The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-05-24

all letters from George Fielding passed through his hands, and after resealing them they were returned to the post master. who delivered them to the un- suspecting Susan.
 Then Meadows bought all the books published about Australia. Armed with the knowledge acquired from them, he made himself welcome visitor in Mir. Merton's house. Soon Susan looked eagerly forward to his regular ap- rival with new information about the land in which her lover was hidden.
 But these hours in which Susan could hear about Australia were her only hap py ones. Georges letters, arriving on- ly as permitted by the accidents of sea and sail, brought her news that. how ever cheerful he tried to make if. told her none the less that sheen farr1inar was not making him any richer than he had been. Every day she became more listless.
 From this unhealthy condition she was wrested at last by the arrival of a new minister, the Rev. Francis Eden. This earnest strong man, with the bearing of king and the eye of a stag, truly was a minister of the Lord-a human sun, brightening and warming wherever he passed He saw her trouble, won her confidence and forced her to take a new interest in the af- fairs of daily life. With him she vis- ited the sick. and took up again the daily round among the poor and aged of the parish.
 When he departed at last to become chaplain of prison, she blessed him as her resouer from despair and wait ed with patient hope for George to re- turn.
 Tine world Is strangely snterlaced. Susan felt that another great loss had 1A to har rvh Mr It was as If a rare presence had come to bright ten her life briefly. only to vanish again forever. Yet the day that saw Francis Eden enter the arched, nai1-studded doorway of one of Eng land'h model jails was in the end to turn out to be the most fortunate for her, as the day when John Meadows wreaked cruelty on the old Jew was to prove the beginning of his misror- tunes.
 Francis Eden was a man of inde- pendent means. He had chosen the grim duties of prison chaplain be- cause his deep study in criminology and penology had led him to believe that prisoners were being turned out of 1ail worse than when they went in, It was with a mission, therefore. that he entered the dark pile of masonry and permitted himself to be shut with In the silent walls.
 Silent, indeed, was the prison to which he was appointed. Under it's Governor, Hawes, retired soldier who had served his country with signal bravery and fidelity, the "solitary and silent" system was applied In perfec- ton. &
 Mir. Eden had not been instai1ed long before he got his first sight of the dis ciplinary methods of MT. Hawes. In the labor yard, where prisoners sem fenced to hard labor were set to turn huge cranks that registered the num- Der of revolutions Ca genuine labor of Sisyphus since the work accomplished nothing), he found a man pinned to the wall by a contrivance of leather, with a huge collar whose rough edges sawed into the prisoners throat, while straps gripped every other part of the body fercely. squeezing the sufferer till the blood ceased to circulate and breathing was almost unbearable agony.
 When the convict, exhausted with the cruel cramp that racked his bones and desh in this internal machine, at last yielding to suffer az and let his head droop eevr so slightly. the Jagged col lar lacerated his throat and made him Jerk himself upward again.
 MT. Eden raised his hands involun- tarily The man in the jacket was throttling. His face was chalk white, his lips were leaden, and his eyes roll ed crazily. He was Tom Robinson.
 The minister hardly able to speak for horror, demanded of the surround ing turnkeys if they had the authority of the Governor for their act. When they answered, hesitatingly. that they had 1t In a general way he ordered them to release the man; and when de- Iayed sprang to the prisoner heao and undid the collar.
 As soon as the other straps were loosened the convict fell forward, limp, huddled mass, quite insensible. and was carried away to his cell.
 When Hawes appeared. MT. Eden told him that the jailers had tortured a man illegally, and the Governor. with a sour face. said that he would look into it, but warned the minister not to interfere with the jailers again.
 From that moment there was war be- tween the spirit of punishment repre- sented by Hawes and his jailers. and the spirit of enlightenment represented by Francis Eden alone.
 Before long. however. he gained a convert. He singled out a jailer who seemed to him open to reformation. and had himself strapped in the tor ture jacket in private. He had not been in it ten minutes before he felt that he must cry out to be released; 
 groans and waited till half an hour had elapsed. when he permitted himself to be liberated. aching frightfully all over his neck bleeding from the collar and his lungs so compressed that he could hardly regain breath.
 He hid his pain by great effort and offered the jailer Evans, a sovereign to undergo the torture. That worthy per son hesitated a little and then assent ed. Mir. Eden made him fast with much nIAasure Eight minutes before the stIpulated half hour was ended Mr.. Evans begged piteously to be released. declaring that for no amount of sov- ereirns would he bear the torture moment longer.
 After that day there were two men in the prison to work for humane treatment.
 MT. Eden had himself locked in the dark cell a black hole with no ray of | light. After an hour in 1t he feared | that his reason would suffer, fortified | though he was by both his purpose and his accumulation of learning which gave him subjects to occupy his mind l that are denied to the poor ignorant felon. He emerged with the knowledge l gained by experience that of all in- human punishments the. black hole was among the worst.
 He confronted Hawes with the prison rules, that laid down in detail the kinds of punishment a Governor was allowed 1 to infiict. He warned him, in the pres enee of the turnkeys. that they were all violating the law. Hawes, made fu- rious. responded by increased severi- ties.
 He swore that as soon as the three