e meantime,
was removed to the penitentiary. Here he was placed in the tailor shop,
where he has remained since. He is a very obedient prisoner, and is
highly esteemed by the prison officials. The judgment in his case upon
hearing in the Supreme Court of the State was affirmed. From the Supreme
Court of Kansas his case was taken by appeal to the Supreme Court of
the United States; in this highest tribunal, the judgments of the lower
courts were affirmed, and the fate of William Baldwin is forever sealed
so far as the judiciary of the country is concerned. If he is permitted
again to inhale the air of freedom, it must be through the clemency of
the pardoning board and of the governor of Kansas. During one hundred
and ten years of American jurisprudence, there had been only two similar
cases taken to the Supreme Court of the United States. But a few days
before my release I was talking with Billy Baldwin in the penitentiary,
and he seemed to be very hopeful that after a time he would secure his
pardon.

His wife is one of the most highly respected ladies of Atchison;
is true, faithful and devoted to her husband. She has enlisted the
sympathies of the entire community in her behalf, because of her youth
and great bereavement. His aged mother, who has been called upon to wade
through deep waters of affliction because of the great calamity that
has befallen her son and daughter, will also exert great influence in
getting signers to a petition for his pardon.

The question has often been asked me, because of my intimate relation
with Baldwin in the penitentiary, whether I believed that he is guilty.
I can answer as to my own belief. I have watched him carefully as I have
the other fifty-five lifetime convicts, and I am free to say that I do
not believe that William Baldwin ever committed the crime of killing his
sister for the malicious desire of obtaining filthy lucre, or the estate
of his sister. He does not conduct himself as scores of other criminals
who have confessed their guilt. In conversation with him, while I was
"in stripes," he has time and again told me, with tears rolling down his
cheeks, that he was innocent of the terrible crime of which he stands
accused, and that there was no brother had greater love for his sister
than he, and that he had such faith in an overruling Providence that
eventually he would be exonerated from the crime; and that the real
perpetrator would be made known. If he is innocent and it