The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-24

poisonous prison hulks to depart curs- ing and sobbing for those wilds, which
 men could reach Inly by disappearing in the oceans for third of year She sank, body and soukS No more did her light step sound cheerily through her fathers house. Her beau- ty lost the rich color of earthly health and became more spiritual and fragile each day. John Meadows looked at her and an agonizing revelation came to him. Too strong to deceive himself he realized that. far from being nearer to winning her by driving George away. he had only increased her love. Up to that time he had determined to win her honorably-honor meaning to the business soul of him that he would cop nit no crime. Now he de- termined to win her by any means Among those who were in his power was the postmaster in Farnborough.
 Meadows had discovered that the thrifty individual was accustomed to take toll of the money that passed through the mails. He had no difficulty in arranging that all mail from Australia was to be delivered to him first Thus all letters from George Fielding passed through his hands, and after resealing them they were returned to the postmaster who de- livered them to the unsuspecting Susan.
 Then Meadows bought all the books published about Australia. Armed with the knowledge acquired from them, he
 x-iSf in, ATr Merton's house. Soon Susan looked eager ly forward to his regular arrival 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 only as permitted by the accidents of sea and sail, brought her news that however cheerful he tried to make it told her none the less that sheep farming was not making him any richer than he had been. Every day she became more list less
 From this unhealthful 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 a king and the eye of a stag truly was minister of the Lord-a human sun, brlghtening and warming wherever he passed. He saw her trouble, won her confidence and forced her to take new interest in the affairs of daily life. With
 him she visited the sick and took up
 again her daily round among the poor and aged of the parish.
 When he departed at last to become
 chaplain of a prison she blessed him as
 her rescuer from despair and waited with
 patient hope for George to return.
 The world is strangely interlaced. Su-' san felt that another great loss had come to her when MT. Eden went away. It was as if a rare presence had come to brighten her life briefly, only to van- ish again forever. Yet the day that saw Francis Eden enter the arched, nail- studded doorway of one of England's model jails was in the end to turn out to be the most fortunate for her, as the day when John Meadows wrecked cru- city on the old Jew was to prove the be- ginning of his misfortunes.
 Francis Eden was a man of indepen1 ent means. He had chosen the grim du ties of prison chaplain because his deep study in criminology and penology had led him to believe that prisoners were being turned out of jail 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 within the silent walls.
 Silent, indeed, was the prison to which he was appointed. Under its governor. Hawes, a retired soldier who had served his country with signal bravery and fidel- ity, the solitary and silent system was applied in perfection.
 MT Eden had not been installed long before he got his first sight of the dis ciplnary methods of MT. Hawes. In the labor yard where prisoners sentenced to hard labor were set to turn huge cranks that registered the number of revolutions Ga genuine labor of Sisyphus, since the work accomplished nothlng), he found man pinned to the wall by a contrivance of leather, with a hugo collar whose rough edges sawed into the prisoners throat. while straps gripped every other part of the body fiercely, 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 flesh in this internal machine, at last yielded to suffering and let his head droop ever so slightly, the jagged collar lacer- ated his throat and made him jerk him. self upward again.
 Mir Eden raised his hands involuntarily
 The man in the jacket was throttling His face was chalkwhte, his lips were leaden, and his eyes rolled crazily. He was Tom Robinson.
 1 The minister, hardly able to speak for horror demanded of the surrounding turn keys if they had the authority of the | governor for their act. When they au-
 swered, hesitatingly, that they had it in
 a general way he ordered them to re- 1 lease the man; and when delayed he | sprang at the prisoners head and undid | the collar.
 1 As soon as the other straps were loos- | ened the convict fell forward, a limp, huddled mass, quite insenslble and was
 carried away to his cell.
 l When Hawes appeared Mr. Eden told
 him that the jailers had tortured a man
 illegally, and the governor, with sour
 face, said that he would look Into it, but