he was
speedily sentenced to imprisonment for life in Folsom Penitentiary.
Judge Cook who passed sentence on him took the position that a man who
used a deadly weapon in the commission of his crime should receive the
full penalty of the law. A man who holds a pistol to shoot will take
life, therefore he ought to have a life sentence. Wood, who belongs
to a wealthy family in Texas, has a checkered history. He served as
a soldier for a time in the Philippine Islands. Here he deserted his
post and committed highway robbery. He was tried by court martial for
larceny and convicted. Then he was brought to San Francisco and put
in the military prison on the Island of Alcatraz. He was finally
discharged from the army in disgrace. A few months ago he tried to rob
a showcase man and held a revolver at his head while he seized a watch
and chain. He was immediately arrested by three officers, and a month
after he was sentenced for life. As showing the depravity of the
man he said after receiving sentence: "That is an awful dose, and I
haven't had my breakfast yet." Possibly in prison he will reflect upon
his evil life, and be softened, and repent. He might have been a good
citizen, worthy of his country; but he hardened his heart and sank
deeper and deeper in his degradation. Oh, the hardening of the heart!
It was Pharaoh's sin. It is the sin of many an one now.

Another highway robber, Edward Davis, was sentenced at the same time
with Wood to serve in the State Penitentiary for thirty-three years.
He also pointed a pistol to the head of his victim. But thirty-three
years! He will probably die in prison. It is a life thrown away, one
of God's best gifts. But if stern justice be meted out here in this
world, what must the unrepenting sinner, who has trampled the divine
law under foot, expect in the world to come? San Francisco teaches a
lesson which reaches farther than an earthly tribunal. The judge
on his bench is an image of the Judge who weighs human life in His
balances.

There is of course crime in San Francisco as in all other cities.
Indeed crime is universal, whether in the Orient or the Occident. The
Chief of Police Wittman accounts for highway robbery, to the extent
in which it prevails, from the fact that San Francisco is a garrison
city. Here are numerous recruits and discharged soldiers, and, as a
seaport, it draws to itself the scum and offscourings of all nations,
Hindoos, Chinese, Malays, and all other kinds of pe