their anxiety to enforce the laws, overstep the
bounds of justice, and inflict excessive punishment and place burdens
upon human beings which they are unable to bear. One afternoon in the
city of Emporia ten tramps were arrested and thrown into the county
jail. During the succeeding night one of these persons thrust a poker
into the stove, and heating it red hot, made an effort to push the hot
iron through the door, thus burning a large hole in the door-casing.
The next morning the sheriff, entering the jail, perceiving what this
vagrant had done, was displeased, and tried to ascertain which one of
the ten was guilty of the offense. The comrades of the guilty party
refused to disclose the perpetrator of the act. Court was then in
session. The sheriff had these ten fellows brought into court, hoping
that when placed upon the witness stand, under oath, they would tell
which had committed the offense. Even in court they were true to
each other, and would not reveal the perpetrator. They were then all
convicted, and the judge passed a sentence of ten years upon each of
these vagrants for that trivial offense. They came to the penitentiary.
The day after their arrival they were all sent to the coal mines. For
two years they worked day after day down in the Kansas bastile. One
morning, after they had been in the mines for two years, one of the
number, at the breakfast table in the dining-room, unperceived secreted
a knife in his clothing and carried it with him down to his place of
work. He went into his little room and began the labors of the day.
After toiling for a few hours he took a stone and sharpened his knife
the best he possibly could, then stepped out into the entry where he
could stand erect, and with his head thrown back drew that knife across
his throat, cutting it from ear to ear, thus terminating his life,
preferring death to longer remaining in the mines of the Kansas Hell!
Who is there that is not convinced of the fact that the blood of this
suicide stains the garments of the judge who placed this unbearable
burden of ten years upon this young man, and who, I subsequently
learned, was innocent of the offense. I would advise the good people of
Lyons County, and of Emporia particularly, after they have perused this
book, if they come to the conclusion that they have no better material
out of which to construct a district judge, to go out on the frontier
and lassoo a wild Comanche Indian and bring him to Emporia a