The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1894-01-25
ONSCIENCE FURNISHES.

CONSCIENCE pUNISHES.
THE following article was written after an
transported for breaking a plate glass win
4 dow, and stealing several trays OF diamond
i Interview brought out ideas from the trans
ported In harmony with the statements
made in the article.
A criminal that has yet to be brand
ed criminal by the laws Of society,
and who becomes and is criminal
merely through committing of sin
gle theft, is the most miserable human
being in existence. He commits the
crime while his conscience is sunk be-
meath the thought of how exciting
and clever the act, pockets his plumb
or, and retiring to his abode, puts it
in hiding. He dare not leave the
plumber in any one place for any
length of time. By an irresistible
impulse Of conscience that hourly be-
comes stronger and stronger, he is
| impelled to sneak to the secret
receptacle, and see whether another
thief or an officer of justice has not
the plumber and the crime detected.
His conscience smites and pricks him,
tells him constantly of the horror of
the act committed, but dictates him
no sure way Of escaping the vengeance
of the law, that, holding him UP to
the public gaze with the brand of a
suspected thief or a condemned con-
vict upon him. Stronger becomes the
punishment of his conscience, remind
ing him continually Of the crime,
holding up the bar and bench to his
imaginary gaze, a prison cell, con-
vict rejected by society, fiend of hell.
So firmly is this grasp of conscience
that his dreams are those of horror, fill
ed with ugly spectacles of his future
sheriff dragging him from the jail to
the court room, the awful summing
up of the States attorney, conviction
by the jury, a sentence to hard labor
in a prison filled with hardened
criminals, friends deserving him, and
an outcast in the hands of the devil
forever. He awakes from his ghastly
dreams, trembling, covered with per-
spiration. He is in a prison cell.
Staring around in the darkness, dur
ing tho first moments of waking, he
imagines every chair, every piece of
furniture, an officer of the law, every
shadow prison associate. No he is
not in prison, but he is in the sheriff's
power He submits, pleading his
innocence in muttered tones, confess
ing his guilt by begging lenincy or
freedom, with tears rolling down his
cheeks. Thus he suffers. It is fully
five minutes before he is himself
again.
But sleep then, is not rest-it is
poison, it is more singing to him than
the most realistic picture of Dore on
Dante's Inferno, with himself passing
through fiery furnace into the
frozen circles. He shakes himself
anew, but sleep comes not. Daylight
arrives. He welcomes it, but his tir-
ed constitution scorns his welcome.
His sensitive nerves punish him, by
refusing to obey his summons, during
the lifelong day. Night is welcomed
again, and once more he hopes for
good nights rest. But the same
awful phantom arises, the same spect-
acles haunts his excited brain in his
dreams, and he awakes in that same
delirious state described above. Time
wears away and with it his constitut-
ion. The extent of the crime becomes
modified, and he thinks of it only
when alone when reading accounts of
similar deed having been committed.
Every policeman, every detective,
every officer of the law, is a shadow
that haunts him. Every glimpse of
them seems but rap at the secret
recesses of his brain for the unfolding
of his secrets and the confession of
his crime. He sees detective at
night. The detective is Swallowing"
him, and he quickly changes his route
to avoid person who is worse than
poisonous snake to him.
If the article that he has feloniously
appropriated to his own use, is orn-
amental, lustrous, or fancied by swell
dom, his desires to shine becomes
superior to his conscience and the
article is brought out for public inspect
ion. If jewelry he sees it admired,
but mistakes the admiration for sus-
picion, and either puts it in hiding, or