The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-11-11
BISHOPS WIFE
SEES GOVERNOR
Asks Shortening of Five
Year Sentence.
THE RED JACKET BOY
His Eyes Filling with Tears Four Year
Old Steadies BrayeIy. Please Gov
ernor Be Good to My Faver."
Pathetic Scene in ExeCu-
tive Office Yesterday.
tive Office Yesterday.

CONefllOf AycOck ytSleiudy cApSl :
fenced one of the trials which are in
cident to any position of power, when
appeals are made under the guard
OF the official at the heart OF the
man who fills the office.
1t was the old story that is ever
fresh, that men moralize about and
continue to make possible-the sad
tale Of drink and infidelity and crime
d. the part of the man and the
wonder of womans endurance and
woman's faith and womans love.
There was, too, the touching appeal
OF childhood and innocence, growing
tragically apace TO the fuller
knowledge of evil which already had
touched like the Pigment OF a dream
the fresh bud of happy babyhood.
The father in the penitentiary, the
mother and the child standing visit
fully beyond the dividing walls of
the law, seeking with the feeble hands
of blood and instinct to rescue and
to comfort the designer of their suf-
fering and disgrace; the Governor
a name that smells of power, a far
away idea of a fearsOme dignity
name that in the ears of the igno-
rant carries the sense of ability to
crafty Whim, to grant favors to
wreak vengeance-in reality a man
striving always with his brain and
his duty against his heart.
Between these two the man with
murdered hands, to the one side
the world and the fulness thereof to
the other the troublesome quantity
which causes misery and is necessary
to happiness
The woman was Mrs. Arthur l..
Bishop, of Richmond, the child, her
boy of four years of age, the man he
VINO, in the attempt to debauch
Charlotte home, was attacked by and
then slew the outraged father of
hayward girl. The whole State yet
remembers the particulars of the
Bishop trial at Charlotte. The man
was convicted of manslaughter and
sentenced, too lightly many people
thought, to five years in the peniten-
tiary. He was ably defended and
during the ordeal of the trial the wife
whom ne had forgotten forsook. him
not for a moment. Eighteen months
ago he came to the States prison.
Since then, other crimes have been
committed, elections have come and
gone, swallowed up in the unSpeaking
monotony Of prison life. both Bishop
and his crime have been half forgot
ten But the wife has not and VIII
not forget. And yesterday she came
10 make her plea for liberty.
Mrs. Bishop is woman of thirty.
She is not pretty and her face has
the marks that come to women who
work for sorrowful necessity, the pa
tient look that comes with pain so
old that it has become a companion
of the soul In her black dress of
the poor material of poverty, with
the neatness of self-respect, q touch
of white at the throat. lingering sug
gestion of stricken girlhood, she made
a pathetic and q thoughtful picture.
AS she sat in the ante room with
her little boy the Charlotte delega-
ton. who were urging Mr.. Clarkson
for Judge. filed from the inner office
of the Governor and strangely enough
there was among them T.. l.. Kirkpat-
rick, a young lawyer who had won
his spurs in the prosecution of the
man she had come to tly to save. Mrs.
Bishop flushed and turned her head
and Mr. kirkpatrick humored her
Ly passing out without sign OF rec
ognition.
IN the Governors office the old
scene was enacted again-the Cover
nor torn between his duty to the
law and the pleading of q woman
whose love sought to justify with
the purity of it's tears the crime of
the man it followed, to seek to show
i'm it's own worth the goodness that it
alone could yet see in the prisoner
ing straight and perplexed, pitiful in
his babyhood for the manliness of
his chubby legs, the unconscious BRAY
cry of his baby smilei
1T was a Communication Mrs. Bishop
wanted. Her husband had been in
the penitentiary for eighteen months
Was that not long enough-punish-
ment enough for any man? Plainly, it
had been punishment enough for her,
for little four year old standing up
so bravely for his mother, for the
father in the queer suit of grey with
black stripes, who stayed in place
and couldn't come home-the father
whom, half remembering he had seen
again today,
Yet the Governor thought of the
crime and he thought of his duty and
lie thought of another home of sor-
row-and he held out little hope.
And MRS. Bishop rose painfully to
60, hesitating uncertainty TO find per-
haps some one more potent word.
The Governor reached kindly
hand to the little boy in his red
jacket and his big Windsor tie that
iicked his pink ears. The little fell
low stood and looked up into the
face above him. Perhaps without
knowing why. his lips quivered and a
lump came in his throat and his eyes