The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1895-07-27
"A REPORTERS MERCIFUL PLEA.

"A REPORTERS MERCIFUL PLEA.
Ina great city like New York. crime
Of murder are SO frequent that they do
not hold public attention mucn after tho
:, 1irst 'e1 posure. Among the thousands of
foreign. born residents, many of them
living inSpitiless poverty, the criminal
offenders or their victims we're hardly
Know. outside Of n very narrow circle in
: the Quarter in which they resided. If
the chlprit was apprehended he. she or
they were drawn up to tho judicial bull
ring and dispatched with the same cool
ness that the OK butcher does as he stands
by the albstter icily and unconcernedly
surveying the death work, and public I'M
concerned pass stolidly on.
The other day a reporter on the New
York Daily Advertiser "put a pin there
and reversed this rule, slightly. at least.
A young Italian woman, poor and friend
less-was being hurried out of the world
for avenglng herself on the author of her
ruin. bein. goaded to madness by his de-
risive RevasiOns when askedtO perform
the only reparation possible under the
MISUNDERSTANDING. The girl was
hurriedly convicted and sentenced to
death in the electric chair and no voice in
all the great city WAS raised in her behalf
for II stay of the mailed hand until that
paper gave space to the reporters earnest
way of presenting the case to arrest ana
draw symoathy from the hurrying myr-
ids that glance with NERVOUS haste over
tine printed columns of the press
that records the daily output o. disgrace,
di .uster and death. The following ex-
tracts convey tho way the reporter told
his story to draw attention to the doomed
girl:
Fancy u little wisp of a woman, weigh
ing not over !.inety pounds: shoulders
stopped: eyes sunken and red with weep.
ing; voice faint with fasting AID prayer;
hulr divheveled, clsthing i'll fitting but
%suupu!ously clean; every nerve on edge,
and pulse beating at the rate of 100 a
minute fancy such a person with face
Liancl,ed and the hunted Appearance Ut Il
u SuhAo SChah " SAS1tSt oA ""
RS breast, and you nave a fair pic
t IRE Of Maria Barber1. scarce more than n
girl, in fact, as she aLpeered when 4
Morning Advertiser reporter and artist
visited her in the grimy Totnbs prison
Jeste. day. The night before she hod been
tou..d guilty of the murder OF Domonico
Cataldo. The latter was Il liberiine who
had deceived her, and in her shame ut his
continued refusal to make her his wife
she too i:is life. 1t lis not u new story,
bat it il oae that is peculiarly filled with
u deep human interest. Tomorrow she
will be taEcu across the Hateful Bridge of
Signs, which leads from the court house
to tue Tolnbs. to hear sentence that will
doom her to the electric chair. She has
neither friends of influence nor n dollar
III the world. She does not knOw our Ian.
guaye, and to her the whole trial was but
u tragedy in which she was powerless to
intervene Il defense sach as should have
been hers.
* X * 4 81
FriendIess and alone she stood all day
yesterday, grasping the bars of the cell
doc: in the Tombs for support. Despair
was pictured in the guant figure Of the
unfortunate girl. She was only u skele-
ton and u memory of the plump. pleasant
faced girl that for the first time crossed
the threshold of a prison in April last. =
She was twenty-three them Her birthday
was the second or third day of her incar-
nation. She looked fifty yesterday. Her
great, large olive eyes,, shaded richly with
Il wealth Of long lashes, we're swollen with
weeping. The tears coursed silently down
her cheeks as she peered through the iron
bars. No painter had ever portrayed the
face of the Magdalen so sorrowful and so
pitifnl as that Of poor Maria.
The surroundings added to the melan-
choly of the scene. Not a raw OF sun-
shiae, even stole into the cheerless prison.
Even Mrs. Foster, ''the Tonbs ANGEL
worn out with the vigils of the night be-
fore, had not yet called to kiss her enconr-
'g-ment or to place in her cell the little
white flower hat has been her daily gift
Maria simply stood and looked upw .rd,
the most hopeless and helpless of all in
and %forbidding. The rain was sweeping
along the street in sheets. There was
sunshine neither without or within.
1t was a full minute before abe noted
even the presence of the reporter for
The Morning Advertiser, and then, in ter
ror she sank back and shuddered aud
sobbed as though her heart would break.
She shrank into a corner and, falling up
Oh her knees, called for mercy. Instiuc-
lively she feared that she was about to
recross again that Bridge of Signs, and
that the reporter WAS one of the officials
ii whose company she has taken the pro.
oreSsive steps that are leading her to her
death. It was only twelve hours before,
,"at she was adjudged to be a felon, and
q lsthat she, in her Ignorance knows lie that
some time, she knows not when nor where,
she will be put to death. No wonder, then
tlat she seemed a hunted human being. i'll
tsrror of every face, III dread of every
f osfall that approaches, fearing it may
come to hasten her to her End There is
no acting about Maria. The look in the
eyes is toe wild and fearful and the
shrinking too natural to be simulated. It
will bssa mercy If her reason remains
much longer with her"