Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1913-05-16


QN THE gray wool OF Charles Wha-
iey's existence Love spun single
radiant thread. The fact is futile
now, for Charles Whaley, after two
years of stolen happiness, is serving
the first days of five-year sentence
In Sing Sing.
The burglary for which he is atom
ing was committed three years ago.
Whaley, though arrested at the time,
escaped. and in new world, under a
new name, tried to live down his past.
he failed. Just as he was beginning
to take hope the unexpiated crime
found him.
He has a wife and two children. It
was their love which held him while
he hid from justice; 1t is their love he
leaves behind. When he energies from
prison it will be waiting, for the dis
covery that her husband is an escaped
criminal has not swerved the woman
to whom he owes redemption.
Everyone knows the story of Jean
Vatican. the philanthropist of
Victor Hugo's most famous novel.
Charles Whaley is Jean Vatican of
common life. For the time being he
has failed, but when release from
prison gives him new opportunities to
prove his reformation, there will be
plenty of weI-wishers to give him
help.
1t was in 1910 that Charles Whaley
ran afoul of the law. With an accom-
plice named Richard Fitzsimmops he
robbed dry-goods store at Port Wash
ington. L. l. Fitzsimmons was SEN
fenced to one year in the county peni-
tertiary; Whaley escaped while await
ing trial.
He was twenty-five years old at the
time. The most of his life had been
spent on Long Island and the waters
about New York. He had been in
trouble good deal of the time. but he
had never got into anything approach
ing in gravity his situation when he
found himself an escaped prisoner with
the possibility of recapture and a
heavy penitentiary sentence. For
time he worked as fireman on a harbor
boat. During much of 1t he meditated.
His chief conclusion was that his
whole life had been big mistake, and
that IL he ever intended to repair it
the moment had come to begin. Just
year after his escape he started on
the job.
1T WAS big one. When 8 man
has spent nine years in piling Up
varied and sundry misdemeanors
he cannot put them all right In a
minute. In Greenport, L. l., there was
girl who, two years before, had come
into Whaley's life for brief period.
1t had not meant much to Whaley, but
1t had meant good deal to the girl.
Whaley started his new life by going
to Greenport and marrying her. She
knew his real name, but in considera-
ton of the remainder of the village,
1t was considered advisable for him to
settle there under new one-Frank
Lawrence. He got job on one CT the
Sound oyster boats; turned into steady.
everyday work and tried to forget the
past.
It was not so difficult. He had es-
capped imprisonment for year: per
haps he could do it indefinitely. He
decided that the district attorneys Of
fee was satisfied with one victim;
that 1t was willing. so far as he was
concerned, to let bygones be bygones.
His work on the oyster boat, paid
him $50 a month. Out of this he Cup
ported himself, his wife and child.
He had always been an unwise drinker:
with the advent Of new aspirations he
gave this up. The love he had once
treated lightly came to be the most
important thing in this new, strange,
exalting career. He found his wife
believed In him; that she watched his
every step toward regeneration with
the faith OF an unfathomable love. He
never told her he was an escaped pris-
oner.
TTNDER these influences the old
W Whaley became less and less
prominent. and Frank Lawrence. the
new man. continued to grow. He had
only one spectre the gloomy knowl-
edge Of his ever.present danger. II
was enough Each time his schooner
returned from the oyster beds there
Was Mingled with his 10Y Of home
co11tnx the f1<z that one of fhe Wait-