Connecticut western news., 1896-06-25
BIG TOM, CONVICT.

There were those who said that con- vict 1880 was innocent of the crime which sent him to prison for such long ] hope of his ever being free man | again. They meant that he was tech nically guilty. He had sought to save a | woman from beating at the hands of her husband, and in the struggle and excitement he had struck blow which caused the death of the man. It was accident, in a sense, but it was also manslaughter. No man who is man will stand by and see a woman beaten, and yet if he interferes he must take {; his chances with the law. Big Tom, as | the convict was sometimes referred to, was. like most big men, child in his gentleness and good nature. He did not complain, but he grieved. He thought of the years and years which must drag away before the prison doors would open | to him, and he moved about like 6 weak, old man. The prison officials felt pity for the man. but convict is con. vict, and all must be treated aEke-al who show obedience to the rules. They | sized him up as childlike and good na tured, and yet they said to each other a. they talked of him:
 Look ont for Big Tomi He will break loose some day and do some des perate thingP
 They thought it would come during | the first six months of his term-theI during the second-then they almost became afraid of him. Men who are slow to anger-who go on grieving breeding and bearing mental burder for weeks and mouths are devils wher the climax comes.
 Big Tom had the management of the trip hammer in the machine shop. HaC they put him in the shoe shop or tailor shop he would have rebelled at once His place was beside the biggest piece of machinery in the shops, two piece. of machinery, as it were-Tom ant Trip. Day by day and week by weel and month by month, as the ponderou hammer rose and fell and it's blow shook the very earth for yards around making the convict smile and lool proud, the guards had an eye on hin and kept saying to each other:
 | ''It will come. It is only delayed When he breaks loose, he will kill som, one and have to be killed in turn. .''
 Nearly half of the second year hat passed, and the giant convict had neve even sulked, when one day there cam into the shop as sightseers husband wife and little girl or years old Children are seldom seen in prisons and it is a rare thing that they ar taken into the shops in the yards. any one in that prison knew tha convict 1880 had daughter-a fai haired, handsome child, who could onl. walk alone when the jury pronounce' his verdict of "guilty''-he had for gotten the fact. His wife had visite, him as often as visitors were allowed but the child had never been seen with in the grim walls. Knowing that he husband had killed man by accident the wife could bear to see him wearin the horrible stripes of convict, but t f let the child look upon him, to gaze i ? wonder at the iron bars, to ask why al r those men were there, thousand time mol And 10 this was the first child Bi Tom had seen since the heavy doors shu !. him in. Father, mother and child cam close to him and gazed at the ponderou hammer with wondering eyes. Yo ? would have argued that the sight of tn child would have softened the convict heart and brought tears to his eyes, bu it d:d not It brought feeling of mad ness, of desperation. of frenzy. To say ! woman from brutal beating at th | 0f h pf f1t to be classed with men he had struc ! blow.
 A jury had called it murder in th f second degree, and he was here in prii on on a sentence almost never ending 5 He had been wronged, and the know edge of it fired his heart and brougf the long expected outbreak. With a sue den cry which startled every one in th noisy shop Big Tom made spring fol ward, seized the child in his arms, an :. there was a shout of defiance on his lI as he held her at arms length an 2lared about him. The mother of tt child gasped for breath and staggere back to the wall and sank down. I'll father stood staring, as if struck duml but presently held out his hands in s lent supplication. Big Tom glowere and muttered in reply. He was col
 vict, a childless father. He was dea to his child-she was dead to him. E could not make another fathers hea
 ,che and throb and grieve as his dit
 but he would secure revenge.
 In After muttering he was silent. \ one cried out. Guards and convicts wel
 seemingly stupefied. There was the hu
 of machinery, but not of voices. Col
 vicrs turned from forge and anvil al at bench and lathe and held their breatl The two shop guards leaned forward st their chairs and looked and looked, b a' they did not move or cry out.
 "What will he do with the child"
 The two men working at the tr
 hammer with Big Tom had fallen bac Of He had control of the machinery whi' le worked it. The answer to the questi'
 could be read in his eyes. Men h'
 wronged him under cover of the la'
 He had been deprived of liberty, q
 graded and disgraced. Death were mo
 merciful than such sentence as h
 and in dying he would secure reyene l. A piece of iron had been left under t