. It might interest you to know that she is member of the staunch, old Presbyterian church.

Again, Dorothy Nichols is a young lady of courage. For years, since her liberation from that awful Chicago Catholic prison, she has been followed and hounded from place to place, from town to town, and from city to city by the Romanists. To live clean and straight and pure when every human hand seems against that life, to suffer deceit and Catholic malice and persecution unflinchingly, these are the things that prove Dorothy Nichols' high moral courage.

As another proof of Miss Dorothy's sincerity and courage, I would call attention to the following affidavit:

Aurora, Mo., Nov. 6, 1912.

I, Dorothy Nichols, being first duly sworn, do depose and say that I have read the above story of my experiences, that I furnished the material facts for the same, that I made every statement therein credited to me, and that every statement contained therein is true in every particular.

In further deponent saith not at this time.

(Signed)----DOROTHY NICHOLS.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 6th day of Nov., 1912.
HATTIE N. OLDAKER,
Seal Notary Public.

Chapter 15