The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-05-24

that made English justices of the peace notorious the world over in their line. They inspected the prison through his eyes, they had not even mastered the prison rules, and the convicts knew from bitter experience that any com plaint made to them meant only that Hawes would repay them with some torture after their departure.
 The greatest of his wrath fell on the thief Robinson, a man of keen intellect and high nervous organization. who thus furnished an admirable subject. III with a fever, he was sent to turn the crank. He tainted at 1t and was locked in the jacket for six hours till suffocation. To revive him they scrub- bed him with brush es till the blood started from his fiayed body.
 That night they withdrew half his allowance of food. His allotted work at the crank was increased till it amounted to fully a quarter of what well-fed horse would be expected to do. Starved and further weakened by torment, he failed. and each failure brought the jacket or the black hole. Slowly, but surely, Robinson began to go mad. In his suffering the daily visit of the chaplain became his only refuge from utter despair.
 Another victim whom the Governor singled out for unusual punishment was a lad of Is. named Josephus, who was serving a sentence for stealing a piece of meat. He was. kept at the crank till he fell helpless over the handle. Then he was strapped in the jacket and kept there till he begged his Jailer to kill him. So tightly was he strapped that the skin rose in ridges around each pinion.
 Yet this Governor of this English jail of the middle of the eighteenth century would have been honestly Indignant had he been compared with a torturer of the time of Queen Elizabeth. He was earnestness Itself and felt himself doing his duty-this black ray, project ed into modern days. of the narrow, earnest, self -deceiving, stupid, bloody past.
 Despite his earnestness, he could not help feeling perturbed about the chap lain. Heretofore the prison chaplain had been, like the prison surgeon. mild and submissive, walking in the narrow path of theological duty and ''minding his own business" which really meant not to mind 1t.
 The new chaplain was most emph ati- cally doing otherwise. Through his ally. Evans. he obtained a copy of a private record of punishments kept by
 
 the official book, found that tf1e latter was falsihed and sent attested copies of both to the Home Secretary.
 Scarcely had the accusations been mailed before Mir. Eden became danger ously i'll, and the prison had a breath ing space which was used with such good effect that bread and water. the jacket and the dark cell became tn c almost regular routine for the espe- cIally favored objects of MT. Hawes's zeal The Governor received daily re- ports of the minister's condition and did not conceal his satisfaction wh en he heard at last that Mir. Eden was dy- ing.
 But aid came to the clergyman un- expectedly. Susan Merton. hearing of his illness, hurried to him with her aunt. brought a great physician and saved him. Tho result was that the clergyman. weak and shaken, but fiery in his purpose as never before, ap- peared one day in the prison.
 He arrived just in time to find the jailers, frightened and excited. crowd ing into the cell occupied by Josephus. The boy had been tossed in there the night before. dripping wet from the bucket of water that had been thrown over him after three hours in the Jacket. They had taken his bed away and deprived him of light. and the lit tie prisoner. moaning with pain and trembling with cold. had escaped them at last-by hanging himself to the gratings of the window.
 Before the prison authorities could hurry him into his coffin. the prison | inspector arrived, sent by the Home Secretary. and evidently primed to fint | the clergyman's charges hollow and in. spired by weak sentimentality. The mute witness in the cell made such a program impossible. Mir Eden mar shaled proof on proof. convicted MT | Hawes and the justices out of theil l own mouths of falsehood and ignor ance of the rules, and at last drove thu Governor into so tight a corner tha his only escape was to resign on thu spot. which he did.
 The clergyman. left in temporary au | thority while a commission was beinG | appointed, introduced rational labor ! The stupid cranks were relegated t' | idleness. The jacket was packed ul and sent to London. Ejaculations O thanksgiving-perha the most truth ful that the liars, thieves, forgers an' | other rogues in the place ever had ut | tered-burst from the cells. From n' | cell came a more devout and truthful 1 prayer than that which was uttered | from cell 19. begging God to rewart and bless the priest who had saved no | only his body, but his soul-the praye | of Tom Robinson, a thief.
 l On that night of triumph and grati tude none of all those whose fortune were to be affected by the thiefs regen | eration--neither Susan Merton. no
 Tom Robinson. nor George Fielding 1 under the south ern stars-dreamed o the great strand that was woven int
 the fabric of their lives when his des tiny sent Francis Eden to minister t his fellow mortals in prison.
 George Fielding, in particular. di | not dream of any fortune He ha, toiled with all his might and aecumu