Chapter XV: Part I: Autobiography of John Philip Quinn (2)

This was the era when the gold brick swindlers were reaping a rich harvest, and I was induced, through cupidity and vicious propensities, to embark in that line of operations myself. I soon got into trouble. In September, 1886, in company with a party known as “Doc” Kerns, I was arrested at St. Louis, charged with attempting to sell a bogus brick to one Bob Basket, of Howard County, Missouri. While we were held in jail a Jew named Levi Stortz, a small manufacturer of jewelry, came to the Four Courts and identified me as one of the men from whom he had bought one of these fraudulent articles. A formal charge was thereupon made against me, and Kerns was liberated. I was released on $1,500 bail, John Vittie becoming my surety. Ex-Governor Johnson being absent from the city, John I. Martin was employed as my attorney on the strength of his representations that he “could influence” the judges. Stortz had sworn that he paid $3,700 for the bogus brick on July 15. Mr. Martin and I went together to St. Paul, Minnesota, where we obtained depositions from the proprietor of a hotel where I had stopped, and from the cashier of the city water works, and several other business men to the effect that I was in that city on July 12th, and for two weeks thereafter.

Several months after my arrest, two men, named Frank Aldrich and “Billy” Adkins called on me, and the former told me that he had been the cause of my arrest. He said that he had induced Stortz to make the charge because he had understood that I was endeavoring to have him sent to the penitentiary. He added that he had offered $100 to a grocer on Jefferson Avenue to go to the jail and identify me as the swindler who had tried to defraud him in a similar way. The latter part of this story was corroborated by Adkins, who said that he had been present at the time. Aldrich also stated that he had endeavored to retain Governor Johnson to assist in my prosecution, but that the latter had refused to entertain the proposition. He went on to express his deep regret for all this, saying that he wished to “bury the hatchet,” and as an earnest of his desire to make atonement he handed me two ten dollar bills. Before going to St. Paul I had myself retained Governor Johnson as counsel and he forwarded a letter from Aldrich sent in his care, offering to establish an alibi for me by swearing that I was with him in Chicago at the time named by Stortz. This offer was indignantly rejected. All the facts were brought to the notice of the prosecuting attorney, and as a result the case was dropped.

I now come to the recital of the gloomiest chapter in my life’s history, a chapter of legalized intimidation, of perjury and the subornation of perjury, and of gross and wanton outrage upon personal liberty committed in the name of justice and under the forms of law. I refer to my arrest, trial and incarceration in the Southern Penitentiary of Indiana for a crime of which I was as innocent as any of my readers and the perpetrators of which, were to me entirely unknown. On August 7, 1887, accompanied by “Doc” Kerns and John Forbes, I left St. Louis by way of Terre Haute, at which place our party stopped for a few days. While eating supper at a restaurant, two strangers, who afterwards proved to be detectives, entered and accosted Kerns, who soon called me forward and introduced me. These men, whose names were Vandeveer and Murphy, placed us under arrest and took us to police headquarters, whither Forbes was soon brought by Vandeveer and Chief Lawler.

Some two months before this a farmer by the name of Zach Deputy, living near North Vernon, Ind., had been victimized by three confidence men to the tune of $3,000, and it was this offense which was laid at our door.

Upon our arrival at headquarters, an effort was made to extort money from us under the guise of “a compromise.” Had we been actually guilty, this would, of course, have been an attempt to compound a felony, but for that, these zealous officials, who had been sworn to enforce the law whose majesty they so flagrantly violated, cared little. The proposition was declined, and we were searched, when it was disclosed that our entire cash assets aggregated $8.65.

