Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 189, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 August 1913 — GRAY PALACE of ATONEMENT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GRAY PALACE of ATONEMENT

YOU can see it from the river, or you can see it from the road; either way it looks very much the same. If you brought to look at it an Eskimo from the northern seas or a native of the Tonga Isles and asked him what he thought it was he would Bay: “A prison!” Every stone in the long, low, dark building spells prison. Every narrow slit of a window*, every grill of Iron bars, every foot of thick wall, every glint of a sentry’s gun—they all spell prison. Sing Sing is Its name, and when it passes and is succeeded by a new prison the new one’s name will be Sing Sing, too. So long as New York endures and men are wicked, there will be. somewhere, a Sing Sing. Some buildings grow old gracefully. But Sing Sing, at the end of a hundred years, grows musty in every stone and at every angle. It is grim, repelling, suggesting all the horrors of its mediaeval prototypes—if, indeed, it is not actually mediaeval itself.

Has Special Function.

Yet, to the city of New York, which has most to do with it, Sing Sing is not only a prison. It is the cold gray palace of atonement. It has a special function for the metropolis. It slays the city’s slayers. New York furnishes the stage setting for any crime. It provides the principal and his victim. Its labyrinths serve as a place for the criminal in his flight. Its police make the pursuit and, usually, the capture. Its lawyers make the pleas, for and against. Its juries find the verdict. Its judges pass the sentence. But when the sentence is death, the city turns to the old gray dungeon in \yeßtchester county and says: "Take him; he is yours-’-to kill.” And so the last the man sees of the city is at the moment when he steps from the carriage to take the train. His lawyers have told him they will appe«l his case. He knows that he will not die the next day, nor the next week, nor the next month. He still has money and the lawyers are sanguine. Surely they will win tor him. 1 On the trair be sits, with his lawyer. in the smoking car, and the two guards sit behind them, very placid and pleasant, but with very serious revolvers in their pockets. They get out at Ossining station. It used to be Sing Sing station, but the people of the village got It changed because they did not like to say. when visiting in other towns, that they came from Sing Sing. People laughed, and Ossining is a serious town. At the Ossining station, whenever a train arrives, there is always a line of old-fashioned, two-seated carriages. The town is a hilly one, and it is a steep walk either to the business section or the prison. Brooks tyo Delay.

Then he Bees the cold gray palace of atonement that squats square and flat. Its western edge touching the Hudson river. A door Is open and the ferriage stops In front of it. The prisonc-T goes In. •Ing Sing begins to grind its machinery. It brooks no delays and stands on no formalities. The guards from the city surrender their man to the guards of the prison. He is led Into the office at the left A clerk takes hi*\ name, age, place of birth, occupation and what else is needed for

the record. Opposite this record is put down his number. His pockets are emptied and a careful Inventory made of everything in them. If he leaves Sing Sing his watch and keys and money will be given back to him —or to his heirs and assigns. No more does the property of the felon revert to the state. He is shaved by the prison barber, and if his hair is too long to be considered sanitary, from a prison point of view, it is cut, but not shaved. He is photographed from both sides and in front and his measurements are taken for the Bertillon system. Stripes went out of use at Sing Sing years ago. The prison garment is of dark gray. If the cloth were fashionably cut any man could wear a suit of it. The prisoner dons a suit of this, shakes hands with his lawyer, who has been fidgeting about, and is led away. One rainy afternoon, as he lies on his cot, a keeper with no stomach for his errand comes to the door of his cell. He has his little speech ready and fires it quickly. “Sorry,” 'he says, “but the court of appeals sustains the Ending of the lower court.” When his last morning comes he is ready, and the clergyman is at his side, talking so -earnestly that he does not notice it when the keeper his trouser leg from bottom to knee. He pays little Mention as the prison barber quickly cuts the hair from the crown of his head. He is keady when the cell door swings open, and he follows the priest and his flaring candle. From the .curtained cells come ,the last goodbys of the rest of the condemned company, some of them to follow him that very morning. He walks bravely through tbe black door.

And now he is out of the gray walls an<Vin a little brick house of one room. It is about twenty-five feet square. Its woodwork is oak, brightly varnished. Even the back of the black door is yellow. The walls and ceiling are as brightly blue as the bluest sky of spring. No in this room except the chair, the chair of atonement. made of yellow oak and leather straps. He sees it and knows its purpose, but the priest is still talking and he listens. The talk Is carrying hjm far away from the room of blue and oak. It is little to him, now that they are fastening the wet electrodes to his head and to his leg where the trousers were slit. It is even less that tbe pipelike fixture above him is lowered so that Its wires fasten to the electrode. From the lethal stores of energy’s most mysterious realm, liberated by a hand unseen, 1.800 volts of lightning leap down the pipelike fixture. Sing Sing has done what the Jaw bade it do.

EXTERIOR of SING SING and INTERIOR, SHWING CELLS