The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-11-01
THE TEARS OF A MOTHER.
Mr.. Barnes Scathlns of the Muir
derer Opens the Well Springs
of a Broken Heart.

derer Opens the Well Springs
of Broken Heart.
The unexpected came yesterday. The
mother of the prisoner wept. She leaned
her head on her boys shoulder. No one
saw the salt drops that ran from her
weary eyes, but the slight frame shook
and trembled-a mothers heart was break
ing, bleeding. No sound came, no other
sign; only that dropping head, that con-
vulsive struggle which could not be hid
den.
How often or how seldom have the well
springs Of that mothers heart burst the
fonts that held the agony back from its
natural surcease; how often have her
eyes been dimmed and her breathings
been sObs since her son first answered
mot guilty" to that hideous crime OF the
belfry, does not appear on the records
not known 10 those who have seen her
only in court. There she has played the
role of the Spartan mother, in effect If not
in manner. When the chains of evidence
began to tighten and coil themselves
about the prisoner; when the fate's uner-
ring finger has pointed from the Witness
stand, saying There is the MANI when
the eloquent District Attorney has painted
with the language of a master the awful
blackness of the cruel murder, and has
scathed with all the power of a righteous
indignation the monstrous depravity of
the assassin whose fendish fingers shut
out the life breath of Blanche Lamont
when all Of these things happened, and
others were in tears, it has been this little
brown-eyed woman, dressed daintily in
black, with a bit of bright color in her
modish headgear, who has lent her strength
to the prisoner; who has whispered
soothing, trusting words in his ear; who
has smiled almost gayly and preserved an
outward demeanor that has even lost her
the sympathy, sometimes, of those least
inclined TO harden the heart against the
mother because OF the unnatural crimes of
her son.
And so 1t came as a revelation yester-
day-those silent tears from the mother
heart. Were there a smaller heart than
there is in that generous and kindly frame
of Mr.. Rarnes those drops from the brown
eyesof this small but nervy woman would
be as priceless gems to his self-conceit, for
it was his own glowing, scathing burning
words and metaphors that wrung them
from the secret recesses of a heart steeled
against the world. To do him Justice Mr..
Barnes was uncons cious of the scene till it
was over. He stood with his back to the
prisoner, enwrapt with his own feelings
wrought to the heights by his own breath
ing picture of the helpless girl and the
monster in the belfry. Then he came to
the point where the monster robbed the
dead, tore her poor, cheap baubles from
her white fingers "The defendant helped
TO convict himself by robbing the dead ;" he
said. "Why he should have taken the rings
Of the murdered girl God alone knowsl But
he took them, and as he dragged them of
that girls stiffening fingers he must have
felt in his dank and fiabby hair the first
cold breath of the harvest that was to
come. AS he had sowed so he should
reap. He had sowed misery, blood, sor-
row and tears. He shall reap detection
and exposure. He shall"
1t was here the crisis came. The little
woman bent forward to her mild-faced
unmoved boy, bent as though about to
whisper another ray of hope and strength
to the accused, to "the monster"-if the
iury's verdict shall so denominate.
Quite an ordinary proceeding this was.
Scarcely any one noticed it at first, for Mr..
Barnes held his audience in a trance from
first to last yesterday. But the head did
not rise again and it lay closer and
heavier than ever before in the courtroom.
Long it nestled there-time being relative
until juror saw the crisis, saw the great
heavings of the mothers frame, saw the
hand that Durrant reached around her
slight figure and the helpful, passive taps
of the boys palm on The woman's shout
der, saw the futter in the little crowd OF
women near the broken mother-saw and
wisely suggested to the court that it was a
fitting point in the speech for brief
recess.
Quickly the scene was over-quickly at
least to the hungry audience, now alive to
the realism of the days drama, reeking in
the spectacle that a Christian scheme oil
living has coniured up to add torture OF
the innocent to the karma of crime and
pile human woe upon inhuman sin.
Oh, yes; the mother of this abnormal
son abnormal whether guilty ar guiltless)
who turned and lightly smiled moment
later, the mother of Theodore Durrant,
whose face is as impenetrable as the ages
this nervy, Spartan little mother-even
she has human feelings.
Now word for the orator whose mas
ter touches provoked this little scene
these few silent mothers tears, which dc
In realIty-whether designedly or uncon.