Waterbury evening Democrat., 1893-03-20
STERN FRONTIER 5OgTloE.
How Various .sBad Mens Died at the lin
 of RnIsas 4l.a Lc.E.. HLZsA

subject" said an ex-United States dep- uty marshal from Oklahoma. 'In west ern districts government niarshals, men who do not value their own or others lives at farthing when making an ar rest or trailing criminal, shrink back appalled, at the bare idea of having to pull trap at legal execution. Jack Stillwell, the oldest most noted, and desperate officer on the border with record of over forty deaths to his account, once said to me as we stood to- gether at the hanging of two Creek h. dian murderers at Wichita, Kan: have pulled the trap at seventeen executions, and I have never done so without a feeling of horror and a de- sire to shirk my duty. I would will ingly forfeit three months salary rather than obey the mandate of the court in this particular.
 "As it was with Jack at this execution, so 1t is with a spectator, at least at his first hanging. I remember distinctly my original experience in this line. It was also at Wichita An eighteen year-old boy, Lee Mosher had been convicted of having deliberately planned and carried out the plan to kill man when only sixteen years of age A large stockade sixteen feet high had been erected just outside the jail, and on the morning of the execution a curi- ous crowd gathered there with the morbid desire to see the condemned boy as he passed from the jail to the stock ade annex When the hour arrived for the execution the prisoner was taken from his cell into the jail parlor. and there, standing ghostly white, but firm and determined, the death warrant was read to him. The marshal reading the paper broke down and sobbed like a child, the prisoners lips quivered pain fully for a moment, and all persons present brushed the tears from their eyes as they followed the officers and the boy from the building and through lane of anxious spectators into the door of the stockade.
 1.-The rabble saw the feeling that ami mated the select few who followed the boy and it was communicated to them.
 Perhaps there was not one in hun. dred but would have turned him free if they could have done so. Numerous petitions had been sent to President Cleveland, but no reply had been re- ceived.
 'Once inside the stockade the door was shut and barred. The condemned boy mounted the scaffold with firm step The moose and black cap were adjusted and the trap sprung. As the body shot through the hole my knees almost gave way under me. and heard great sigh of pity go up from those around. Be- fore we could recover from the shock thunderous rap came upon the door and a thousand voices on the outside shouted: :" "A reprieve! a reprieve! Don't han g that boy on your lives!'
 1.-The officers turned pale, and the SD ctators, as they looked in fascina ted horror at the swaying, shivering body at the end of the rope, gasped in horror. Some one opened the gate to admit the messenger, and the mob outside saw the dangling body. Then ascended Q cry of:
 Lynch the officers. They hung the boy after he had been reprieved!'
 ''The message, however, did not prove to be reprieve, but was a notice that the president refused to interfere A border tragedy was thus narrowly averted l have never forgotten my feeling of utter weakness and knee shaking as I experienced it then.
 ''The next time I saw a man hung it was not legal execution by any means. l was doing newspaper work for eastern papers around the Oklahoma country in 1858, and while at Purcell had an ex- perience that I don't care to repeat in kind.
 'The place was filled up with stran- gers. The Santa Fe depot is down ill the valley near the South Canadian river, and the town is perched high up on projecting spur of the Arbuckle nj toi 0I11sj he to the opening of Oklahoma this river bottom was one mass of wagons, oxen, horses, dogs, men, women, children and side shows Here you found the Buckeye from Ohio, the Hoosier from Indiana, the Sucker from Illinois, and representatives of other eastern and middle states, who had been lured out to this wilderness by glowing news paper reports of the new Fl Dorado Of course, gamblers of all descriptions abounded, from three-card-monte and shell-game falkirs up to the regulation keepers of tiger den.
 '"The tough citizen also abounded. One evening as the train from the south drew up at the depot a drummer stepped on to the platform wearing stovepipe hat. He was eyed curiously by the comglomerated mass of human ity present, but no one offered any re- mark until he had almost reached a stage which was used to convey pas sengers up the mountain to the Clifton house. Then a brutal-loolzing, swag- gering bad man pulled revolver, and laughing hoarsely, said:
 "'Don't allow no sich hats hy ar His shot, instead of piercing the tile, went through the strangers held and killed him.
 "Lynch the houndr and 'Cuss his hide, string him up" arose in fury on all sides.
 ''As the train pulled out of the depot the passengers strained their eyes out of the windows to watch frantic mob as it bore a strugg ling, swearing pray ing, crying, hysterical wretch off to- ward lone tree on the river bank Texas Kit, as this rufian called him. self, broke down complet 'ly, and his cries and pleadings for mercy still ring in my ears. He was swung off, how