After we had been placed in jail, we were visited by an alleged lawyer calling himself Thomas Harper, who was permitted to interview us by the grace of the police authorities. He wanted $100 for services which he offered to render in the capacity of attorney. We declined his proposal and he indignantly spurned our suggestion that $10 were probably all that his services were worth. On the following Sunday Vandeveer called on us, but we refused to recognize him, and on Monday morning the authorities telegraphed to Webb Benton, a North Vernon detective that they were holding the men who had fleeced Deputy. On receiving the telegram Benton took with him a livery stable keeper named Burge and started to convey the tidings to the old farmer. He had previously offered a reward of $200 for the arrest of the guilty parties, and was easily persuaded to enter into a written contract to pay the sum of $300 if Benton and Burge would point out to him the men who had robbed him. This having been done, the trio went to Terre Haute, and the three prisoners were brought before Deputy for identification. After he had looked us thoroughly over, Benton asked him if he recognized us. The old man shook his head, but pointing to Kerns said: “That man looks some like one of them, but he is too small.” Thereupon Chief Lawler and Vandeveer sent for Kerns and advised him to settle the matter by paying $1,500. “Doc” replied that he had nothing to settle. Then the officers suggested $1,000, but Kerns still proved obdurate. In order to secure the $200 reward it was absolutely necessary that Deputy should identify us as the men who had swindled him. To induce him to do this, Lawler and Vandeveer told him that we had just robbed a country bank of $6,000, and that if he would swear that we were the right parties, we would gladly settle with him. This line of argument overcame his scruples and he at once swore out warrants for us. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to add that the $200 reward was promptly demanded and eventually paid.

The next day (Tuesday) we were arraigned for the preliminary examination, Tom Harper, the alleged lawyer aforementioned, who had indignantly shaken the dust of our cells off of his feet a few days before, now appeared in the role of our attorney and asked for a continuance. We promptly repudiated him, and Forbes told the court that we would waive examination. Accordingly we were remanded to jail, and the next day were taken to Brownstown, the county seat of the county in which the crime had been committed. It was a slight mitigation of our condition to be placed in the custody of Sheriff Wicks, whose kindness was in delightful contrast to the blackmailing tactics of the police officials of Terre Haute. Thomas Harper, Esq., who had so magnanimously volunteered to ask for a continuance which we did not wish, easily obtained possession of the watches taken from Kerns and Forbes by the police, and retained them, alleging that he had a lien of $200 upon them for his professional (?) services. They were subsequently redeemed by Al. Burkey, of St. Louis, who paid that amount to the over-zealous practitioner, when the watches were sent C. O. D.

At Brownstown we retained Lon Brenneman, a lawyer of some local reputation. The next morning we telegraphed to Lieut. Governor Smith, of North Vernon, who came to us at once, and agreed to appear in our behalf. The Friday following, we had a preliminary hearing before a justice of the peace. At that examination Deputy, under oath, identified Kerns, because he was “bald-headed,” although he admitted that he was smaller in stature and lighter in build than at the time when he alleged that he committed the crime. He explained this discrepancy by swearing that he believed the prisoner’s clothes were stuffed when he first saw him, and added that on that occasion Kerns wore false whiskers. On cross-examination the witness admitted having been instructed by Lawler and Vandeveer to identify us as the men who had robbed him, because he would thus recover his money and also admitted the making of the contract with Burton and Burge. On this evidence we were held for trial on September 12, in bonds of $3,000 each.

Gov. Smith, our counsel, strongly urged us to retain Jason B. Brown, Esq., to which suggestion we assented. He himself went to Kansas City and St. Joseph, Mo., to obtain depositions in our behalf. These were secured from reputable citizens of those cities, and established the fact that we were not in the state of Indiana at the time Deputy swore that we had defrauded him.

The trial came off on the day appointed. Our consciousness of innocence made us confident, and we asked for no delay. Deputy repeated his story as told at the preliminary hearing, adding this time that when he first saw us we all wore false whiskers and wigs and all had our clothes stuffed out until we must have resembled a group of veritable Daniel Lamberts. He not only made the same damaging admissions as before on cross-examination, but also acknowledged that he had agreed to pay the prosecuting attorney $500 in the event of our conviction, or 25 per cent. of any money that we might pay by way of compromise.

Burge, the North Vernon liveryman, from whom the three swindlers had hired rigs, swore that we looked like the precious trio. He also testified to the fact that a gray horse was attached to one of the buggies. In this latter statement he was corroborated by all the witnesses but one, who, however, was positive in his identification of us. Others swore to having seen us in the neighborhood about the time of the robbery. This constituted the case for the state.

For the defence, were read the depositions taken in Missouri, which have been already referred to as establishing an alibi on the part of Kerns, and in addition witnesses were introduced in behalf of Forbes and myself, who swore positively that we were both at St. Joseph, Missouri, on the day when the complaining witness was defrauded. Among these were Harry Trimble, now the clerk of Judge Baker’s court in Chicago, and James Whitten, a responsible real estate owner of St. Joseph, both of whom were well acquainted with me. It is worthy of remark that Mr. Trimble was immediately arrested on the charge of perjury after giving his testimony, but it is needless to add that he was never tried.

