The Logan Republican. [volume] (Logan, Utah) 1902-1924, 1914-09-05
HOW IT FEELS
TO BE Under a
DEATH SENTENCE

| OGAtH o6N ENS
In the September American Maya
zine appears another Boston Blackie
story entitled, Death Cell Visions
written by Number 5000 who is now
an>inmate in western .penitentiary
The author was at one time under
sentence of death. He was awaiting
the final day with another man who
was to be executed at the same time
In his present story he describes ia
part as follows, how It feels to be
under death sentences:
THE long monotonous days drag.
ged YEARLY by. We were glad each
time night came. and yet begrudged
the lost day. Each night left one
day less OF life for us. We read mag
azines. played checkers, tried novels,
sang with the other condemned men,
but no mental diversion ever removed
the specter of the hair that waited
at the end of the road we were all
travelling 80 swiftly. remember one
night was reading an absorbingly
interesting book. 1t WAS, Pere Goriot,
by Balzac. read on and on, my
eyes following the printed Words on
the pages. My cell mate spoke to
me and l came out of my dream, re
alizing that for many pages had
not sensed one word read. While
my eyes travelled the lines of the
book, my mind had been on the hair.
was wondering whether the cold,
damp cap that was to be clamped
over the shaven spot on my head
would send SILVER through me that
would be mistaken for cowardice.
pal, l said to my cell mate, what
is the use of lying to ourselves? Mel
Their of us mention the Chair-aloua.
But both of us gre thinking OF 1t
every minute we are awake and
dreaming of it when we sleep. What
do you SAY II we quit pretending and
talk about what's in our minds? 1t
may help us to pass the time"
You're on" he cried eagerly. I've
wanted to suggest 1t, but did not know
how you would take it,"
After that we spent hours debating
every imaginable phase of our ap-
preaching end. We recalled every
printed account of an execution we
had read. We argued the relative ease
Of death by hanging, by bullet, and
by electricity! We even made sort
Of game Of 1t In this way:
Il would say. What win happen
II $50, 900 times yet before we got'
You see, boys, still remember even
the figures after all these years. 1t
was my cell mates task TO guess
what l referred to. In this case the
answer was our heart beats. Each OF
us We'd with the other in inventins
and computing these conundrums. Al
ways we selected something IN which
the answer was some gigantic num-
Der. running into billions oftentimes
It seemed to push the Chair farther
back into the future to haze such an
uncountable number Of units OF any
kind between It and us. We used
reams Of paper figuring how far an
express train travelling sixty miles, an
hour could carry US In the days oil
life we had left. We estimated how
far an ocean greyhound could take
us in n round the world trip. We
learned how fast the earth travels,
and worked out with painstaking ac'
curacy the exact distance 1t would
carry us through space before the
day. We read magazine article on
| a comet which was said to be trav-
cling toward us at dizzy speed, and
learned how many round trips to the
moon we had time still to make II we
could travel with 1t. We made a
table showing how many heart beats
and how many breaths were left us
ut the end of each Of our rapidly
dwindling number of days. And all
this helped US TO pass the time and
keep down the ever increasing men
tai tension"