The daily Alaskan., 1909-06-08
WhatCould HeDo?

am worklngman who has never
 received any education. There was
 but one manufactory of prominence in
 the place where I worked q very large
 one. employing several thousand men.
 One day the concern shut down, and
 was thrown out of employment. There
 was nothing for me 10 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 man came up to me and, say ing q want you" slipped handcuiIs on
 my wrists. He was joined by another
 man, and the two took mo to the city
 jail and locked me up in cell.
 learned later that they had made
 charge of burglary against me. or course told them that was no crlm'
 inal. but what good did it do? They said they knew all about me and had
 been waiting for me to come back to
 town. I had never been in Albany be-
 fore.
 When the case came up in court
 was tried for robbing, with others,
 dwelling. A man took the witness stand who, after looking at me, swore
 that l was one of gang who had
 entered his house at night when the
 family was asleep. Hearing q noise
 below, he had gone downstairs ana discovered the men putting his silver
 ware in sacks. He haG watched us
 for some time without being seen ana | had had good look at me. He went | Incl, upstairs to cOnCOCt some methou
 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 l 1 might have made an effort to prove my identity by applying at the factory where l had worked, but my attorney said that to prove thut man of the Inomc l claimed had worked there wouldn't do much good against hay ing been identified by the man who was robbed l had no money with which to fight for my liberty, so was sent to the pcnitcntiary for ten years.
 During my stay in prison of all the horrible things l suffered the most awful was that l was enduring pun | lshmcnt 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 cNsc taken up. but even If had had an education, with the advantages | that education brings, what could have done? It occurred to me that there had been in Albany some crlm- | mal known to ''c police who looked Hike me. The only hope l had was 1 that some day they would get him and he would confess that he had commit ted the robbery with which l was charged. But this would have been an astonishing piece of luck for me, and as I was a convicted man in pris- on it wasn't likely that even if heard ! of 1t could take advantage of 1t. l had been in the penitcntiary about 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 to me. Then another official did the same thing. l told him that he was the second man who had made the same mistake, but he paid no more attention to what l 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 I was told that one of the pris cncrs had been mistaken for me. This prisoner was pointed out to me, and ! though l had several times seen him he was a new convict-thc likeness be- | tween us had not occurred to me. It's singular how other people see like nCSSes which we don't see ourselves. But after awhile I noted that the man was exactly my height and build, and l his face was shaped much like mine. I found out that he had been con- vlctcd for crime that had been com mittcd in Albany. Then l knew that l he was the man the police had been looking for when they arrested me.
 A hope flashed within me that here was the means of reGaining my free dom. I endeavored to interest the | keepers in the matter, but did not sue cecd. The fact that this man looked | like me didn't seem to stand for much
 with them against the fact that we
 were both cOnvicts under the law. It
 would have required some one to de-
 vote a great deal of attention to the case to work out my freedom. And | who would do that except for pay? It
 would have required many hundreds
 of dollars to hire such person, and l
 hadn't cent. I got chance to speak
 to my double one day and told him my
 story, asking him to help me, saw
 by his manner that he had been one of
 the gang who had committed the rob-
 bery for which I was convicted. He
 asked me what there would be in 1t ] Ia T hnf thnnrh