The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1893-08-12
WHEN MEN FEEL FEAR.
Decline Of Courage After the Mid.
night Hour.

! A special correspondent OF Inc
San Francisco Chronicle, at Fres-
no, CAL, gives some queer views of
Chris Evans, the noted bandit who
lies in the Jail at Fresno recovering
from the wound received at his cap
ture at Stone Corral. The cores
pondent says she is man of most
peculiar ideas on many subjects on
which men usually give little
thought. He is fatalist of the
most confirmed sort, and yet he
mixes with this doctrine certain
influence which actions have over
events, and mingled with it all
there is weird superstition which
obeys no rule. A few days ago
reporter was talking with him in
his cell, when the all-absorbing
topic of the Heath trial came up.
It was the day after Deuprey, in
addressing the jury, had explained
how McWhirter could have taken
his own life"
"McWhirter did not commit sui
cide," remarked Evans, comment
ing on this speech, which he had
read in the morning paper. II can
offer an argument which will con-
vince anybody on earth that Nc
Whirter did not commit suicide
and it is an argument which no.
body has ever thought of, SO far as
| have heard"
When pressed to give his argu-
ment Evans suddenly asked :
.sWhat time was it that McWhirter
met his death?"
Fifteen minutes after 3 o'clock
in the morning"
"That is what I had understood.
No man can deliberately commit
suicide at that hour. No man has
ever deliberately taken his own life
between l o'clock and daybreak. "
"What do you mean by that?
What has that to do with it?"
81 will tell you,'' continued Ev-
ans. "a man who is in great pain,
or under the influence of liquor, or
crazy, will kill himself at any time.
But man in full health and in his
] right mind could not take his life
at that hour, because there comes
a period in every night when 1t be-
gins to grow toward morning, but
when daylight is yet a long way
off, when every man is a coward.
/ He shrinks from an imaginary fear.
| A man will fight twice as quick be-
fore midnight as he will after.
When the night begins to wear
away, an uneasiness comes upon
men. They lose their courage and
cannot stick to resolution. l ought
70 know what I am talking about,
and I do know that such is the
case.
Have you never observed that
sick persons are nearly always
worse in the after part of the night!
Deaths occur then oftener than at
any other time. I have been told
that sailors who die of long sick
ness nearly always die at a time
when the tide ebbs in the latter
part of the night. There is a say
ing among them that they will GO
out with the tide. Men obey laws
and rules which they cannot under
stand. McWhirter was brave man
| have been told yet he was not
brave enough to have deliberately
gone out and killed himself at that
hour. He would have begun to
tremble. and at the last moment
would have turned back to the
house.
"The dreadful fear and uneasi
ness which men feel then cannot
be described. Those who want to
do crime or anything desperate
must fill themselves with whisky
1t is not because men are afraid
of the darkness, for it is just as
dark in the early part Of the night
as at any other time, and yet the
man who fears nothing early IN the
night is a coward toward morning
I noticed the lawyers, in arguing
the Heath case, repeatedly salc
that the darkest hour is just before
dawn; but this is nonsense, unless
| it is used in fgurative sense. 1e
it expresses truth as wide, as the
human race and as deep as the hu
man soul. 1t seems darker just be
fore the dawn because people grow
restless and fanciful then and I'M
imagine all sorts of dangers. Ih'
, darkness and gloom are In thell
feelings and not in the night. Ev
ery small thing is magnified ant
strange shapes are given to famil
lar objects.
aThis feeling of anxiety, this
fearful. lonesome feeling, this sense
Of indescribable danger which ev
ery man feels who is not asleep a
that hour, is described here in tn
: Bible better than can describe 1t.
And Evans took up a Bible ano
with his one hand ran over tht
pages as one familiar with ever.
word, and saying, 1T is IN thE
fourth chapter of job" proceeded
to read:
mTn thoughts from the visions 0