Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1913-01-03

privilege of seeing the life prisoner
once a month. She has mothered his
two children.
Mrs. Becker's Turn to Suffer.
Another woman now has been doom
ed to take up the vigil Mrs. Patrick
once kept on the death house-the lit
tie, pretty wife of the convicted Po-
liceman Becker. Such good fortune
as came to Patrick may not come to
her; so it may be her fate some morn
ing to watch the frightful dimming Of
the lights that will spell for her the
news that the man she still faithfully
continues to love has suffered the
shameful murderer's death.
Mrs. Patrick has met Mrs. Becker
at the gate of Sing Sing and she has
taught her all the little tricks OF
plan and thought, by which, with love
to strengthen the effort, she can al
most feel her husbands presence and
know his thoughts and actions every
hour Of the day, although thick stone
walls, steel doors and screens hold
them relentlessly apart.
II they were assembled at the pris-
on gate the women, young and old,
who have kept such gruesome vigils
through. days, weeks and sometimes
months, the. line would be long and
J even more pitiable to look upon than
the ashen faces of the death house
men. 1t is a strange, ever passing
procession of women of grief. They
find their way to Ossining, taking up
abode for a little time In whatever
strangers house may be induced to
harbor them, staring out of the win
dows by day and night at the prison
which looms huge over all things in
their outlook, staring with eyes OF
horror at every sunset that paints the
Hudson gloriously, awakening with a
sickening heart at the break Of every
new day. each of these things symbol
izing the slow but inevitable. ap-
proach of the thing they dread.
Only One Signal Of Death.
When the day of death for the one
they love has fallen--the killing stroke
delivered-the only signal that is
given these watchers is that dimming
of the lights. There has not been for
many years that old sign-the drop
ping of a flag. Only once In two dec
ades has that <tgnal been given, and
that was when a woman-Martha
Placement to the chair. Great ef-
fort was made to save her from the
terrific degradation. A mob cluttered
at the prison entrance. The guards
there turned eyes down to a little
square prison yard in which there
! is a door through which the witnesses
of the execution had passed A big
man came out and held aloft white
handkerchief He lowered his arm
slowly, the handkerchief fiuttering
slightly in his fingers. The guards
faced the crowd and said coldly:
Mrs. Place is dead"
The crowd groaned and started to
shuttle away. Then 1t halted sharply
Ferret eyes from the barred windows
above had seen the slow, fluttering
fall of the handkerchief and soundless
lips had passed the message along
tier over tier A horrible. ami al
like wall had burst through the many
hundreds of black windows. The
crowd without fairly ran away from
the sound of 1t.
Two days before Carlyle Harris
the medical student who poisoned his
girl wife, was put to death his young
brother alighted from train at Ossin
ing and helped his mother, little
withered, silver-haired woman, down
She huddled against the youth, afraid
of the crowds scrutiny. She saw hei
condemned son that day-across tht
three-foot barrier between cell ant
screen. In her talk with him sh.
made him say In just what mannel
he would spend the last hours of hil
life-when he would eat, when h,
would take his last exercise in TIT
small enclosure Of the prison yard II
which the condemned take in thei
last breaths OF outdoor air, what hour
he would give to prayer. Then sh'
went to the boarding house her othe
son had found her and sought to FOL