The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1893-05-18
CARLYLE W. HARRIS'S Elk
ECUTION.
New York Herald, Nav 9th. |

ne Vile murderer Carlyle went
worth Harris died at Sing Sing Mon
day the death that the law allotted to
him. He survived his victim two years,
and in that space of time courts and
public places have rung with the dis
cussion of his case. The tongue that
the electric current stilled forever ut
tered last declaration of innocence,
the switch was turned, the electric shaft
shot through the body of the con-
demned and the witnesses grouped
round the chair filed away to sign their
certificates that Helen Potts, the trust
ing and murdered wife, had been
avenged.
elf anybody else but Carl had given
this to me l would think l was going
to die, but Of course Carl would not
give anything to me but what was
right" These were the dying words
of the wife who took poison from the
hands of her husband.
81 hive no further motives what
ever for deceit. l die absolutely in
nocent of the crime of which | am
convicted. These were the last words
that fell from the lips OF the murderer
before he left to meet his Maker.
The hosting Of the black flag over
the Warden's office at Sing Sing
prison, which tells that the majesty Of
the law has been upheld, and that the
slayer, abandoned by his fellowmen,
has been banished from earth for a
higher Power to deal with, was awaited
by the largest crowd that ever COL
lected before the building on the oc-
casion of an execution. Throughout
the United States, wherever the story
of the crime has been told, the news
of the killing was awaited with excite
ment Harris had been snatChed from
the clutches of the courts more than
once by energetic counsel, and it
seemed that the wonderful efforts Of
his mother to save him must avail.
People by the hundred wanted his life
spared mainly because he had a
mother, it appeared. But in spite of
their fight the moment arrived when
the mans life was forfeited.
herself was there. Within gunshot of
the prison where they bound and
killed her son and then with prying
scalpel delved into his body and sought
to track the path of the electric flash,
Mrs. Harris was encamped, fearless
and defiant, denouncing the work of
the law as judicial murder. Encamped
truly describes her position, for it was
as fighter that she went to Sing Sing.
"Dare to call my son a murderer !"
she exclaimed fiercely to the reporters.
"Dare to speak of him in your news
papers as Murderer Harris! My curse
will be on you if you do. He died
guiltless of the crime laid at his feet.
He was a victim to the rage Of Tam
many"
The near presence of the mother OF
the condemned man and her attitude
toward the law made the carrying out
of the statute much more dramatic
than it usually is. Rarely is a muir
derer executed who has the brains OF
Harris or whose family possesses the
beliggerent capacity of his. Men have
come to regard the death penalty as
something reserved for the ignorant,
the sodden and the brutaliZed beings
who usually suffer it. By some strange
reasoning they seem to forget that the
more the ability the greater is his fault
if he puts it to the uses of murder.
1t was soon over. Those who were
inside heard a short lecture on cleo
tricity and an explanation of what
they were about to see, and then Har-
ris, pale, unshaved and looking very
unlike hero but very much like any
of the other thousand and odd con
victs in the prison, emerged from the
hall of the condemned. AS he took
his seat he spoke the words quoted
proclalming his innocence, the cleo
trodes and mask were adjusted, and
before the novices realized that the
execution had begun the full charge
of electricity had shot into his body
With hardly motion he was dead.
1t was great relief to every one
No execution of late years has called
forth such a display of reluctance to SEE
it on the part of the witnesses. All O
them felt deeply that the organism
that was to be burned out was of q
higher calibre than that of most muir
derers, though the talents had beer
debased to low purposes. Harris me
death bravely, as every one thought he
would who knew him.
Before the body was cool it wa
taken from the chair and placed upor
table. Doctors with knives and saw:
rapidly did their work. They tool
out the brain and found it of goodly
size, and they examined carefully the
heart and interior organs.
When this had been done the body
was patched up again SO that it looked
almost as before, and the state hao
finished with it. 1t was then turned
over to an undertaken, and it wen
formally under the control of Mrs
Harris, the mother, who had failed t
recover the possession of her son il
life