The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-02-03

By and by, when it so happened
that the detectives were giving Cas-
sidy a rest for d few weeks. he got
married. In his way he loved the
young woman. In another way she
would be of help to him. He knew
and respected other men who lived on
what their wives earned at the wash
tub, and he had no doubt of being re-
spected in his turn. He had been
married a week when he blackened
his wife's eyes and broke a couple of
ribs for her. He felt that it was his
privilege. When the police and the
judge differed with him he looked
upon it as a Dut-up job to discourage
him from seeking natural enjoyment.
While he was serving his so days a
fellow prisoner told him that the great
Constitution of the United Statese guar
anteed every man certain rights. There
were eight or ten of these rights ac-
cording to the mans list and Cassidy
came forth with a determination to
have them all. The law had heretofore
depended on his ignorance and taken
advantage of him; he would now show
the law that he knew his privileges and
was bound to maintain them. Within
a week he had broken a policeman's
head with a rock, assaulted a man who
differed with him about the social status
of states prison, stolen a wagon and
robbed a drunken man. With the Con-
stitution on his side he felt that he was
getting along.
Mrs. Cassidy would have come in for
another beating in time, but she has
tened the event by becoming a mother.
Being busy at the time the husband adj
journed the beating for week. Then
he BACKED her eyes, broke her jaw and
dislocated a shoulder, and he took it
very i'll of an officious neighbor who
fastened away and informed the police
and secured his arrest.
The wife died, and Mr.. Cassidy was
put on trial for manslaughter. He con-
sidered it altogether unfair. He was
privileged under the constitution to beat
his wife, while she was not privileged to
die under it. She had died to spite him,
and he looked upon it as more spite
when he was somehow sent to prison
for term of Is years. The prOSecut-
ing attorney referred to him a hu-
man brute, the judge criticized him Sc
verely, and there was a number of
neighbors who made out that he had
no more mercy than a tiger.
OF all the things that hurt him most
was the words of the prosecutor. He
had called direct attention to his evil
face and his previous record, and had
vowed that he was more of a wild beast
than a man. Nothing else hurt like
this, and even while he was being SEN
fenced the prisoner determined on re-
venge- He had been wrOnged all
around, but this was piling it on
From the day he entered prison Cas-
sidy lived only to escape and secure re- |
venge on the man who had Kissed at /
him in court. He didn't blame the
judge or the jury. AS for the neighbors |
who had volunteered their testimony |
he would knock them about and let it |
go at that, but the prosecutor should |
die by his hand. His words were re- |
mem bered morning, noon and night. |
and day by day the convict thought of |
escape.
Seven long years passed by, and then |
a day came that guard relaxed his |
vigilance for a moment and Jim Cassidy |
made his escape. Another convict |
would nave tried to get away as far
and as fast as possible. Not so with |
Cassidy. He had only twenty miles to |
60 to reach the prosecutors house He |
had kept track of his enemy through |
visitors He knew that he occupied a |
house in the midst of grounds Just out
side the city, and over and over again |
he had planned how he would an
proach-hOw enter the house-how sur
prise the man in his sleep and take his /
life. He made his journey across the
country in a logged sort of way. and
he would have killed any living thing