Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1855-07-26
SPOKE TOO SOON.
ArALE WITH A MORAL HANGING TO IT.

ATALE WITH MORAL HANGING TO IT.
At the midsummer assizes held A. D.
1891, at Cheltenham, England, one
Thomas Street was transported for
sheep stealing. Great, therefore, was
the surprise of the criminal officials of
the place to find the identical Thomas
arrested for stealing clothes from a
hedge the very next spring. He had
escaped from the hulks, wherein prison.
ers sentenced to transportation are con-
fined. But what was the infatuation
that led him back to the very place
where recognition and the punishment
of death must ensue. Here was mys-
terry which the quidnuncs could not faith
ON.
However, Thomas Street, already
convicted of sheep stealing, was no less
guilty of the second charge; he was
tried, found guilty and condemned to
the gallows, the judge remarking, with
a benignant smile, that to such an offen-
der no hope of pardon could possibly be
extended.
Now there was something remarkable
in the earnestness with which Street pro-
tested his entire innocerce of the sec
ond crime. 1t was remembered that
he confessed the sheep stealing, and
indeed were It not for his own confess
sion, it was thought at the time he
might have escaped. But though he
appeared perfectly careless of life, he
protested solemnly, and with many Sc
rious oaths, that he had never touched
the clothes, that he had returned to
Cheltenham to fulfil a very different
mission, and that, though perhaps he
deserved hanging for his past misdeeds
and intentions, his execution on the
present indictment would be judicial
murder.
The chaplain urged him to cenfess-
the sheriff, the turkeys, the doctor,
(Dr. Homer by name } all followed suit,
and implered him, as all hope was over,
to save his soul the additional and use
less guilt of perjury. Still the prisoner
was impenitent; he laughed at the chap
lain, smiled at the sheriff and turkeys,
but grew strangely enraged whenever
DIR. Homer ventured to address him on
the subject.
He also possessed an immovable be-
lief that he would not be hung. On the
very night preceding his execution, ev-
en- while he heard the hammers of the
men engaged in erecting the scaffold,
he assured the turkeys in confident,
CHEEKY tone, that reprieve was alrea-
dy on its way from London.
The morning came, Street was still
self-possessed. as smiling, as jocose as
ever. He attended chapel, but the good
pastors eloquence failed to excite any
terror or remorse in his breast. He
even sketched o very tolerable carica-
ture, on the inside cover of his prayer
book, of a man hanging. The prison
officers, with one voice, declared they
had never seen such GOODNESS, not staid
insensibility, but down right confidence
of escape, in all their psst experience
1t was odd. Could it be insanity?
Insanity or not, the death bell has
began to toll; it is quarter to twelve,
and at noon, ESQ said the yudge)
Thomas Street, an escaped convict,
was 10 be hung by the neck until he
was dead
We shall now permit DR.. Homer,
from whom we received the story, to
tell it in his own quaint way, merely re-
marking that the Doctor is large
headed, saturnine man, and slow Of
speech.
Well, sir, when chapel was over, the
prisoner was requested to prepare him
self forthwith for execution. He ap-
ueared to grow little anxious-shan
say apprehensive? As the final ten
minutes Jagged away, he even begged
the sheriff, my brother said the Doct.