The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1912-06-26
A MAN BELATED.

One is always in favor Of The adc-
quate punishment for crime, and vet
sometimes that punishment has results
that are startling, when considered in
relation to the advance Of the world
beyond the knowledge Of the person
who suffers the punishment. Thus an
Eastern contemporary speaks of the
release from the Connecticut. State
prison of an old man who has served
flfty-three years of life sentence for
killing his wife. This man is now
aged "a years. he was In the full
vigor Of youthful manhood when he
committed his awful crime; but now he
Is old, decrepit-free. He is free from
detention in the penitcntiarv; but how
free is he. in fact, now that he is
turned loose in the world? Nothing is
said about his friends, nothing about
any home that he may have TO 90 to.
nothing about any one who is either
able to or willing to extend to him a
neIghbor S greeting or a friendly hand
He is alone in the world, so much alone
that he is Il stranger to the world, and
the world itself is an utter stranger to
him.
And the world is not the same world
that 1T was when he entered upon the
service of his sentence fifty-three wears
ago The Government itself is much
changed; there is no further contention
about slavery, which even as he began
to serve his sentence was the great and
burning question. The telegraph had
been invented and used little. but its
great development has been since he
was shut out from the world Elec-
useful force or power There were a
few railroads, but the great railroad
building has been since his time When
he went TO prison there was no trans
continental railroad. and the scheme
for such a road had made but little
impression upon the public mind. The
ocean steamer was novelty. and such
q thing as great liner of the present
dav was an undreamed-of impossibility
The great development of the United
States has been during his imprison.
ment. There was settlement beyond
the Mississippi river, TO be sure, before
be went to prison; but how small and
insignificant that settlement was com.
pared with what it has since become
The United States was then a union
Of States having n population little in
excess of 100000 900. IL now is great
Nation Of almost l00,000,000 popula-
ton, The conveniences OF life have
been enormously increased siuce his
time. Even the food that we cat is IN
large measure different and differently
prepared; our social convcnIcnccs have
greatly enlarged. and coming out OF
prison after an Incarceration Of fifty
three years. there is scarcely anything
that he can recognize az familiar.
He is lonely. belated old man He
has stood still for fifty-three years while
the world has moved along, and the
change in the world has been startling
especially must il seem so to man
who has had little idea of what that
change really is. The world has made
greater advances juring the period of
his Imprisonment than it had made pre-
viously in centuries But with such
record of progress in the comparatively
small span Of fifty-three years. if it
is true, AS many agree, that we have
only Just entered upon the period Of in
vention, discovery and development,
what may we not expect IN the fifty
three years next tn comet