Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-08-14
TOO LATE-A SAD SCENE.

The following is from the San Francisco
Bulletin of August 9th
We published last Monday an account of
funeral service in the chapel of the State
Prison, which was held the previous day,
over the remains Of young man named
Holt, who had died in the prison hospital
day or two before. The sequel to that
event is one of exceeding sadness. The
mother of the young man, an aged woman,
bowed with the weight of years, arrived at
the prison the day after he was buried.
She had received word of his sickness, and
of his pardon at her home in Los Angeles
county, but not being able to pay her
passage up from there she set about the
task of procuring the means for doing
so, and exerted herself for several
days before she succeeded. The con-
sequence was that when she arrived
at the prison, where she expected
to find her boy, he was in his grave. She
had, with mothers care, brought along
some nice bedding for him to lie upon while
being taken home, and had everything
ready to make the journey as comfortable
as possible, but it was too late. When she
reached the prison she Immediately inquired
for her son, hut none of the officers had the
heart to tell her the truth, so she was
asked to take seat in the reception-room,
and the Moral Instructor, Rev. Hiram
| Cummings, was sent for to break the sad
intelligence to her. When he came and
made himself known, her first question to
him was, d" Where is my son? ?" To which
Mr. Cummings replied, "He is in heaven,
/ trust"
What y said she, "he is not dead, is
he ?"
eyes," was the answer; "he is dead
and buried"
| On hearing this she uttered shrek, as
though she had been pierced to the heart
as she really was-and sank down in her
seat, almost falling to the floor, weeping
and wailing in such evident anguish of
soul, that others who were in the room
were moved to tears. When she had re-
gained some degree of self-control she
asked to see the grave in which her boy
had been placed, SO Mr.. Cummings went
out with her to the prison burying ground,
and when the grave was pointed out to her
/ she fell down upon it and embraced 1t,
kissing the earth and the stone that COW
cred it, and crying, in the bitterness of
her agony, so Richard, Richard, my son,
my son !" After giving vent to her feel
ings in this way for some time. she became
more composed, and expressed desire to
have the body dug up, and to take it home
with her, but on being told that the
weather was so warm, and the disease of
which her son had died was such as to
render metallic coffin necessary for the
purpose, which would make the expense
very great. she abandoned the idea.
She said, in conversation with Mr.. Cum
mings, that this was her last son. One
beside him had survived until last Febru-
airy, when be fell from railroad train
upon which he was employed, and which
passed over him, tearing his body to pieces,
so that it was picked up afterward in frag-
ments from the track.
A ticket for the young mans passage
home had been purchased by the prison
authorities, at the expense of the State,
and as it was worth to them what it had
cost, the price was paid to her, and, tax
ing last look at the grave of her beloved
boy, she turned away, to seek her desolate
home, where she will spend her remaining
days in loneliness and sorrow, with none to
comfort her but Him whose ear is ever
open to the cry OF distress.