The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1895-12-05
CHAPTER I.

4 L.
One day in Newgate by some extraor-
dinary chance I found a pin, and uo
in the darkest corner of the cell wall /
scratched on the paint:
Let the stricken deer 60 weep
And the hart ungalled play,
For some must watch, while some must sleep.
Thus runs the world away.
These lines were there through all
the agony of my incarceration and trial,
but when the thunderbolt fell and I was
walking back to that little room with
the doom of 'life" pronounced upon
me what thought do you suppose came
rushing into my mind?
There was I walking through the
underground stone corridor leading
from the Old Bailey courtroom to my
call doomed to lifelong Imprisonment,
and the uppermost thought in my mind
was Of the lines had scratched on that
wall I said to myself they were too
gloomy and depressing; that it was a
cowardly thought and message to leave
behind me for some other unfortunate
inmate, and I resolved, if it escaped the
Philistines' paint pot, to leave mes
sage of hope or high resolve. When the
next morning came-Thursday it was
and the first Of sentence-I scratched
these lines:
In the reproof Of chance
Lies the true proof Of men.
An hour after was insane. My mind
became blank, and knew and re-
membered no more until the following
Sunday, when awoke like one out Of a
trance and found myself in convict
uniform in a cell, and there, with that
brick arch over my head and the stone
floor under my feet, for 20 years lived
and moved and had my being. We lived
in South Brooklyn, near to old No. 13,
the Degraw street public school To that
was sent, and there got all the educa-
tion I was ever fated to have at any
school except the school Of life and OK.
perience.
= attended fbf~ sonie years, and even
now cannot recall without smile the
absurd incompetency Of every one con-
nected with the institution and their
utter ignorance Of the art Of imparting
knowledge to children.
At home I had picked up that grand
art Of reading and went to school to
learn the other two RS, with any trifle
that I might come across floating around
promiscuously. certainly hope our
much lauded public schools are Conduct
ed on better lines now than then; if not.
they are frauds from the foundation.
1twas all very pitiful Ny blood boils
even now when I think Of the traitors
chosen and paid to see me fully equipped
and armed to begin the battle Of life
who sleft me with phantom weapons
which would shiver into fragments at
the first shock Of conflict.
left Junior A Of old No. l3, with
its algebra, logic, philosophy (heaven
save the word y and advanced grammar,
unable to write a grammatical sentence.
Indeed I took it for granted that in the
good old days Adam had invented the
word such as he named the animals,
and, Of course. supposed that he spoke
good English. The knowledge Of his
tory gained at No Is was strictly linn
tied and exceedingly primitive. I knew
the Jews in the old days were bad
lot; that Rrutus had slain Caesar !;
that the Maydower had landed our
fathers on Plymouth Rock; that wick
ed George III was q tyrant, and that
the boys in Boston had thrown tea
kettle at his head. knew all about our
George and the cherry tree, and there
my historical knowledge ended.
So here / was launched out in the
world a model scholar stamped as pro-
6oient In grammar, history, logic, phi
losophy and arithmetic, but yet in use-
ful knowledge a barbarian, unable to
spell or even write q grammatical letter
and unversed in the ways Of the world
"a world. too, where would be cast
entirely upon my own resources
Ny home life was happy. Ny father
had lost his grip on the world, but his
faith in the Unseen remaineds Ny
mother, caring little for this life, lived
in and for the spiritual To her heaven
was place as much as the country vii
lage where she was born. She was new
er tired Of talking to us children about
its golden streets and the rest there after
the tolls and pains of life. But, boy
like, we discounted all she said and felt
we wanted some of this world before we
Knocked At the gates Of the next.