Kept at South Bartonville Without Locks.
Dr. George A. Zeller, superintendent of the asylum for the incurable insane at South Bartonville, having fought for the care of Bertha in his institution, purposes to make her a tractable patient and willing to remain. He has the history of his institution back of him, from whose doors and windows he has torn away $6,000 worth of steel netting and steel bars.
In the first place, "Fainting Bertha" will have nothing to gain by fainting at Bartonville; she is promised merely a drowning dash of cold water when she falls. She can secure no keys by fainting, for the reason that there are no keys to doors. A nurse, wideawake for her eight-hour nursing duty, is always at hand and always watchful.
"Take away the show of restraint if you would have a patient cease fighting against restraint," is the philosophy of Dr. Zeller. "Human vigilance always was and always will be the greatest safeguard for the insane."
If "Fainting Bertha" Lebecke were a grizzled amazon, even, she might be a simpler proposition for the state. She is too pretty and plump, however, to think of restraining by the harsher methods, if harsh methods are employed. She can pass out of a storm of hysterical tears in an instant and smile through them like a stream of sunshine. Or as quickly she can throw off the pretty little witticism and airy conceit of her baby hands and become a vixen fury with blazing blue eyes that are a warning to her antagonist.
And at large, exercising her charms, she can become the "good fellow" to the everlasting disappearance of half a dozen different valuables in one's tie or pockets.