Bloomington herald. [volume] (Bloomington, I. T. [Iowa]) 1840-1849, 1841-09-24
The Condemned Fsrser md III. W-as.

The Condemned Fsrger md hts WE.
The follwing beautiful and thrilling
sketch. is copied from Frazer's Uondon)
Magazine, for July, received by the steam
ship Caledonia
The forger had been convicted, and con-
demned to suffer the dreadful penalty of
death. His wife was sensitive aud accom-
plished lady, although the wife of felon.-
An hour had been appointed for the last
earthly interview. Pale and trembling the
wife with three children, entered to them
the tomb of living being, who had been
their only love and hope in this world =
he whose solicitude to insure their happi-
ness, YVES the cause of their misery. At
ter an absence, it is natural to rush into
the arms of these we love but disgrac e
aud consequent shame make strange havoc
with the impulses Of the heart. ''Do you
forgive me. Maria % said the husband,
keeping aloof from his wife, as if his
touch would be pollution. "Would, that
others could as readily forgive - replied
the agonized wife, sinking on seat near
her.-"Ah, you mean God! All, have
you prayed for me, Maria Do you think
there is hope for me? Speak have
been great sinner, wicked sinner, Ma
ria. Ye. do not tell these, your children,
what bad man their father was. But
wherefore are they here! Is not my
punishment sufficiently heavy, without
bringing my children to reproach me e.
The jalor reminded the bewildercd man
that he had expressed wish to see them.
"Yes-true ~ he calculated, "but have
been mad, and have not recovered my sen
ses. Maria, your husband is mad! J" Ma
ria heard him not; she was lying sense
less on the floor. The children, aged six
eight, and ten, were crying over her,
thinking that their unhappy and evidently
distracted father had been the cause of her
death. Both husband and wife and thou-
sands Of questions to ask, and more matter
to communicate, but the interview was
ended. Several hours had elapsed ere the
wife was restored to perfect consciousness !;
and it was late in the evening before her
doomed husband could be brought to re-
sumo the preparations for his fate tibet
awaited him the following morning.
"Shall not see him once more p inquir-
ed the wife, as she slowly recovered her
recollection, ''only once more-only one
look! am now prepared, and can com
mand my feelings" This privilege was
denied her, as such interviews rarely an
swer any purpose but TO distract the mind
of the one whose business it is 10 forget
the world and all its attractions, and to
agonize the feelings of the other, who
stands in need of all the resolution they
possess to sustain the calami,ies attendant
on catastrophe so fatal to their worldly
prospects.
1t was evening before the wife and her
children could be conveyed home ; the LAT,
ter, while at the prison, and on their road,
asking their agouized mother number of
questions regarding their father, every one
of which penetrated the soul and caused
her further anguish. II was the first time
the subject of death had been forced on
their attention, and they were too young
to have anything but a confused notion of
it, now they had learned that their father
was doomed in few hours to meet it be
fore the public gaze. y In all these cases,
the truth is, that the wife and children Of
the offenders are only parties really punish
ed. Even the hanging itself falls with a
heavier weight of suffering on the sensibili,
ties of an attached wife than it does on the
actual culpfit, whose sense of pain has
termination. The wife, tortured with the
picture of the scene of strangula,ion on
her Imagination, in vain, when wor,. out
wi.h distress Of mind, seeks repose; the
excited and derangedT nerves keep fancy