The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1911-09-09
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A WoMAN's SHADOW.
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The shame of tie age is accom-
plished.
A woman, young and yirile with !
life, has this week had her baby torn
from her arms and herself been ruth
lessly hurried to the prison which is
to be hereafter her only earthly habi-
tation.
The memorable doors have opened /
to receive her and then swung to with
their click of destiny: but one thing
they could not shut inside-the wo-
mans shadow.
Turning on the threshold of her
cell for one final look at the outside
world she lifted her arms above her
head in a last mute protest against
fate, and the light from the slit of the
window above threw her shadow on
the floor.
And that shadow, lengthening on
and on, but losing none of its black
ness in its lengthening, reaches and
darkens the doorsill of the whole civ
ilized world For the young woman
is Mrs. Angelina Neapolitina, and the
crime for which she has forfeited her
life liberty is the murder of her hus-
band in defense of her honor, the
browning jewel of her womanhood.
Ignorant and poor, Angelina had
two end owments. good looks and good
principles. She was married to
man In whose nature dissipation had
killed every good instinct. Finding
the labor Of his hands could not pay
the price Of his increased depravity,
this human beast contracted to sell
the honor of his wife for money tor
his own vices. A companion, on the
same brutal plane, but with a larger
payroll, was found. The terms were
agreed upon and the purchaser taken
to the home where the young wife
minded her small children. Brutally
the husband told her of his contract,
and babe her surrender herself to the
gloating purchaser. Indignation, pro-
hesitation, vehement refusal were Of
no avail; the buyer showed his money
command. Then the woman did what
any woman under like horrible condi-
tions would have done; all other de-
Tense failing, with her slender wo-
mans hands she slew the husband
who would have forced dishonor upon
her.
The next scene in the pitiful tragedy
was In the courtroom, with judge
sentencing the woman to death for
killing man no higher in the moral
scale than the four-footed beasts OF
the fields Angelina Neapolitina was
to die. But the executioner's hand
was stayed by the fact that she was
to become mother, for the law says
that one life, not two, goes for the
expiation of a crime. The babe un.
born, came between the woman and
the gallows.
While she waited in her cell for the
coming of her child her pitiful story
was heralded through the country by
an outraged press. The Canadian
authorities were in consequence del
uged with petitions until at last they
yielded, and the woman's sentence
was changed from death to life i'm
prisonment
Under the unfiinehing eyes of the
law she sewed the little garments OF
the child under her heart. Under the
eyes of that same cruel law she
crooned her first lullaby to the new
born babe.
Then came the final act in the
drama. The child was taken from her
and sent to be reared in public In
sfitution, and she, with every impulse
and every instinct of her nature call
inc for life, liberty and happiness, was
on last Tuesday thrust into the prison
which is to be her living tomb. And
Il IL from that prison that that Mgcl