The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-11-30
DEATHHOUSE
 OCCUPANT IS
 FREE MAN NOW
Maurice Lustig, Convicted of Wife Murder, is Released From Sing Sing
With States Important Wit nesses Out of Way He May Never be Tried Again

New York. Nov. 30.-Maurice M
 Lustig, one time occupant of the deathhouse at Sing Sing. today, is a free man. walking the sunny streets of New York, TningIing with his Friends by grace of reversal of the conviction for the murder If his wife The memory, however, of his two year proximity to the little green door, through which he SEW IT fel-
 low prisoners 'go away has made
 mind. He can tell of his experiences on the left side of the little door
 with vivid graphicness and today he
 was telling friends of what he saw
 and heard up the river"
 Always in the shadow of death,
 death always passing in review be-
 fore his cell, the day of his own 'go-
 ing away even being set only to pass
 pointed to his own fast graying hair
 to back up his story of horror.
 When Lustig entered the death
 house he was the 17th man When
 he gave up his identity for a mum
 Der. when he lost sight of earth and
 sky for gray walls. when he became dead to relatives and friends and the sun no longer shone. the stars no longer twfnk1ed for him, the death house became a full house.. And in the two years that Lustig lived as saw the 16 men that were his com panions Ego away through the door and one other besides. Seventeen men Lustig saw go to their death in the electric chair and today he be- lieves that many of them were inno- cent of the crimes for which they were executed.
 It was the sounds of the death house, not the sights, that impressed Lustig, for when relatives of con demned men say their last fareweiIs and when the death march begins in the darkness of early dawn, shades are drawn in front of the other cells and the men who Ego away themselves are spared the sights. But they ican- shut out the agonized screams and shrieks of wives, mothers, sweet hearts, sisters. of brothers and fath-4 CTS leaving their condemned loved keep out the sounds of the agonized moaning prayers of the men about to
 Ego away or their grovel1ing cries for mercy. or, if they be that kind, their cursing imprecations.
 NWhen man was to ego away not one of us slept the night before" said Lustig. "All night long we sang Bible. t We would sing whenever the condemned man asked and sing what he asked. Many of those scenes was destined to pass through and became in a way accustomed. even hardened to, them. but there was one scene that I never got used to. That was the last parting of the man aDOQI 10 go away rom n1S f0lar1XeS. Curtains mercifully shut out the sight could not stop our ears to the cries and screams that rang through the deat tn house. 1t was awful.
 Tt seems to me that I would never be able to forget the depths of de- spair sounded by those cries. Fath- 1 srs, mothers, sisters, brothers and l sweethearts went by Us. weeping and 1 fainting. Others were dragged our. The stiffness lasted long after the | screams had ceased to echo through i mH want do be the rat fo to ap speaa 70
 Lustfg told of the going away Of I several men from New York. One | of them, the last to die before Eustig | was freed was Albert Wo1ter con-
 AI heard him on his knees, swear Q his father and mother the Sunday before that he was innocent and no nan. who approached the little green 1oor while was there was ca1ner han was Wolter,'' Lustig said.
 Joseph CaraIla, he said, convicted worst behaved of all to pass the door. He cursed God, Christ and on the night before he went he threw down pit upon sacred pictures given to Jim and was blasph emous beyond be- ief. They had to drag him. grovel- ing and crying for mercy. through T traightened up and asked for mo nent's respite to make his peace with Tod.
 ssOn1y once" said Lustig, sdfd we ing for a man on the morning he went away That was in the case f Charles Swinton. He asked us the light before to sing Safe in the Arms i4 if Jesus as he passed out and we id.''
 Lustig. who is out awaiting a new rial Of his case but will probably lever again be tried, said that the lorrors of the deathhouse that he e1ated were unavoidable. He was varn in his praise of Warden Ken edy, Principal Keeper Connaughton i1 nd Chaplain Cashin whom he char cterized as ftprinces' and said that hey did all possible to make the eathhouse as comfortable as cou1d e under the circumstances. The 1en, he. said, had magazines and ooks, newspapers and sm oking to- acco. Music was furnished often. h