The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-07-07
A Remarkable Experience.

citizen of West Haven, was found upon his own doorstep with a bullet hole through his heart. At daylight on the following morning was arrested on suspicion of having committed the crime, and lodged in the town jail to await the action of the grand jury. The details of my trial are still fresh in the public memory. The evidence, though wholly circumstantial, was overwhelmingly against me. l was known to have owed him a considers ble sum of money; high words had passed between us, for he had been cruelty unjust to me; the bullet found in his body fitted an empty and re- gently discharged chamber of my re- volver and, to crown all, I had been seen by dozen witnesses lettering in the vicinity of the murdered mans dwelling less than an hour before his lifeless body had been discovered. In the light of what followed, need not say that I was the innocent victim of the darkest conspiracy of deceptive appearances thst ever involved hu- man life.
 The trial was hardly more than legal form. My counsel believed me guilty, and the jury were against me to 8 man. On the 24th of August of the same year, l was sentenced to undergo the extreme penalty of the law, and ct ten o'clock on the morning of February 3, 1888, was hanged in the jail-yard at Springfield. Twenty minutes later was pronounced dead by the attending physicians, and my body was cut down and conveyed to the warden's room.
 From the fact that am now alive, and, with the exception of 8 certain rigidity of the muscles of the neck and partial paralysis of the vocal cords, in my normal physical condition, it will be inferred that was never really dead at all, but merely underwent species of cataleptic coma, superin- duced by suffocation. 1 shall not dis cuss the point. Personally I am con- vinced that I was actually dead. The acrimonious warfare of scientific authorities which my case has occa- stoned has proven that, of the great problems of life and death, the Tyn- dalls and Spencers of science know as little as the veriest naked savage.
 Of the events connected with my arrest for the murder, the trial and the long period of Imprisonment which followed retain, fortunately, only the vaguest recollection. My dreadful ex- perience upon the scafiold has, in some mysterious way, softened the terrible realities of that time into a wild and incoherent dream, from whose shifting phantasmagoria my own figure emerges at intervals as that of a stran- ger in whom have deep interest, yet can in no way connect with my own personality.
 It is as the memory of one who died in the mind of one who lives. I know that his name was Wilfrid Lyon; know that my name is Wilfrid Lyon; but cannot feel that the Wilfrid Lyon who suffered death on the scaf- fold is one with him whose hand now writes these lines. A dark gulf lies between us, and strive as may, I can- not cross it and blend my identity with his.
 My mind goes back clearly only to the morning of the Sd of February, to the moment when, summoned to meet my fate, l stepped out of my cell and, escorted by the sheriff and depu- ties, proceeded toward the jail yard. Even now, sitting in my own home, exonerated in the eyes of the world, and with the shame and horror of crime efiaced from my name forever, my heart ceases beating, and my blood turns to ice, as recall my emotions during that awful march to my doom. Innocent, yet hopelessly branded with the blackest of crimes; condemned to be put to death in the prime of my youth and strength, and to bury love, hope and ambition in 6 dishonored grave, the fortitude, which am told had maintained up to that hour, for cook me. My breast swelled with & single dry sob, and in my soul arose a mad hatred of mankind and bitter l despair of the justice of heaven.
 But in another moment I had re- gained my self-control, and went steadily onward. As the iron door of my cell clashed behind me, the deep voice of the prison bell swelled sol- l emnly upon the chill air of the winter l morning. It was tolling for my death, and to my tortured ears it was the | voice of mourning and despair.
 With firm step mounted the steps of the scaffold, and stood beneath | the dangling cord. As glanced about ! me saw that the eyes of those pres ent shrank from meeting mine, and that sudden paleness overspread their l fAcea More or less of terror sur- rounds all forms of death, but there is