The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-01-06
Innocent and Guiity.


The oft-told story OF the painter who
painted an ideal picture of Innocence, :"
from the face of beautiful child who
sat as his model, and in his old age had
villainous looking criminal sit to him
for the model of picture of 'Guilt' as
q oompanion-piece to the other, and
discovered that the child and the GRIM
inal were the same person, has received
some startling illustrations in real life.
A convict discharged from the old
Charlestown State Prison told the follow
ing remarkable history of himself to the
warden of that prison:
Some years ago a gentleman and his
wife and their only child, boy of five
or six years old, visited the prison.
They were shown through the work
shops and prison by an officer, who
pointed out the different objects of in
terest as they passed along. The gentle
man was inquiring about man who
had recently been sent to prison for life
for murder.
''By the way, this is his ROOM" said
the officer, stopping before one of the
cells, the door of which stood open.
The little boy, with child's curiosity,
stepped up and looked in. His father
came up behind the child and playfuly
pushed him in, and closed the door.
The little fellow shrieked to be let out,
The door was Immediately opened, and
the child ran sobbing into his mother S
arms. She, brushing back the light
curls from his forehead and kissing him,
said soothingly:
"No, no; they shan't shut up my little
son in prison"
The boy was terribly frightened; be
turned his eyes once more toward the
dreaded cell, and for the first time
noticed on the door the Mo"
The incident made deep impression
upon his mind.
Time passed. He grew to manhood.
His father and mother were both dead.
He became sailor, and good one,
rising step by step until he was second
in command of ore of the California
steamers sailing from New York.
But like many others, in consequence
of that vice which has dragged down so
many even from high positions, he lost
his situation, came back to Boston, sank
lower and lower, and was finally ar
rested for breaking into store. He
was sentenced to State Prison for four
years.
When received at the prison he was
taken to the bath-room-th usual GUS
tom-bathed, shaved and clipped;
clothed in the prison dress and conducted
to the room he was to occupy.
Judge of his horror and CONSERVATION
when he found himself standing before,
and the officer unlocking, the door of
the same cell, "No-," into which he,
when child, had been thrust for mo-
ment by his father.
In relating the story to me (says
Warden Haynes), he said no one could
imagine his feelings when he found HIM
self an inmate of that cell. Every Incl
dent and scene from childhood rushed
upon his mind; the exclamation of his
mother: "No, no; they shan't shut up
my little son in prison." rang in his
ears, and he threw himself upon a stool
weeping, in utter despair and vretched-
ness,
But it is pleasant to see shining
through this strange story of circum-
stantial retribution the truth of the fam
Gus line: There's a divinity that
shapes our ends" The convict became
a religious man in prison, and year,
after his discharge rose to be an officer
in the navy Youths Companion.