The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-01-07
Applies for Parole From Life
Term i'm Prison.
CONVICTED UNDER OLD LAW
Strangled and Robbed Woman
on High Seas.
Prison Officials Recommend
Clemency for Him.


only pirate in this counlrv is in the
| federal. penitentiary in Leavenworth
He is the only man ever officially
charged with and convicted of piracy
upon the high seas within the life OF
the present generation. He is serving
a life sentence for that crime.
Joseph Kirwin is the ex-pirate's
name and his is one of the strangest
cases that ever came within the juris-
diction of the United States authori-
ties.
Kirwin had lust for choking wom-
en- to death. That strange mania was
born in him. When he was boy he
tried to strangle a girl. When he
grew to manhood a woman was found
dead in Cleveland, o., with the pur-
pie marks of a mans fingers on her
throat. Kirwin was suspected and ar
rested for the deed, but escaped con-
viction.
Later on a steamboat on the Great
Lakes Kirwin crept stealthi1y into the
berth of a sleeping woman and his fin
gers clutched her throat. When he
left her he fancied he had strangled
her TO death.
He Says He Is Another Man.
Another remarkable thing about
Kirwin is that he processes to have
undergone a complete mental and
physical Transformation in the eight
years he has been in prison.
Every tissue of my physical being
has been changed since I came to
prison." Kirwin said. You know
science says that our lives are divid-
ed into cycles of seven years, and that
in each seven years our entire phySi-
cal being is made over. so that in your
body, as well as mine, there is not one
tissue not one particle of bone, not
one nerve cell that was there seven
years ago. That is a well established
scientific fact, accepted by all the
thinkers of the world.
"But science says nothing of the
physical changes that take place in
the same period, continued this
pirate-strangler who talks like a COL
do occur, just as surely as the physi-
cal changes do. Our. minds change,
our ideas of right and wrong change,
we either progress or retrogade, men
tally and morally as we go along
we either progress or retrogade, men
tally.
..And in me there has been worked
full mental and moral change. 1
am literally born again. By system
of reading and thinking, of mental in
PRODUCTION and retrospection 1 have
taken on a new moral l. nature. and
now having been reformed and made
over from an abnormal into normal
man I am ready to be pardoned and
sent out into the world to De a gooa
citizen. Society is only doing itself
and myself an injustice by keeping me
locked up. 1 have large ambitions to
do good, to be useful, to redeem the
past, and 1 have in me the making OF
a good citizen
Kirwin Is Bright Man.
The prison authorities are agreed
upon one thing; that Kirwin is a man
of wonderful intellect. He is abnor-
mally bright and intelligent.
Born in Toledo, Kirwin in early
youth showed a precociousness that,
under the right training and environ
ment, might have developed him into
a great man. But he had no one to
care for him, he was a child of the
gutter and he became a wanderer
and q criminal of the most danger
Gus type. Before he was IA he served
a term in the Ohio Industrial school.
That was the time he tried to strange
a girl to death.
Released from there before he was
16 he was sent again to the reform
school for boys in Pontiac, I'LL, for
attack on a girl. He was dis
charged when he became of age and
soon thereafter was arrested in C1eve-
land A dissolute woman was found,
strangled to death, and Kirwin was
the last one seen with her. But
there was lack of discriminating evil
dence, and he was discharged.
Then he married and became an
oiler on the steamer Western States,
that piled between Buffalo and De-
troit.
One night in September. 1904. Kir-
win opened the door of Mrs. Adelia
B. Sweeting's stateroom while she was
asleep and, after Strangling her I'M
til he believed she was dead, stole her
jewelry, worth $500, and went back
to his work. When he was arrested !
the stolen jewelry was found with
him.
Convicted by Obsolete Law.
Mrs. Sweeting recovered. She
sued the steamboat company for
damages and recovered $4,000 and
hat may have had something to do
with the punishment of Kirwin. Any
way, he was not charged with grand
larceny, as an ordinary thief stealing
hat amount would have been, but an
obsolete United States statute, defin-
gers on vessels, was invoked and, I'M
Ter that, he was charged with piracy
IN the high seas. He pleaded guilty
before Judge Swan in the federal
court in Detroit and was sentenced to
life Imprisonment, that being the only
penalty prescribed by the law.
The first seven years of Kirwin's
was in the Detroit
House of Correction, where the gov
eminent paid for his keep. A year ]
ago he was transferred to the Ieav- |
,nworth prison
r. V. La Dow, superintendent of
federal prisons, has taken deep in
crest in Kirwin's case and will try /
o get congress in its present session |
% amend the laws SO that Kirwin |
nay be paroled. At present the law
lnder which he was convicted would !
lot permit his pardon or parole.
The officers of the prison in Leav-
.nworth say that Kirwin is one of the |
pest and most intelligent prisoners !
here. He began to study as soon as
lie was convicted He took up the
course i'll engineering /
md proved one of the star pupils. |
his prison life he has i
,aap a dean student of literature. /