Delaware City press. (Delaware City, Del.) 1913-19??, 1913-05-16

ONSe NiNiNSH intO SoHNiCt.
IN THE gray wool Of Charles Wha-
ley's existence Love spun a 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 a 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 wife and two children. 1t
was their love which held him while
he hid from Justice: 1t is their love he
leaves behind. When he energies from
prison 1t 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 fugitive-ph ilanthropist of
Victor Hugo's most famous novel.
Charles Whaley is a Jean Vatican of
common life. For the time being he
has failed, but when rele 9se from
prison gives him new opportunities to
prove his reformation, there will be
plenty Of well-wishers to give him
help.
1t was In 1910 that Charles whaley
ran afoul OF the law. With an accom-.
piice named Richard Fitzsimmons be
robbed dry-goods store at Port Wash-
ington, L. !. Fitzsimmons was sen
fenced TO one year In the county peni-
tentiary; 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 a
time he worked as fireman on a harbor
boat. During much of it he meditated.
His chief conclusion was that his
whole life had been big mistake, and
that II he ever intended to- repair 1t
the moment had come to begin. Just
a year after his escape he started on
the job.
1T WAS. a big one When a man
4 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 a 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 a job on one Of the
Sound oyster boats; turned into steady
everyday work and tried to forget the
: past.
1t was not so difficult. He had es.
capped Imprisonment for a 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 bygoues
His work on the oyster boat maid
him $50 a month Out of this he sun
ported himself, his wife and a child
He had always been an unwise driuker:
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
. eSalting career, He found his wife
believed in him; that she watched his
8 every step toward regeneration with
: the faith OF an unfathomabIe love. He
7 never told her he was an escaped pris
1 oner
e 1T NDER these influences the ole
b " Whaley became less and lesi
a prominent. and Frank Lawrence, tn,
new man, continued to grow. He hat
3 only one spectre-the gloomy knowl
edge of his ever-present danger. 1
a was enough. Each time his schooner
returned from the oyster beds Their,
r was mingled with his Joy of home
] coming the fear that one of the wait