Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1895 — Just Found the Door Open. [ARTICLE]

Just Found the Door Open.

In front of the Tombs the other day was a little crowd in which the central figure was a woman about 60 years old whose son had just been sentenced to two years in prison for robbery. “Did any one ever hear of such monstrous injustice!” she exclaimed. “The judge was agin him from the start, as was plain to all. Robbery! Why, how could they call it robbery? Billy found the door of a tobacco store open and went in to see what was wrong.” “And while he was looking around he smoked a cigar,” said one of the crowd. “He owned up that he did, but if the man had been there wouldn’t he have paid for it?” “But he took away two boxes,” said another. “Of course he did, but wasn’t he intending to go back and ask the price of them?” “But they said he took all the money out of the till!” put in the third man. “He may have done that,” said the mother, ,f but wasn’t it to keep the money safe for him as owns the place? My Billy a robber! Never! It’s not in the blood. Think of two years in prison for that innocent boy!” “That’s a pretty severe sentence,” said a man in an effort to show his sympathies. “Severe! I should say it was!” shouted the woman. “Why, when his father robbed a grocery store of S2OO worth of stuff they didn’t give him but a yeaj and a half in the jug!”—Free Press.