Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1891-07-17
MURDERERS' DOOM.
A QUADRUPLE EXECUTION AT
THE SING SING PRISON..
Complete Success. Death In
Simultaneous and Painless.

Four murderers, Harris A. Smiler.
James j. Slocum, Joseph Wood and Shi-
buya Jugiro, were executed by electricity
at the Sing Sing prison at an early hour
Tuesday morning. The execution was
conducted in the presence of twelve wit
nesses, all physicians, and the Jail officials,
no reporters being allowed inside the pris-
on. The apparatus used was similar in
construction TO that used in the case of
KENNEL, though greater care was taken
TO avoid laundering. The CONDEMNED men
were led into the execution room one af-
ter another and put to death within a few
minues OF each other, the killing being "a
complete scientific success. Death was
instantaneous and, so far as can DO ascer-
tanned, painless.
The crimes for which the four were ex-
ecuted are as follows:
Harris A. Smiler was at one time a
salvation army captain. He was printer
by trade, and had developed a rare faculty
for getting married. AT the time the
crime was committed there were three
women living TO whom he had been mar
ried and none of them had been divorced.
The last one to go through the ceremony
with him, Maggie bradley, was his victim.
He had been living with her, but on ac-
count of his brutality she had determined
to leave him. He came home partly drunk
on the night Of April 3, 1889, and when
she refused TO promise to remain with him
he shot her TO death. He was originally
condemned TO die in the week beginning
Aug. IA, 1890, but the appeals taken had
saved his life thus far. James j. Slccum
lived at Cherry street, and had been "A
base bail player and common
IN 70
beater. but commonly pounded his wife
with his fist and kicked her. On the night
of December 81, 1889, he came home and
took an axe, which had been used by his
wife to break up boards for fuel, and beat
the womans brains out. He was convicted
in March, 1890, and was originally SEN
fenced to die during the week beginning
May of that year. Joseph Wood was
one of the Negroes employed in building
the new aqueduct One pay day in May,
1889, he got into one Of the fights common
among the gangs of laborers employed
there. His opponent was an Italian.
Carlo RUM, also an aqueduct laborer.
Rum was killed. Wood has always
asserted that he took RUINS life in self
defense. His case was taken TO the
supreme court of the United States on the
novel plea that Wood was not tried by his
peers, because no Negroes were on the
jury. The appeal served only to prolong
prisoners life. The last of the four was a
common specimen Of the crews of the ships
that now sail out of the port Of New York.
His name is Shibuya Jugiro, and he is a
native of Japan. He was living in one of
the James street sailors homes. While
waiting the pleasure of the boarding house
boss in the matter of putting him on board
of a ship on which he had already signed
articles 10 return TO Japan, he got into a
dispute with a countryman, Murra Canni,
about berth IN the forecastle of the ship.
Jugiro got "a carving knife and stabbed
Canni 10 death in the course OF the fight
that followed. His case was taken to the
United States supreme court by Roger NJ.
sherman, the plea being that Jugiro had
had no legal defense because his attorney,
John X. Heinzelman, had not been
admitted to practice at the New York bar.