Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-10-31

accusation. the prosecutor turned on
Menlo.
Jasper Menlo, when your wife came
to YOU with a confession on her lips, and a
prayer for forgiveness in her heart. you
took her in your arms and poured deadly
poison on her lips! You did, Answer"
Menlo was face to face with his fate.
The hideousness of the charge crept on
him like the chill of death. He sat as one
dazed. He became aware of the indignant
protest of his own counsel, and of quick
and heated exchange of legal arguments.
He heard himself informed that he need
not incriminate himself, and other ex-
change of meaningless words. But it was
too late His faltering, uncertain. wan
dering replies and manner had done their
work He shook his head, and saw unbe-
lief in the eyes of all.
There had preceded him on the stand
chemists who had analysed the poison
found in the stomach and on the lips of
the murdered wife. All agreed that the
poison meant sure death. At some point
in the trial the prosecutor had deity Gre
ated the impression that Menlo had pre-
pared the poison to kill Baxter but that
in his rage he had chosen the dearer vic
tim. The drug clerk was again called.
He told of hearing a chair upset, and of
the piteous protests of Alice. 1t had
seemed to him as if further articulation
had been cut off.
Menlo was forced to admit that he had
concocted the poison. His answers were
vague when asked why. Love of eX
perimentation. he had said Asked what
had become of the bottle, he was unable
to tell. He admitted having it in his hand
earlier in the evening. The record of Men,
los ideal home life counted for nothing in
the face of these facts
NOW, at last, in the solitude of his
~ prison cell, the death of Alice burst
upon him in all its fearful weight. He
welcomed the guards who put him to
work Work. hard work, in the noise and
CRIME of a prison shop, where men may
scarce look into one anOther's eyes with
out feeling the repression OF a guard S
gruff warning, dulls the battling sense of
the bravest, and Menlo. crushed and
dulled, made no resistance to his fate. He
was no different to the guards than his
brutal shop mates, only that his hands
were whittier and his intelligence seemed
keener.
Menlo was given no choice of vocations.
And here is where Fate, in its initial
kindly act sent him the first ripple of a
reversing tide. He was set to work at the
end of a pounding, crunching line of ma
chimes in the prison shoeshop. Here the
foul odor of wet leather sickened him until
his nostrils had accustomed themselves to
the daily stencil. He had become but one
small, spiritless part of great disciplined
machine There were two hundred more
Just like him in this steaming CHASTITY di-
vision of men. stamped with vice and the
record of crimes done in the darkness of
night.
Menlo had never put his hand to ma
chine in all his life. The roar and the re-
lentless power of the one intrusted to him
appalled, him in his enfeebled state. He
shivered as with mathematical regularity
its iron Jaws came together. With a GER
tain fascination he watched it punch and
trim without the variation of a hairs
breadth the various shapes of leather,
which as they passed from man to man,
from process to process, ultimately grew
into that hated article of commerce, the
prison made shoe. He saw the shapes
pass through the hard hands of two hun
bred other rebellious men like himself,
and he wondered what their thoughts
might be. The shoe he saw completed at
the end of the line would soon be worn by
coma fraa man treadipU the SUNLIGHT IN