The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-02-05
RIsrxED LIFE TO KEEP HIs woRD
An Oregon EmbezzIer who Swan
Torrents to Surrender 10 Justice.

Portland (ore) Correspondence of the
San Francisco Examiner.
you need not send an officer for me.
1 will come when l am wanted"
Vincent Sutton, postmaster at Ores
town, Tillamook county, was wanted for
embezzlement by the United States au-
thorities. a plain tale, truly, and one
which smacks Of the vulgar commonplace,
but mark the difference
This Sutton is a man Of simple mind. and
to him 1t seemed no harm would be done
If he ehed out the pittance of his office
Of postmaster by adding the sums paid
in for purchase of money orders. mat
ter OF some $3.50 when all was counted.
He would make it good in his own time.
and in truth he thought It no wrong. But
the United States does not do business
that way, and in due time there came an
indictment found by the Oregon grand
jury. Sutton heard. He realized that he
had done wrong. lie was ready to meet
his punishment. Nay. he was ready to go
to meet it al the peril of his life Nothing
prevented If he chose TO leave the state
None could find him in this bitter wealth.
err did he prefer to hide in the Businesses
of his own trackless mountains, but IL
came home to him, what he had not re-
allied when he took the money, that he
had done wrong, and he alone must bear
the burden.
Now, this was not a matter of walking
down town to give yourself up to the po-
lice or the marshal. 1t was not even a
matter Of boarding a comfortable railroad
coach to be hauled into Portland. Ore
town is a lonely camp buried deep In the
Oregon wilds, round forty miles and
more from a railroad station, with rag
ing rivers to be crossed between, and no
road on which a horse may travel in this
seeming winter season, when the whole
country side Is soaked and sodden like a
full sponge, deep with treacherous I'M
fathomed seas of holding mud. Forty
three miles on foot, swimming the swirl
ing, wild unbridled rivers, staggering
along through clnging mud, unable TO lie
down and sleep in his drenched clothes lest
he perish of the cold. deprived of fire and
light, because the matches he carried were
soaked. snatchng a hungry bite by the
way at the little store OF food he had in
his pockets, all sodden and smeared with
mud-this was the task that Vincent SUIT
ton set himself because justice must be
DONE and he must bear his part, though
his life he forfeit i'm the doing.
SO II came that the supplemented man
of primitive mould sat down and wrote a
letter to Marshal Grady, In Portland. that
he would come himself TO the nearest sta
ton on the railroad. Sheridan, and there
surrender TO an officer OF the law--no need
to send a man to bring him In from his dis
tant home Let the officer come TO Sheri-
dan by a certain day and he would be
there. He kept his word, albeit more than
once it nearly cost him his life.
Sutton has a wife. Ho kissed her good
by and stuffed his pockets with the food
which she poor woman, had put up for
him tyfIl loving care enough To last him
two days. It might be. on the way to sheri-
dan The Three rivers triple thunderer
IN sooth, was booming with sullen, hun
CRY roar, turbid with swirling mud, carry
ing on IT'S angry breast sweeping logs and
Jagged roofs, torn from their sockets by
the searching food. Five times II had to
be crossed by Sutton on his way, swIni-
ming or wading. or CHANGING his life on a
trcacherous log. once he was nearly
smothored IN a bottomless pit OF mud as
dangerous as the quiet remorseless suck
of a auckland that never gives up It's
dead It was bitter cold and he must
keep afoot or perish. But there Is iron In
this mans blood. He had pledged his word
and he got there
Now. when this simple tale was told to
Judge Bellinger, sitting IN Portland as the
representative Of federal law. he, being
a man. was troubled In mind. for here was
one who had set his life al the value OF 8
pin fee that the law might have It's way,
and yet justice must be done and punish
ment melted as Is set down In the books.
Nevertheless there are degrees, and Judge
where Il would not strain the quality OF
justice were Il softened with mercy
Therefore he imposed the lowest penalty
which Is imprisonment for six months and
fine equal TO the sum which Sutton APP
propriated.