The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1905-12-06
r., Fate of a Life Convict in the
rederaI Prison Near the City
of Atlanta.
REMARKABLE OPERATION
cooroe Cole, Who Was Struck in
.ho Head With a Sledge Hammer
by a Fellow Prisoner. Will He
Cease to Be a Criminal?


with a piece chiseled from his skull
49, size of a dollar bill, leaving a
soIo through which his brainprotrudes,
rooroe L. Cole, an inmate of the
rni+ed States prison near Atlanta,
has entirely recovered from the effects
= blow on the back of the head with
sIedge hammer by a life prisoner
Who sought revenge.
Within a few days silver plate
viII be placed upon the opening in the
5 ssnII. the scalp will be sewed over it,
and the final operation will have been
performed
The blow dealt to Cole must have
ebanoed the entire conditions of his
brain. Will it transform him from
babitIal criminal into an honest man?
Or was the blow, for this purpose,
struck in the wrong place?
The Blow Which FelIed Cole.
Aside from the remarkable surgical
oneration which saved Coles life de-
cnitp 2 skull fracture of more than six
inches in length the assault which
caused it presents some interesting
features of prison life, of the jealous
les and passions which exist among
the prisoners as much as If they
brratbed the air of freedom, perhaps
D more so, for within the prison walls
thew must come more or less in daily
contact.
Cole is white man this side of 40
wears. His assailant, Curly Logan, is
a one-armed negro murderer, who is
serving a life sentence from Indian
\ Territory. Cole is an all-round crook,
and this is by no means his first expe-
rience in prison walls. He. too, came
from Indian Territory, where he got a
three-year sentence for robbing a jew
elry drummer. He has still about tlt-
teen months to serve.
Cole a Bad Man.
Cole is known as bad man. He is
looked upon as a bad man within the
prison. as we'll as a man with a bad
record. He talks with equal calmness
of the state of the weather and his
Safe-cracking experiences. Once, while
rObbing house, he turned and was
confronted by man lying upon a sofa
with a pistol full in his face. lie
lodged behind a piece of furniture,
and with another bound was out
through an open window. He snatch
ed woman's pocket-book, but his
chief delight in the exploit is to tell
how she grasped her skirts, pulled
them to her knees and gave him chase
"a chase which gained her nothing.
Cole YVES serving a term in west
ern penitentiar'y when the Spanish war
began.
civilian j. Bryan got me out, !" he
said "and I joined his regiment. L
thought it would help me in my busl-
ness"
Cole says he is known in all the Cit
les of the west.
Il can't stay il one of them more
than three days" he says. "They
make me move on.
Fought in the Prison Kitchen.
Both Cole and Logan had been
working around the kitchen. Cole had
once or twice in different ways offend
ed members of the kitchen squad. A
wedge shaped block of wood, used for
elevating laden buckets from the floor
into the elevator, Logan regarded as
his peculiar property, because ne used
1t most frequently. Finding it split
into kindling wood he was heard to
remark:
Cole did that, and I'm going to fix
him for it,"
Three days later Cole was standing
at sink washing some potatoes
Logan picked up a heavy hammer
slipped up behind him and without
word of warning struck him with all
the force of his single arm just back
OF the left ear. Then he quietly put
The hammer down and went about MS
work.
Never Knew What Hit Him,
Cole never knew what struck MIN.
Men in the kitchen who heard him fall
ran to the room and saw him lying on
the floor unconscious. They thought
he had a fit. He was removed to the
hospital, where he remained in that
condition two days. There was no
abrasion of the skin, and until fever
developed it was not known that his
skull had been fractured.
The chief surgeon at the prison then
opened the scalp and began to chisei
out the skull along the fracture until
Continued on page fye.)