The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-08-07
WHAT IS The BEST?

Nhat terrible deed was in this brain
hatching-was he going to murder me;
Was it myself who was to hang, instead
Of johnson?
No; yes. He placed the line pulley
like over an arm of q hanging chandelier.
This was altogether too slight a support
even for one Of my tender frame. 1t was
not to be hanging, then. Under the
weight on the floor he placed a can Of
nitro-glycerine; l recognized the yellow
string; it was a fuse, and it would burn
in sixty minutes. 1t would run across
the marble slab; there was no hope of
igniting any substance that would warn
my friends.
do you begin to see through it%'
asked Joe Johnson's brother.
believe I cursed him with my eyes.
I could only breathe through my nos
trils, and great veins were swelling and
growing hot in my forehead. Drawing
a match from his pocket he lighted and
applied it to the fuse; that little tyrant
that gave a man an hour to live, - kill
him at the end of it-that little ire
sponsible terror that, less merciful than
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was to die, if fright and horror spared
him to himself. Slowly the flames crept
snake like around the Irvine.
'sIn one hour" said the prisoners
brother, ''you will be in heaven or hell.
/ will watch with you for half an hour,
and the other half you will spend alone"
He sat down some minutes in a chair
watching the flame. Then he arose and
took a piece Of porcelain, with the MUIR
derer's name thereon, from the table,
and shook his head gloomily.
81 am chemist enough to know it is
arsenic" he said. eyes, those bright,
metallic eyes, a betrayal of the guilty.
Science, thou wouldst kill my brother
thou shalt a him. Let me see in
whose hands thou art the most power
full"
The half hour wore slowly away. Oh,
heavens! What agony did suffer! Not
for myself, but for my child. The fuse
burned on-on. The half hour is up.
The brother of the murderer rises to go.
Joy.
Commit your soul to Gods keeping"
he said. "You hold the evidence of my
brothers guilt-nothing a save yor
now"
With that he turned to take his hat
from off the table covered with the
crimson cloth beneath which hid my
priceless boy. Something attracted his
attention. He held out his hands and
reached forward. I thought he had dis
covered my boy. No; he was lifting
something in either hand-the wires Of
the electric battery. In another instant
my boy had leaped from under the table,
and was turning the crank fast and furi-
ously.
The m~urderer's brother was in the
power of my boy. He could not drop
the wires; he was helpless. How my
boy cried for help! The old college rang
with his voice. The prisoners brother
added his voice to my boys in his agony,
In an instant a great length burned
away. It would just last five minutes
and no more.
"Father!m shouted my boy, 'sif no as
sistance comes this villain must die with
us. I dare not free him. Help! help
help!"
Alas! / could not answer him.
Thank God! But some one else did
The fuse is burned up. The rope is OF
fre-the nitro glycerine! The dool
opens; Tom Richards, on a midnight
visit to the sick, has heard the cry; hi
co~mprehends all; seizes the can in hi
hand, the weight descends indeed, but
not on the death dealing oil. No; down
it goes through the Office f%oor-down
down, like an evil spirit, to give back {
dull metallic echo from the stones of the
cellar beneath.
We are saved.
Joe johnson, the prisoner, was hanged
but his brother remains UNPUBLISHED BY
the law, for he stabbed himself with &
knife and thus escaped the hangman's
rope.