Hansford: Mental Defectives in County H., Indiana 31 
mal. She falls out of her chair, according to her daughter 
Alice, and lies in a convulsion. Before and after these at- 
tacks she is meaner than ever. Charlotte always has been 
mean. She beats her children with clubs and fights with 
her grown children. Then when the trouble is aired in court 
she threatens to kill the little children unless they swear as 
she bids them. When the children disobey, she has them 
arrested. Recently she tried to have her daughter Alice com- 
mitted to the Southeastern Hospital for the Insane after a 
family quarrel. She and her son Peter once had a fight after 
which she had him arrested. Charlotte is very industrious; 
she wears overalls and does her own plowing. She is usually 
barefooted. The 3 other girls married Roscoe Barr, Ted 
Matson, and Andrew Booth. Paul died of mastoid abscess. 
Alice, the fifth child of Paul and Charlotte Morris, is 
feeble-minded. She was born in 1901. According to her 
teachers, she went to school until she was 15 years old and 
had reached the fifth grade. It was impossible for her to 
learn. Her mother finally took her out of school to shuck 
corn, and in December, 1917, she gave birth to an illegitimate 
child by Luther Snow. She has always had the character- 
istic Morris temper and sullen meanness. During and after 
pregnancy her irritability increased, and this was the basis 
of the mother’s complaint. The girl was paid $200 damages 
after the birth of the child, which, Alice says, Mrs. Morris 
used for her own purposes. Every time the girl asked for 
money there would be a fight. Once Mrs. Morris threw a 
stick of wood which struck the baby. It was after one of 
these fights that Charlotte had her arrested on a charge of 
insanity. After remaining in jail for several days she was 
acquitted, the decision being that she was a high-tempered 
moron who was continually clashing with her mother, another 
moron. A physician who has known the family for 20 years 
says that the trouble is that “There is a little bit too much 
hell in all of them.” 
Jessie, the sixth child of Paul and Charlotte, is probably 
feeble-minded. She was not examined but was among the 
5 poorest pupils in the school according to the teacher’s esti- 
mate. She is extremely bashful, and at the trial of Alice 
could not testify because she would break down and weep. 
She was in the eighth grade this year but failed to pass the 
final examination. 
