Horsewhipped Servant Girl
It wasn’t easy, back in the bad old days. This is a July 19, 1885 clipping from an unknown newspaper:
Ill Treatment of a Girl
Lebanon, July 19 — Steward Klein, a stalwart farmer of the Toush Valley, along the Blue Mountains, yesterday unmercifully horsewhipped Sarah Linke, aged 19, a maid employed in his family, beating the girl beneath a willow tree in the rear yard of his premises until she sank writing to the ground and confessed that she had told an untruth.
When Mrs. Klein returned home yesterday she found the house in disorder, the infant neglected and the girl locked in her room. When Sarah was, with difficulty, induced to come out, she said she had taken refuge there to escape Mr. Klein. The latter proved by his son and hired man, however, that he had not left the field during his wife’s absence, and then whipped Sarah until she retracted the charge. Sarah’s father had Klein arrested, but, on learning of the girl’s confession, withdrew the suit and retracted the charge. The girl has disappeared.
