Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1912-07-31

self to Rimington as, later, he sat in the
cell TO which he had been taken-no
longer that grim anteroom to Deaths aud
fence chamber, but a temporary cell
where he would remain until he was
drafted out to begin the new life into
which he had been born-the life OF a con-
Wet condemned to penal servitude for
life. The reprieve which had been grant
ed to him-was it blessing or a curse?
In those first moments in the govern
or presence when he had realized that
he was not to die, his thoughts had rushed
out to embrace life with a Joy and thanks
giving that had bee nso poignant in its
emotion as TO cause that womanish faint
which had surprised and Inundated him.
But now--facing the future-facing seven
| thousand odd days and nights which
stretched between him and even the hope
of liberty-it was very different.
Twenty Years
Twenty years. In twenty years. II. by
the most exemplary behavior he succeeded
in never losing his remission marks, and
| by an effort of self control, that even TO
contemplate at that moment was tor
| ture. he could succeed in making himself
an absolutely passive instrument in the
hands OF those who from henceforth would
have the ordering of his life, he would be
| Tree iudu y Tree Ht WOlu
echoed in Rimington's brain with bitter
irony. An elderly man. broken by prison
life. demoralized perhaps. heaven knew,
| by prison association, man who had
cheated the gallows by f1uke, who had
| fallen out of his place in the world for
twenty years What mockery! A free
mana free man!
And Betty?
No no; he must not think of her. He
could not-he would go mad He must
shut out all though of her forever from
his heart-dig a grave for his love and
bury it deep. deep--stamp down the cold.
wet clay on it with ruthless feet. Betty
was lost to him now forever. 1t was not
decent that a dead man as he was should
associate himself in thought with a living
woman Before it had been different
going out to death he had the right to
look forward to reunion beyond the stars
Now in the twenty years that stretched
between them, much could happen. 1t
was not conceivable that any woman
could wait twenty years for a-felon. He
would pray every day that she would learn
to see the folly OF such waiting. In TWEEN
ty years she might become the wife of an
other man the mother of his children
An Betty Betty! In twenty years. The
mockery OF 1t!
lie SpFanS 10 ms letN. laughing ildu
laughter-laughter that rang through the
cell. waking no echo. attracting no atten
ton. They were used to the laughter, to
the tears-that are allied to madness
there in those four walls that are fronted
by the grim Gates of Silence.
Yet if at first he had found that it was
easier TO face death with unfaltering
courage than this new life which stretched
out before him in an rlimitable vista of
monotony. Jack Rimngton began as the
time passed to realize that life was sweet
in the possessing-th even this life of
servitude was impregnated with the per
fume of hope.
The chaplain had visited him again,
and the doctor aso-a less human per-
son than the chaplain, perhaps. but
good sort all the same-who spoke CHEEKY
words that Rimington did not forget
You're beginning as a prisoner in ear
nest Wei. let me give you an unofficial
tip Give your will rest cure while
you're in prison. Good conduct in prison
and out of it are different things; men
taIty' is the most useless of. sciences to
a 1ifer'"
Beginning as a prisoner in earnest!
The words had an ugly ring. There had
been little enough OF make believe in
what he had endured hitherto. Remington
thought But he was to realize very
acutely the gulf which exists between
the leniency of the treatment melted out
to the man under sentence of death and
the regulation of penal servitude men.
Hitherto he had known nothing by per
sonal experience of the degradation of
prison death, of the prison crop. of the
physical examination those insignia
cant items which eat into the soul of the
gently nurtured man in prison. each, as
1t were. a cut from the knife that whit
ties down his personality and reduces him
to human automaton without so much
as name
Leaving the Prison.
He left the prison that was to have
been his place of execution and his grave
on the afternoon following his reprieve.
He had no idea of his destination. though
from vague impressions in his own mind
and from the conversation overheard in
the prison van. he believed he was being
drafted TO Norwood Scrubs.
TO Be Continued in Next Issue.