Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1890-02-19
From the New York Advertiser.
AN OUTCAST.

AAAN ~ - L OAAo Il
John Andrews was social leper.
There are such things extant, and John
Andrews was one of them. He had
served a term of twenty years in the
state prison. 1t is a long time He
went In a youth of 20 and came out
man of 40, at what should have been
his prime of life; but he was turned to
q machine, with mind and body dulled
by the colorless years and the monoto-
nous prison routine. He had never had
any chance, or home, or good influence;
and bad company had done the rest.
He was the product of his surround
1ngs and circumstances, and had drifted
upon the evil tide until the committed
crime that brought him there. He
hardly realized 1t himself until it was
twenty years Of prison existence that
crushed the very life out of him.
His jailers said that he was morose,
his fellow convicts that he was mo
good" and to the chaplain he was a
puzzle. He could not ''stir him. he
said. [ do not know that I altogether
blame John Andrews for that. The
good mans orthodoxy was not within
his hearers grasp. and his sermons were
ponderous. Poor John was not the
only one who slumbered through them.
eoothed to sleep by the droning voice.
The parsons private exhortations
were of veEy forbidding character.
John Andrews could not listen to them
and used to turn away; and yet some
how fixed idea had forced itself into
his brain, sprung to life perhaps tysom
stray fruitful word among all that waste
OF platitudes.
1t is a good thing to be honest, or
else life becomes a pretty poor job"
That was what he said to himself when
the prison doors were opened at last,
and he was free to 60 where he would in
the bright, sunny world outside those
dreary walls
He had nowhere to go to, no friends
TO meet or welcome him. Every trace
of relation or connection had vanished
IN those long twenty years. The trade
of shoemaking that he had learned in
prison. and s. in his pocket, the SINE
So that had lain there twenty years
before, was all he had IN the wide
world.
He had longed earnestly for that day,
but now that it had come be elt sad
and lonely. AS he walked away he
1ancled that every one noticed him, and
pointed him out as the released convict.
He ielt that his gaitshowed it, and that
his whole bearing betrayed prison train
ing. He had no idea that he should be
so sensitive.
"What does it matter after ALL" said
he to himself, as he tried to swing along
with the free, easy step of other men;
but his ears still seemed ringing with
the sound OF the prisoners lockstep
tramp in the squad. Then he turned
away from the street aud found himself
oil In oil
eyes had never been gladdened by TIE
sight of the fresh green. He threw
himself down by the wayside, in the
long, sweet grass, and as be did so bird
Just over his head broke forth in a strain
of melody and then few away freely in
to the blue sky. John Andrews buried
his face in the grass and burst into
tears. He had not known before that he
could cry, but somehow he felt better
for it.
They say that the most dangerous
moments to the freed convict are the
first after the release. If, while he is
still uncertain and strange, or exalted
with his new liberty, ne falls into bad
company, CT stops to drink at any of the
little shops that cluster all too closely in
the village, he Is pretty sure to fall back
into old associations and ways; but John
Andrews fortunately took the other
road, and found Inns IF in the country.
He walked on for long time, storDing
frequently to rest. He was not ac-
customed to such eXertion and soon
grew tired. He began to be very happy,
though, as he drank in the pure air and
Eeloiced in the beautiful world about
him.
''Can it be-" he asked himself, "that
this has all been so beautiful for twenty
years? It's wicked to shut men up and
spoil their lives He did not think OF
ehe 'satety of society,"" poor fellow, and
forgot for the moment that he was a So
cial leper.
Finally he reached another village,
and sat down in the railroad station to
rest; and then, not knowing what else
TO do, he spent part of his precious s.
for a ticket TO the city. When he
reached there ne found cheap board
ing-house, where he paid for bed and
q meal, and then sat down to think.
He must get some work, that was
would not ask for credentials or refer
ences, for his record would not help
him. So the next day he applied at
the Office of the board of public works,
and was set to mending the streets IN
company with gang of Italians and
Irish. They we're rough lot, but good
natured enough, and John got on very
well with them. When be received his
honestly-earned wages he was perhaps
happier than he had ever been before.
He must keep honest, he thought in his
poor daZed way, and try to hold his
head up again. But the plague-spot