Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1894-02-02
THE YELLED WOMAN.

1llI VIlLID VMAN.
4 MYSTERIOUS STRANGERS VISIT tt
SING SING PRISON.
Every Two Monshs Regularly She MaA,s
Her Appearance, and With Her Face
Covered Stands and Watches the Line Of
Passing Prisoners-Known to No One.
Sing Sing prison has a mysterious wom-
an visitor, but that is not remarkable,
because seven-eighths of the visitors to
the convicts there are women. They all
have burdens of sorrow to bear, but rarely
Of their own making, and they come and
go, year in and year out, to see loved ones
whom the world does not love and has put
behind bars. The gray prison walls hold
all that is dear in life to these mothers,
wives, sweethearts and sisters.
Many a a brought to a tragic
climax by the merciless hand of the law
Is suggested by these untiring visitors.
Even the ubiquitous hackmen who infest
the Sing Sing railway station seem to ap-
preciate this, for when these unhappy ones
alight from the trains and look uneasily
and self consciously about the drivers real
ize intuitively the nature of their errand
and treat them with a Difference rarely
met with in their class. They approach
respectfully and in subdued tones say kind
~, "To the prison, madam?'' or, "Right
this way to the prison."
About N visitor only is there any mys.
terry. Others give their names and go to
see some convict who is known to the keep
ers. This one goes yelled, and no one
knows who it is she goes to see.
A tall, 1.-the, graceful woman, attired
all in black and wearing a heavy black
veil, occupied the seat in a car directly in
front of and opposite that occupied by a
World reporter one Saturday recently.
She was uneasy and restless, though not
~obstrusively So. She carried herself with
the fine reserve of a woman of breeding
accustomed to do just such things. Some
times she would look anxiously. about the
ear, as If in fear of being recognized,
though with her veil recognition, ever by
an intimate friend, would clearly have
been impossible.
An old time hackman at the Sing Sing
station approached her as she alighted.
She got into his ramshackle conveyance as
If she had been in it before, and it ratified
up the hill and over the stony road alonG
the bluff to the prison a few hundred yards
in advance Of the equally noisy convey.
ance of The World man.
It was the hour at which the convicts,
having finished their evening meal in the
great feeding hall-it would raise the
ghost of Bsillat Savarin to call it a dining
room-march in lockstep to their cells
in long single files. They come through
the stone tagged prison yard with a
steady, machinelike shuttle of their heavy
prison shoes. Keepers stand about with
heavy sticks in their hands.
Near the entrance to the long granite
building containing the tiers of cells are
two great open boxes of bread. Each
! striped miserable reaches out and takes a
piece with his left hand as he passes.
Slung on the right arm of each is an iron
slop pail, on which is painted the prison
er's number. The shuttle of the slowly NOV
ing line continues for perhaps 20 minutes,
at the end of which time each of the 1 300
has, with his supper in one hand and his
slop pail in the other, been locked in his
cell.
The woman had been shown to the yard
and stood, a keeper by her side, under tie
portico of the in%hospitable looking hospi-
tai building. The long lines of convicts
"AoASAOu Oo"dIo Z duO CuEuGU uOU ~
feet from where she stood and marched
past the breadbox into the building. She
supported herself with one ~daintily gloved
hand against the stone wall, and leaning
forward in an attitude of eager interest
faced down the approaching line.
She tapped the pavement impatiently
from time to time with the toe of her neat
boot. =
Some one in that long line riveted her
attention, but there were hundreds there,
and the veil prevented any one from seeing
which striped one it was.
! The prisoners all turned away their
heads as they passed the woman. Was it
q prison rule that prompted this, or a
sense of shame that has survived harden
ing crime? Not one did otherwise. Many
faces flushed, and if any one in that line
recognized the trim figure and graceful
pose of the strange woman he could never
be detected by the flush, for flushed faces
were too numerous.
When the last man of the last line, a
negro on crutches, who killed a policeman
on Wall street, had disappeared in the
door, the woman was escorted out by the
keeper. She thanked Principal Keeper
Connaughton for his courtesy, which, to
all visitors, men and women, is always
the same. Her voice was pleasant, and
there were no tears indicated in it. Her
manner indicated nothing in particular,
and certainly not grief. She was driven
away to the station and returned to New
York.
This woman's visits occur once every
two months. Sometimes the interval be.
tween them is longer, and sometimes, but
seldom, she misses one.
She has been coming for nearly three
years, and her visits are always at the
same hour She sees all the prisoners in
their lockstep march, and no one connect
ed with the prison knows her name. No
one in the prison has ever seen her face.
There are two ways of accounting for
the periodical visits of this mysterious un
known. She either loves or hates, with a
greater love or a greater hate than ordi-
nary, some one of the Sing Sing convicts.
Perhaps it is love that impels her to re-
main yelled and thus to spare the object
of her affections humiliation and shame.
Unrequited love perhaps leads her to con-
ceal her face. Possibly her hate of some
n in that long line of erring men derives
q certain pleasure from the sight Of him
in the moment Of hio d;eoroco W8