Show o Ii- Ii I Condemned I By DR FRANK CRANE Victor Hugo in his grandiloquent way said sald Notis tous We Ve are aro all condemned criminals The lurid descriptions of ot Mrs Snyder er and Mr Ir Grays Gray's last Jast hours before execution gave us au all the shivers The newspaper reporter seems t to have the same Mme complaint that some preachers have who at a funeral strive to dwell upon all the effective scenes concerning concernIng- the death of ot the departed in order to produce tears from the auditors It Is technically known mown as boring for water The more we think of ot It it however we conclude that there was vas but one terrible thin thing about this execution exe exe- cution that cution-that that was the certainty of It ft We e are all an condemned to death as Victor Hugo lingo says We Ye must all walk the plank sooner or later or face a firing Iring squad or die in battle or or breathe our last Jut in our beds Dying Is dying whatever be Its accompaniment And the act of ot death Is trob probably rob ably not so horrible to the actor as it is to the spec spec- Dying is simply ply lapsing Into unconsciousness and the worst pains are felt by those about the victim who realize that they will never see him bin again The victim himself elt pro probably ably realizes little or noth ing Also the anticipation of ot death is worse than death Itself The certainty that they were to die u upon on ona a given n date dale was ms fiercer torment to the souls of oC th these se criminals than the passage through them of ot the electric elec tile charge which occupied but a few y seconds If we Ve knew that we had to die Lb-die dip Ue upon the tho stroke of ofa a certain hour hout we e should hould die death Un anticipation tion of It 5 Shakespeare says say Cowards die many times timeR before belore their deaths The valiant never taste of death but once Of ot all the wooden wonders that I yet have heard It seems to m na me most strange that men should fear tear Seeing Seeing- that death a necessary end will WID come cene when it will come That That- men turn their thoughts to religion when the they think death ileath is Je certain is a a. testimony to the I Influence in influence In- In n fluence of death upon life and to the superior and Immortal qualities of 0 our spiritual natures |