Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1911-02-24
PRISON Furnishes
MORE THAN DEATH
CHICAGO JUDGE DELIVERS OpIN.
NON REMARKABLE FOR
STAND ~.
COURT PICTURES IT
White slave Trafffcker Goes Into
Confinement for Life to Pay
for Murder.


for Murder.
Chicago, Ili.--Life imprisonment
in the penitenGiary was declared by
Judge Marcus Kavanagh to be
more terrible punishment than
hanging. The jurist. in a remarkable
opinion handed down in senlenAng
Joseph Welcome to life imprisonment
for murder contrasted death with the
tortured soul of a life convict in his
solitary cell and told the prisoner that
it is not correct to regard the death
penalty as the most severe punish
ment that can be inflicted.
Welcome pleaded guilty to having
murdered Mrs. Mary Mclean, March
%, 1910, in boarding house she con-
Quoted at 1144 West Monroe street.
The prisoner changed his plea OF not
guilty" after eight jurors We're chos-,
ell.
1t was shown that he forced his wife
to become white slave" and shot
her for refusing to give him money.
Mrs. Mclean YVES shot and killed
while attempting to save Mrs. Wei
come.
In sentencing Welcome Judge Kay
anagh said:
welcome, you committed terrible
crime. Your punishment is to be
more terrible still.
you compelled your own wife TO
make public commerce of her soul for
your gain. When she sought to es-
cape you shot her. 1t wasn't your
fault she lived. and you, in fact, then
killed another woman who was max
world. You could hardly get II men
in the jury box who would not infiict
the death penalty upon you, yet it
is the policy Of the law to regard
plea of guilty as in some measure
of itself mitigation.
1.-THE instructive unreasoning hor
ror Of mankind regards death as a
severe punishment. This idea Is not
correct. You are now to receive
sterner punishment. Your victim died
but once. You will die a hundred
times; You will suffer more the day
you put on your prison clothes than
she did in her death. After that there
will be only the hopeless. painful
years from day to day, from month
TO month, stretching out forever and
in agony
you will be wiped out of human
knowledge; even your name will be
taken from you; henceforth you will
be known by number. You will not
be permitted 20 lift a hand Or whis-
per a word, you will have no right
except the right to mere existence
I'm four or FIVE years the eternal
solitude and silence will begin to
crush in upon you like an iron weight.
You hear that street car bell ringing
in the street as 1t passes now. You
will remember it in after years as the
| most exquisite music. 1t will mean
hurrying crowds that go where they
like and do as they please; it will mean
the greatest of all Reconsideration.
you can only dream Of it by day
and by night, and your dream will be
torture unspeakable. In the summer
you will guess that there are cool riv-
ers running somewhere under green
trees, and you will long for the sight
Of even a green leaf with an aching
you never thought you could exper-
| fence.
In a few weeks the holidays with
| their lights and festivities and hap
| piness will be here, and many a
| Christmas will roll over you in your
iron cage and high stone wall, but
| you will never hear a child laugh
again.
| you are so elated now at the
thought of saving your life that you
don't realize all this. / want you
and the others here in the courtroom
! to understand it. You aren't sorry
yet for your crime; you have only a
great self pity. There will be few
worse men than you In that great
| prison, but l may say. the law has
| taken its full and ample revenge upon
| YOU"