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Show Crime? 1 dn pysterid : Wall tfcm li I coeyniGHT r Ttie hmm I I . AewjfAPeft symwCATfc M l THE SIGN AT THE GALLOWS. This is a harrowing story, but it has a large and valuable moral, which should be pasted in the hats o all men who serve on juries in criminal cases. Sunday, May 7, 1797, was a beautiful beau-tiful day. The skies were blue, and the birds were singing, and the young man's fancy lightly turned to thoughts of love. Sydney Fryer, a wealthy young citizen o London, called upon his cou.'in, Anne Fryer, and asked her if she wouldn't like to take a walk, and she sail she would. So they strolled around the streets until they reached the suburbs, where there were fields and commons. Presently they heard a cry for help, and Sydney said: "Some woman is in distress! I must go to her rescue." Anne tried to persuade him to pay no attention to the matter, but Sydney Syd-ney was too gallant a gentleman to turn a deaf ear to a damsel in distress, bo he vaulted over a five-foot wall, from beyond which the cry had come, 8 and, Instead of finding hlmslf in the him, and ho talked of little elao urin his last hours. On June 6 the gallows was ejected before Newgate prison, and the usual Immense mob had gathered to,see twt unfortunate men pay the price. It was a trusty old gallows that had been used on many previous occasions, and the Indications were 'that it had a long career of usefulness before It. The fatal hour arrived, and the doomed men appeared upon the scaffold, the doleful chant of the bellman still ringing ring-ing in their ears: All ye that in the condemned hole do le, Prepare you, for tomorrow you shall die. Watch all and pray, the hour Is drawing near, That you before the Almighty shall appear. ap-pear. Examine well yourselves. In time repent. That you may not to eternal flames be sent, And when St. Sepulcher'a bell tomorrow tolls, The Lord above have nlercy on your souls! The usual officials appeared upon the gallows with Clench and Mackley, when the sign predicted by Clinch was given. The whole gallows collapsed, and prisoners, Jailers, executioner and priest went down in a heap. Martin Clench sprang to his feet and triumphantly cried that the sign had been given. And it was even so, but It didn't do Martin any good. Carpenters Carpen-ters went to work at cnce, and soon had the scaffold in shape again, and the two wretched men were again escorted to the platform and turned off. For a little while their curious story, with its coincidence at the gallows, gal-lows, furnished a topic for my Lord Topnoddy and the other bloods who never mlsBed a hanging, but the gallows gal-lows was making its own kind of history his-tory almost every day then, and no man's story could hold public attention atten-tion long. Clench and Mackley were almost forgotten when a man named Burton Wood was tried and capitally convicted convict-ed for some offense. Finding that he was doomed, and wishing to make his conscience as easy as possible, he confessed con-fessed that he was the slayer of Fryer, and related that when the crime was committed he was accompanied by a man named Timms. Then came the further intelligence that Timms, also under sentence of death, was in jail at Reading. Being questioned, he corroborated cor-roborated Wood'B story in every de- K AS ffifi f nil ' -l&iH Jill 1 The Two Wretched Men Were Again Escorted to the Platform and Turned Off. presence of a suffering female, he was faced by three ruffians, who told him to hand over his valuables. Sydney drew his sword, intent upon giving battle, whereupon one of the robbers fired a pistol at,him, and he foil dead. Hearing the report of the pistol, Anne scrambled up the wall until she could see over it, and beheld her cousin lying dead and his assailants fleeing from the scene. She reported the crime to the authorities, and dili-gent dili-gent search was made for the murderers, murder-ers, with the result that three youg men soon were in custody. They were Martin Glench, James Mackley and Joseph Jo-seph Smith. They had a local reputation reputa-tion for wildness, hut had never been suspected or accused of crime. Anne " Fryer identified Clench and Mackley 0 at cnce. She was a'udolutely positivo j that they were two of the murderers. There couldn't be any mistake about it. The young men appeared for trial in 1 due season, and Anne Fryer was the .. chief witness against them. She was a as positive as ever in her identification identifica-tion of the two. The whole case rested s upon her testimony, and the jury evl-t evl-t dently agreed with her that she couldn't be mistaken, for Clench and Mackley were convicted of murder, and Smith was acquitted. The verdict was somewhat surprising, because the instructions of the court favored the prisoners. The learned jurist pointed out that too much reliance should not be placed upon the testimony of a young woman who must have been wildly excited at the time of the crime. Mackley accepted his death sentence with sullen resignation, as though he considered it a part of the day's work; but Martin Clench, who was a fine, intelligent young man, protested bit-, bit-, terly in open court, saying that he was no more a murderer than the judge on , the bench. Having been sent back to jail to 1 await the day of execution. Clench devoted de-voted most of his time to religious study, and the mantle of Elijah descended de-scended upon him. He began to make prophecies. He said that heaven would not permit two Innocent men to be executed without some sign that all t men might understand. I "Mark my words," he was wont to I Bay, "there will bo o sign at the gal-' gal-' . lows, proc'nimip.g otr innocence." ' j This idea became an obsession with tall. There was no possibility of a doubt as to the innocence of Clench and Mackley, but they no longer cared anything about earthly justice or injustice. in-justice. For several years thereafter an old residence in Shepherd street was much gazed at by the curious. Londoners pointed it out to their visiting kin from the country. One of the rear windows was heavily barred with iron, and sometimes a ghastly, phantomlike fao was seen at that window. "That is Mistress Anne Fryer," the Londoner would say to his wondering cousin from the back districts. "She sent two men to the gallows by giving mistaken testimony, and when she learned the truth she became a raving madwoman. She is kept in that room all the year round, and sometimes when she is violent they gag her and chain her to the floor." As remarked in the beginning, this true story has a moral, and it should be framed and hung up wherever mortal mor-tal man is engaged in the administration administra-tion of justice. Good Results With Alfalfa Flour. Alfalfa flour is one of the new products prod-ucts that are being prepared for the market. It is blended with wheat flour, as the alfalfa protein does not supply the necessary elasticity. The unbleached flour gives to the food a characteristic green color. The advantages ad-vantages are to be found in the lower cost and greater food valu-. The food classes ae been working with the flour and have had very satisfactory sat-isfactory results, substituting alfalfa for wheat flour in muffins, biscuit, bread and cake. 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