Omaha daily bee., 1889-01-13
A Child of Sixty.

New York Mail and express: For
thirty-threc years this gray-haircd old
man WAS buried. For thirty-thrce years
he saw nothing but the faces of his
iailers and fellow vlcts and aggra
waiting views of the clear, blue sky
and of the broad Hudson as it sweeps
the shore at Sing Sing. For nearly
thlrty-threc years ho slept in an apart
ment one foot longer ana II foot
deeper than Il grave. For thirty-thrcc
years he went the weary rounds
of prison life, without the
pleasure of shaking in friendship
the hands of a fellow man IN
tainted by crime. For thirty-three
years he had been dead to the world he
once had known, and for thirty-thrcc
years he had worn the brand of muir
derer on his brow, though murderer he
never was. Attacked at night when not
sober by three rutiians, he fought back
with the Weapon nearest at hand and
killed two OF them. A cOrOncr's jury
acquitted a mar in this city with some
thing like "A vote of thanks not many
months ago for killing a man in about
the same manner. But Michael Cor
man was not acquitted. Twelve men
decided that he was guilty of muir
der, and he was sentenced to
utiLIl. LdlcF MS SENTENCE WAS
changed to imprisonment for life,
and III 1875, just as October was
closing, Michael German, Il rosy
checked young Irlshman, tweuty-sevon
years old, became "A prisoner ''for the
rest of his natural life And in Octo-
Der, 1858. the same Irishman, now old.
gray-haired and feeble, is free. mo
me knows" he said to-day in a fearful
voice, what | passed through in those
years that | wore a striped suit and was
a ielon. 1T is all so strange the old
man said, ''to see no bars, no keepers,
no striped suits; to be allowed to eat
with Il knife and fork: TO sleep in Il COM
Portable room, to be free to come aud 20
as ! will. 1t is like "A Dream He has
an freshman love for freedom, and as
he wandcrs about and sees
the changes that have taken
place since he entered his living grave,
his exclamation is: '"rhank God! I'm
free!" There is IL vein of sadness run
ming through it, too. He came from
Sing Sing to find mono who knew him
save two faithful friends who had
played with him at the village school at
Lagan fifty years ago. His father and
mother died when he had been but a
were killed lighting for the union in
the late war. The judge before whom
he was tried and by whom he was
sentenced is dead; the lawyers who
prosecuted and the counsel who de-
Tended him are dead, and the governor
who committed hisscntcncci is also dead.
OF all the officials of his day in Brook
Ign but one is living-cX-Mayor Stryker
and he is very old German,
since his release, has been going about
the city ia an almost dazed condition.
He was prepared, he says, to see
changes, but not such changes as have
taken place, and, TO use his own cx-
preston, he feels as though he had
been born again" In his prison up
over the Hudson he heard little that
was going on in tho world
outside. He heard in Il
general way Of the war when
II was raging, and he heard from time
to time Of other affairs Of moment. But
1t was only IN n vague way. In "a gen
eral way ne knew something OF the tel
ephone, for there is one in the prison
Office. But there his knowledge of
modern improvements ended. There
was a volunteer fire department in his
days Of freedom, and when yesterday he
saw a modern engine being dragged at
A furious pace through the Brooklyn