The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1909-06-12
WhatCould HeDo?
Copyright. 1909, by American Press Asso-
nj

Copyright, 1909 by American Press Asso-
ciaton.l
am workingman who has never
received any education. There was
but one manufactory of prominence In
the place where | worked, very large
one. employing severn! thousand men
One dny the concern shut down, AMI
was thrown out VI employment. TEere
was nothing for me to do but go Some.
where else TO look for work. visited
several cities, at last bringing up in
Albany, n. Y.
One night while walking on the
street a man came up to me and, say
Ing II want you" slipped handouts on
my wrists. He was Joined by another
man, and the two took me to the city
Jail and locked me up in cell.
learned later that they had made
charge Of burglary against me. OF
course told them that was no Grim
inal, but what good did 1t do? They
said they knew all about me and had
been waiting for me to come back to
town. had never been In Albany be
fore.
When the case came up In court ]
was tried for robbing, with others, a
dwelling. A man took the witness
stand who. after looking at me, swore
that ! was one Of gang who had
entered his house at night when the
family was asleep. Hearing a noise
below, he had gone downstairs and
discovered the men putting his silver
ware in sacks. lie had watched us
for some time without being seen and
had had a good look at me. He went
back upstairs to concoct some method
for the arrest Of the gang, but they
had gone before he could do SO.
The court assigned me an attorney,
but he was too well satisfied OF. my
guilt to pay much attention to my case,
| might have made an effort TO prove
my identity by applying ut the factory
where | had worked, but my attorney
said that to prove that man of the
name claimed had worked there
wouldn't do much good against hav-
ing been identified by the man who
was robbed had no money with
which to fight for my liberty, so was
sent to the penitentiary for ten years.
During my stay In prison of all the
horrible things ! suffered the most
awful was that | was enduring pun
ishment which didn't belong to me.
If had been guilty l suppose | would
not have suffered nearly so much.
tried to think of methods of getting
my case taken up, but even If | had
had an education, with the advantages
that education brings, what could
have done2 1t occurred to me that
there had been in Albany some GRIM
inal known to the police who looked
like me. The only hope | had was
that some day they would get him and
he would confess that he had commit
ted the robbery with which ! was
charged. But this would have been
an astonishing piece of luck for me,
and as ] was convicted man In pris-
on 1t wasn't likely that even II heard
Of 1t l could take advantage OF 1t.
i had been in the penitentiary about
a year when one of the keepers spoke
to me, evidently thinking | was some
one else. told him he was mistaken.
but he paid no attention 10 me. Then
another official did the same thing.
told him that he was the second man
who had made the same mistake, but
he paid no more attention to what
said than the first. Some time after
this one of these men came to me one
day and stared at me for some time.
Then was told that one OF the pris-
onery had been mistaken for me, This
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