Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1896-07-04
THAT DISTRESSED WOMAN.


JUDGE CoLEMAN's action in granting
a writ of error and supersedees to MA
RY ALTERNATELY has been regarded with
satisfaction by right-thinking people
everywhere.
She has been snatched as It were
from the gallows, and another three
long weary months will thus be given
the commonwealth to mend its holt"
il it can.
Thus far all delay has reacted in IA
vor of the prisoner. She has conduct
ed herself In a manner which has awak-
ened sympathy.
II has been a long, tedious struggle,
one that has been as much of a strain
upon those who have championed her
cause as it has been upon her.
1t is a sad commentary upon our in
situations. Arrested in her country
home, hurried through the woods, scar
ed in every conceivable manner
brought to within two days OF her exc
cution for crime which she never
committed, guarded by soldiers, sub
iected to severe tests which rivalled
those in vogue duIng the Days of the
Inuuisition, she is now standing forth
even as pure gold having withstood ev
cry test to which she has been sub
jected.
Poor Amt NARY Uor infant. borI
i'm captivity. nurtured in Jail, thriveC
poorly until it was givris the benefit o
the sunlight, aud tts mir on the outsid
of tie gloomy pris': Poor Aun
Mary
Lasting and convincing has been tn
declaration that She shrouded Mrs
Lucy JANE POLLARD
Go to the o;d Virginia slave-ownel
sit down ard TAX with him, convers
.. about Negro superstition, and let hin
tell you OF the tales which his old blac
nanny r-lnt ID 70 him hefore she san
! the cooling lullaby @hicl brought til
i drowsiness which ended in refreshir
sleep
e ASK him il culored woman, brougl
up in the "back-woOds, raised in I'll
= section of the country where Aunt Nj.
= RY lived would have shrouded the boo
: of woman she had murdered and
would tell you no. And what sever'
test is ne, ded than that to whiC
bounding n. q. GsEGoNY subjected h
when two days before the day set Il
her execution, he offered her life
+. she would tell him where the PoLLAI
money was.
Her reply that il il he he would place L
fore her a regiment of soldiers to la
her life, she could not tell him whe
the money was. or who killed MI
POLLARD was one of the most strikiI
= exhibitions Of innocence as yet chro
icled.
= And yet this old woman has be-
d subjected to indignity, to insult, dra
Il ged from one section of 1.-THE state
the other, condemned and treated
murderess, threatened with lynchin
II incarcerated in the jails of the col
! monwealth and placed in a dungeon
Could her persecution have been {
verer7 Could prejudice have do
a more to humiliate herr
% Truly, she must have an abidi
faith in God. How many times
she gone to her prison couch. too mu
,e grieved and too spprehensive TO re
" and has given up TO pitiable weepin
Poor Aunt Mary
The babe could not understand t
\ showers of tears which has from til
\ to time fallen upon it. It knew moi
" ing OF the sorrow of that misery lade
If ed heart. But God heard her pray,
and answered them in his own tn
The end cannot be far away. T.
70 endless chain must be broken duri
If some of its revolutions and freed,
ar must soon now be vouchsafed the I'M
of cent. Poor Aunt Nary