  Lingg suicides. Dr. Bolton with the prisoners. They decline spiritual comfort. The last night of the doomed men. Parsons sings in his cell. Telegrams for Parsons. His last letter. LINGG COMMITS SUICIDE.His Excellency, the Governor of Illinois, took action in the anarchists’ case on November 10, commuting to imprisonment for life the sentence of Samuel Fielden and Michael Schwab, sending the death warrant of the remaining four to Sheriff Matson by his son, Robert Oglesby, who arrived early on the morning During the ensuing night the gallows was erected in the north corridor of the jail, and tested by heavy bags of sand to make sure that everything was in working order. THE CONDEMNED MEN’S LAST NIGHT.SPIES AND DR. BOLTON.The ex-editor of the “Arbeiter Zeitung” refuses the minister’s sympathy. Not long after the death watch had been set the Rev. Dr. Bolton, pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal church, called upon the prisoners. The reverend gentleman visited the whole four unfortunates, and his reception was almost the same in every case. Spies received him quietly and with a smile. “I have called on you, Mr. Spies,” said the clergyman, “to help you to prepare for the awful end which is now but a few short hours away.” Spies smiled again, but shook his head slowly. “There is no use praying for me,” he said in a The two men then discussed matters of religion and social economy, and Spies waxed warm in his defense of the doctrines of socialism as it looked to him. The conversation was a long and somewhat rambling one, and finally Mr. Bolton arose, bade Spies adieu, and left him. When he had gone the latter turned to the two deputies (Quirk and Josephson) who kept watch over him, and with a short laugh exclaimed: “Now, what can you do with men like that? One doesn’t like to insult them, and yet one finds it hard to endure their unlooked-for attentions.” Spies then waxed talkative and aired his opinion freely to his death watch, Deputy John B. Hartke. Speaking of the anarchists’ trial, he said that its conduct and the finding were without precedence in the history of this country. “Why, don’t you know,” said he, “that when the jury brought in the verdict they were all so badly frightened that they trembled, and the judge himself, when he pronounced the sentence, shook like a leaf.” This, he said, looked bad. “The anarchists had no reason to be afraid, but the judge and the jury had good reason to be afraid.” “I told him,” said Deputy Hartke, “that I had heard that Fischer had signed a petition to the Governor asking for mercy, and added that I had heard he had done the same thing.” “That is not true,” he responded. “I said in my letter to the Governor that if one was to be murdered, I was the one. That is the kind of a document I signed.” “I’ll tell you,” he continued, “in five or six years from now the people will see the error of hanging us, if they do not see it sooner.” With this Spies, who had been lying on his back with his hands above his head, removed them and turned on his side with his face to the wall. The anarchist editor then lay down on the bed, and with his white face upturned, talked continuously with Deputy Hartke about mutual acquaintances and things and events of days gone by. He never referred to to-morrow, and seemed Engel grew a little more serious as the night wore on, and when he came to be more familiar with the death watch (Deputies Bombgarten and Hastige) he talked with them about the cause for which he was about to die. He protested his innocence over and over again, and told the story of the Haymarket riot, and all he knew of it. The Rev. Mr. Bolton called on Engel as he did on the others, but with the same unsatisfactory result. The wretched Engel dwelt with bitter emphasis upon the fact that it was the informer Waller, who afterward swore his life away, that first informed him of the massacre. “I was drinking beer and playing cards with my neighbors when Waller called and taunted me with not FISCHER AND PARSONS.Both refuse spiritual comfort and Parsons sings “Annie Laurie.” Fischer’s last night was quietly spent. He talked but little, but was restless. His death watch, Deputies Healy and Shomberg, said though he did not sleep much, he appeared to take the terrible ordeal put upon him with great composure—almost indifference. He, too, coldly repulsed Dr. Bolton’s proffered spiritual aid. Though his sleepless eyes stared vacantly at the wall of his cell, he talked but little. No sign of nervousness or fear could be traced on the hard, clear-cut features. He was evidently prepared to meet his fate unflinchingly and to die boldly. “Annie Laurie,” sung in a fairly good tenor voice, broke the the silence. It was approaching 12 o’clock. A dread silence overhung all. All along the anarchists’ corridor not a sound was to be heard. The absence of any noise might be likened to the stillness of the grave. Criminals were asleep. The indications were that the anarchists were asleep too. But hardly so. Parsons was awake, and the spirit of his wakeful hours urged him to sing “Annie Laurie.” Soldiers in a foreign clime have shed tears at the strains of this song. It is a passport to the emotions the world wide. And almost within When Dr. Bolton called upon Parsons he was received with the same courtesy which has always distinguished that erudite anarchist. The condemned man, however, did not seem to take kindly to the proffered ministrations of the clergyman. “You are welcome, Dr. Bolton,” he said; “pray, what can I do for you?” The reverend visitor explained his mission, and the old cynical expression stole over Parsons’ face. “Preachers are all Pharisees,” he sneered, “and you know what Jesus Christ’s opinion of the Pharisees was. He called them a generation of vipers, and likened them to whited sepulchers. I don’t desire to have anything to do with either.” Dr. Bolton remonstrated a little, and finally Parsons appeared to be relenting somewhat. “Well, well,” he said, “I will say that while I do not absolutely refuse your kind attentions, I will impress on you the fact that I did not want you.” A desultory conversation ensued, and the missionary, on leaving, told Parsons that he would pray earnestly for him during the night. The anarchist’s hard gray eye grew moist, and he SINGING THE MARSEILLAISE.Parsons talks freely to the death watch and sings for them. Parsons slept little but kept heart marvelously well. He chatted with the guards on the death watch and furnished them each with his autograph in this form: “Cook County Jail, With Bailiffs Rooney and Jones he calmly discussed the outlook, touched without emotion upon his pending death, and dwelt with satisfaction upon his assurance of his wife’s ability to maintain herself. When told by the guards that Spies was deeply affected by the parting with his wife and complained that of all the incidents of the unnerving time, it most deeply moved him; that Fischer, though reckless of himself, bemoaned the destitution of his young and feeble wife, Parsons feebly expressed his sympathy for his companions and rejoiced that he left behind a lion-hearted wife, and children too young to keenly feel bereavement. Then he commented upon social conditions both here and abroad. “I will sing you a song,” he said about 1 o’clock, “a song In a low voice he then sang a paraphrased translation of “La TELEGRAMS TO PARSONS.A couple of cheering missives received this morning. Following are copies of the two dispatches received by A. R. Parsons a short time before his execution this morning:
JOSEPHINE TILTON.”
C. R. DAVIS.” To the sender of the first telegram Parsons desired that his red-silk handkerchief be sent. PARSONS LAST LETTER.A copy of the document sent to a new york paper. NEW YORK, Nov. 12.—The letter which Parsons wrote yesterday morning was addressed to a resident of this city, and appears in the Herald to-day, as follows:
A. R. PARSONS. |
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