The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1909-12-22
,,terv as to Identity of Tramp
! Convict Is UnSOIved.
|, SILENCE WON HIM FRIENDS

0lLLISOI WV
or Offering Pardon and Priest
heath Did Not Tempt Him.
.or Uttered a Word From the
,euute the Cell Door Clanlked Be-
hind Him. There Was Not Even
Scrap of Writing.
ANTON CITY, Colo.-Serving the
i wear of his life sentence for
,.,ting a train on October 81, 1903,
+ Devine, convict No. 1854, died
tba Colorado penitentiary a few
! ago. He was also known as
man of mystery, for from the min
bo first entered his cell and heard
door clanked behind MIN and
eted he never gave utterance to
andible word, not even when he
Is dying.
Although Charles Dickens is dead
story of the speeches. man he
Brnd when, on his visit to America,
inspected the eastern penitentiary
PHILADELPHIA and saw the creature
Ao had been condemned for a MUIR
to a lifetime of perpetual 81
Nee still lives and causes those
10 read it to shudder.
The story-book man had for 20
ars done without his voice when
tragedy was made public. John
wine had given but six years as
stage to silence when death claimed
NM In all those years he had
oxen no word, and if the officials
the railroad, who held him respon-
bic for the Fowler wreck, expected
the last that a confession would
eak from his lips they are disap-
hnted
Made Friends by Silence.
That language was not essential
the formation of friendships and
sustaining of interest in his as
Gates is proven by the general
af expressed by officials and pris-
ers over the death of the man who
Yer spoke a word, kind or unkind,
ntle or harsh, to any person for
E years.
q It was on the morning of October
i, 1903, that another wreck was
kplouneed on the railroad. The
al, made up of Pullman sleepers,
N coaches and treasure-laden ex-
ess cars, pulled out of the Union
Patton at Denver and was making
Lcellent progress eastward when, at
8 creek west of Fowler, in Otero
funty, as the 250-foot bridge over
81 stream was reached, the rails
read and the train dashed onto the
*rdge which collapsed and went
pEn with a crash, dragging the
sn with it.
s Who was to blame?
y officials of the railroad announced
%nediately hat spikes had been
Nllled by train wreckers, whose mo-
Fe for the act was robbery. They
Ndnt explain why it was that the
8hdge went to pieces like a struc-
#le Of straw, but cried "wreckers, .
Ia to prove their cry provided the
$lprlt in the person of a tramp
uld asleep in a clump of bushes
*out three hundred feet from the
ene Of the catastrophe.
Dazed at the Accusation.
The tramp was John Devine, 65
HarS Of age, who was so dazed at
#lg shaken from his sleep, SO
Pazed at what he saw, that he was
#aole to defend himself against the
EXAMINATIONS hurled at him.
s. DeVlne was taken to La Junta,
#aVre he, with the railroad acting
chief prosecutor, was tried. To
H. the blame for the wreck on
Il shoulders of Devine would eX-
al away rotten roadbed and out
udIe rolling stock. So the poor,
8sluIeSS tramp was sent to Canon
10 serve the remaining years
alS ME as prisoner at hard labor
y uldnt matter that the rotten
ouluon of the roadbed and defect
LoAlng stock of the road was a
sS ILL.,, Of common knowledge; ii
S.a weigh an iota in the scale OF
'I I, that no wreckers would be
onnded by folly as to choose an
H. country where for miles one
siu scan the prairie to an unbroken
m31i Tor their scheme of plumber
WIN the clanking of the prison