Pathology of Lying [40]
`auntie' said if I would give her the goods she would pay me for them.''
``My mother fixed it up that if she got the goods and got caught she would get a clerk to make out receipts and get them stamped paid. She has not done this yet, but I think she will in this case.'' (This was a statement at the very first interview with Edna and no doubt had reference to the fact that the mother could produce receipted bills for the dress and other articles which Edna had maintained to the detective she herself had stolen. Of course the girl's story of this was untrue; the receipts were genuine.)
``One of my sisters is adopted, but my father does not know it. She ain't real. It was this way. When my pa was out west for a year ma asked me to look in the papers for a baby and I looked and found an advertisement about one. Ma said she must not be redheaded because that ain't like the family. We went and got her and ma went to bed for nine days and pretended it was her baby. She took a shawl and gave the nurse $25 and made out adoption papers. She took me with her. It was a month old. She made me go and tell my aunt I had a little sister. My aunt said it looked kind of big for 3 days old, but ma said she had been keeping it in an incubator. She had padded herself out before, and pretended it was her own child. Pa came home when it was six months old and he loved the baby just like his own. I ain't jealous, but it makes me sick to hear such lies.''
This alleged fact, reiterated to us and testified to in the court, was in itself a source of the whole case being farther followed up. The nurse was found who took care of Edna's ``mother'' during her confinement and it was found that Edna's whole story was quite untrue. It was evidently an elaborate fabrication representing the facts as they might have been about Edna herself. The only part of it that was true was that one of the younger children had been for a time in an incubator.
``Since I was 10 years old I have known about that. I have known I was not her child. She said something that sounded queer to me once when I ran away. It made me think she was not my mother.
``Why do I tell lies? I got started at it when I was small. She used to make me tell lies to my father. I began to steal when I was about 8 years old. My little sister has started to take things already. She is only 4. I was trying to break her and mother said, `Let her alone.'
``She's had about nine different servants. She never can keep any. She used to make me forge letters. She made me sign a girl's name to a receipt for wages which the girl never received. The girl had no case against her because she had the receipts. The poor girl lost it.
``I am going to tell the truth. There's going to be lots of things come out. I am going to tell the judge I lied when I told him I did not steal the things. Why did I lie? Well, she gave me just one look and I knew what she would do to me when I got home. Everything I told you about my father is the truth. Where else would I get that disease? I was never allowed to go out with boys.''
At another time when we inquired what bothered or worried her more than anything else we obtained an account of her sex repressions. Of course there would always be difficulty in knowing just how true the details were but probably she gave us the main factors in her mental life.
``I used to be out in the streets all the time. There were hardly any houses around there then. I used to hear mother talk about things. She would send me out of the room and say it was not for me to hear. Then boys lived near me and they asked me to do bad things. I first heard about those things from a boy on the porch. I was 7 or 8. I was always thinking about it--what my mother said at that time, I mean. She did not explain it enough. I am always fidgety, always nervous. My hands and feet are always going. Whenever I would see a boy it would always come up in front of my eyes. It was mostly when I saw boys. If she had explained it more it would not
``My mother fixed it up that if she got the goods and got caught she would get a clerk to make out receipts and get them stamped paid. She has not done this yet, but I think she will in this case.'' (This was a statement at the very first interview with Edna and no doubt had reference to the fact that the mother could produce receipted bills for the dress and other articles which Edna had maintained to the detective she herself had stolen. Of course the girl's story of this was untrue; the receipts were genuine.)
``One of my sisters is adopted, but my father does not know it. She ain't real. It was this way. When my pa was out west for a year ma asked me to look in the papers for a baby and I looked and found an advertisement about one. Ma said she must not be redheaded because that ain't like the family. We went and got her and ma went to bed for nine days and pretended it was her baby. She took a shawl and gave the nurse $25 and made out adoption papers. She took me with her. It was a month old. She made me go and tell my aunt I had a little sister. My aunt said it looked kind of big for 3 days old, but ma said she had been keeping it in an incubator. She had padded herself out before, and pretended it was her own child. Pa came home when it was six months old and he loved the baby just like his own. I ain't jealous, but it makes me sick to hear such lies.''
This alleged fact, reiterated to us and testified to in the court, was in itself a source of the whole case being farther followed up. The nurse was found who took care of Edna's ``mother'' during her confinement and it was found that Edna's whole story was quite untrue. It was evidently an elaborate fabrication representing the facts as they might have been about Edna herself. The only part of it that was true was that one of the younger children had been for a time in an incubator.
``Since I was 10 years old I have known about that. I have known I was not her child. She said something that sounded queer to me once when I ran away. It made me think she was not my mother.
``Why do I tell lies? I got started at it when I was small. She used to make me tell lies to my father. I began to steal when I was about 8 years old. My little sister has started to take things already. She is only 4. I was trying to break her and mother said, `Let her alone.'
``She's had about nine different servants. She never can keep any. She used to make me forge letters. She made me sign a girl's name to a receipt for wages which the girl never received. The girl had no case against her because she had the receipts. The poor girl lost it.
``I am going to tell the truth. There's going to be lots of things come out. I am going to tell the judge I lied when I told him I did not steal the things. Why did I lie? Well, she gave me just one look and I knew what she would do to me when I got home. Everything I told you about my father is the truth. Where else would I get that disease? I was never allowed to go out with boys.''
At another time when we inquired what bothered or worried her more than anything else we obtained an account of her sex repressions. Of course there would always be difficulty in knowing just how true the details were but probably she gave us the main factors in her mental life.
``I used to be out in the streets all the time. There were hardly any houses around there then. I used to hear mother talk about things. She would send me out of the room and say it was not for me to hear. Then boys lived near me and they asked me to do bad things. I first heard about those things from a boy on the porch. I was 7 or 8. I was always thinking about it--what my mother said at that time, I mean. She did not explain it enough. I am always fidgety, always nervous. My hands and feet are always going. Whenever I would see a boy it would always come up in front of my eyes. It was mostly when I saw boys. If she had explained it more it would not