The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1896-03-12

and P1nK6rCOu, OuTClu, EOrTy, hdyucu
and Green went on board with me.
Soon after she steamed out of the har-
Dor. Later in the day the Moselle, the
regular passenger steamer to Plymouth
and Southampton, came out, and about
ten miles out at sea was met by the Vul-
lures boat, and I and my five guardians
were transferred to her.
At last l was off for England, and it
looked very much as if justice would
weigh me in her balance after all, the
more certainly because I. found my wife
on the Moselle. had secretly resolved
never to be taken back, but intended the
first night out of Havana to jump over
board, possibly with a cork jacket or
something to help keep me afoat. The
waters of the gulf were warm, there
were many passing ships, and would
take my chance of surviving the night
and being picked up. But very cleverly
Curtin decided to send my wife with
me and treat me like any other cabin
passenger, rightly divining ! would not
kill her by committing suicide or going
over the side on chances.
was we'll treated all the way over,
but every night my prayer was that we
might run on all iceberg or 60 down, 80
that my wife might be spared long
years of agony, and the misery and
degradation Of prison life.
I had obtained position in Havana
for one of my servants, hpt Num- was
returning with me, feeling very bad
and most unhappy over the sure pros
pect of my future misery. I was pleased
to think he had held on to the money I
had given him. Altogether he was quite
So, 200 ahead, and wanted to make it
$1,000. He certainly deserved it for his
constancy and affection.
One lovely June day we sailed into
Plymouth, there to land the mail and
such passengers as wanted to take the
express to London. instructed my wife
to go to Southampton, while I went
ashore with my guardians.
From the London Times, June 10,
1878:
"Among the passengers who landed
at Plymouth yesterday morning from
the royal mail steamer Moselle was
Austin Bidwell, otherwise F. A. War
rem, in charge Of Detective Sergeants
Michael Hayden and William Green, &C.
companied by Captain John Curtin and
Walter Perry of Mr.. Pinkerton's staff.
They were joined by Inspector Wallace
and Detective Sergeant William Moss of
the city police, who had come down from
London the previous night to meet the
steamer. -
cit being known that Bidwell was
expected from Havana in the Moselle,
an enormous crowd assembled in Milbay
pier to await the return of the steam
tender with the mail in order to get
sight of the prisoner, and so great was
the crowd that it was with some diff
Guilty that Bidwell and his escort man.
aged to reach cabs and were driven to
the Duke of Cornwall hotel adjoining
the railway station. They left by the
IL: As train for London. A crowd of co.
900 persons were present to see them off
and cheered Bidwell heartily.
q = % -es"' ~11>:
"Bidwe1l will be taken before the
lord mayor in the justice room at the
Mansion House this morning."
Accompanied by my escort of six, I
arrived in London one bright morning
just as the mighty masses of that great
Babylon were thronging in their thou
sands toward EPSON Downs, where on
that day the Derby, that pivotal event
in the English year, was to be run. All
London was astir and had put on holi-
day attire, while I, now a poor weed
drifting to rot on Lethe's wharf, was
On my way to Newgate.
Newgate! Then it had come to this
The Primrose Way wherein had walk
ed and lived delicately at the expense Of
honor ended here.
Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall
he also reap" was written by one Paul
The wisdom Of many was here and con-
densed in the wit Of one, and one with
shrewdest insight into things and
practical knowledge Of human history.
Twas a prisoner in Newgate. The
very name casts chilli so, too, does a
sight of that granite fortress rising there
III the heart Of mighty London. Amid
all the throbbjng life of that great Baby
Ion it stands-chill and grim-and has
stood a prison fortress for 500 years.
Through all those linked centuries how
many thousands Of the miserable and
heartbroken of every generation have
been garnered within it's cold embrace
What sights and sounds those old walls
have seen and heardl As paced it's
gloomy corridors that first night pictures
of its past rose before me so grim and
terrible that I turned shuddering from
them only to remember that I, too, had
joined the long unending procession ever
flowing through its gates which had
heaped its walls to the top with one
inky sea Of misery.
In the cruel days Of old many saw
age sentence had fallen from the lips Of
merciless judges, but none more terrible
than the one which was to fall ON us
from the lips of their ferocious imitator,
Justice Archibald.
found my three friends already pris-