In addition, a number of prominent citizens of North Vernon who had seen and remembered the men who had swindled Deputy were positive that we were not the parties. Among these was a Mr. Curtis, a wealthy stock man and the marshal of the town; another was a responsible merchant, and yet another Mr. Douglas Snodgrass, proprietor of the Snodgrass House at North Vernon, where the swindlers had stopped on the day of the perpetration of the crime, and where one of them had stayed for a week previously. The latter was corroborated by his wife, mother and three sisters.

After being repeatedly urged by me, my counsel, Honorable Jason B. Brown, called for the production of the contract between Deputy and the prosecuting attorney, in which demand he was sustained by the court. The attorney, Douglas Long, rising with flushed face and hang-dog air admitted the existence of the contract but stated that it was not in his power to produce it. This satisfied the court and the matter was not pressed.

While the trial was in progress, I observed in the court room the presence of a man whose name and residence were subsequently learned. He was one Higgins, and he came from Detroit. It was also afterwards ascertained that he had attended in the interest of Charles Stewart, Ed. Rice and “Punch” Mason, the actual robbers. He appeared nervous and deeply interested, and before the proceedings were over left the town, ostensibly for Detroit, saying that he was going for the purpose of raising money to clear the three innocent men then on trial. Although he did not return, this incident furnished a clue to the guilty parties and their whereabouts. After the rendition of the verdict, I laid these facts before Sheriff Byrnes and warrants were obtained for the arrest of the parties named.

Our trial consumed five days, and during its entire progress popular sentiment against us ran very high. In the streets of Brownstown, the demonstrations were almost riotous. Bonfires were lighted in the evening and threats of violence were freely and openly made. The jurymen were undoubtedly aware of these facts and were probably not uninfluenced by them. We were informed that no man charged with crime, however innocent he might be, could be acquitted in Brownstown “unless he brought his jury with him,” and were asked to advance thirty-five dollars to be used in “convincing” seven of the jurors.

After the evidence was all in, my counsel, Col. Brown, addressed the jury in stentorian tones. His plea was alleged to be in our behalf, but at its close I found it necessary to ask him on which side of the case he had been speaking. The prosecuting attorney demanded a conviction (in which he was ably seconded by the howling mob outside), the jury, and the twelve “good men and true” withdrew from the courtroom, ostensibly to weigh the evidence, but in reality to formulate a predetermined verdict of guilty. Their foreman announced their conclusion (?) upon their return, and the farce was over. For some unexplained reason Col. Brown had retired from the room, during the absence of the jury, and it devolved upon Lieut. Gov. Smith to make the stereotyped motion for a new trial, which was promptly over-ruled.

The verdict fell with crushing effect upon my wife, who had been at Brownstown throughout the trial, and whose natural grief at the conviction of a husband whom she knew to be innocent, was rendered more poignant by the reflection that she and her only child would be now thrown upon the “cold mercy of an unfeeling world.”

I made a personal appeal to the presiding judges to defer sentence, urging that I would be able to introduce additional and stronger proof of my innocence, and in all probability to trace the parties really guilty. My prayer was of no avail, and we were then and there sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in the penitentiary at Jeffersonville. I forbear to comment upon what I feel satisfied the reader will agree with me in regard to the indecent haste of these proceedings.

That night we passed in the county jail, which was doubly guarded, with a view to our protection against the angry, yelling crowd outside, which surged backward and forward through the streets, rending the air with demoniac shouts and clamoring for our execution by the light of the great bonfire, whose livid flames danced fitfully upon the walls of our prison. The next morning, in charge of Sheriff P. T. Byrnes, one of nature’s nobleman, we started for Jeffersonville. We were permitted to stop at the Snodgrass House, to say good bye to the family who, at the risk of their own popularity and that of their hostelry had so zealously yet fruitlessly identified themselves with our cause. They had kind words for us in that hour of our humiliation and distress, and their generous sympathy stirred us as nothing yet—not even the murderous mob, thirsting for our blood—had stirred us; we broke down and wept. At Seymour the train was boarded by that matchless orator, that eminent jurist, that advocate without a peer, the great, the only Col. Jason B. Brown. Words of honeyed cheer fell from his lips like rain, but alas, they were not as “water to a thirsty land.” We had lost faith in the redoubtable Colonel, and his assurance that he would “have us out of prison in a week” fell upon our ears like the hollow echo of a mocking laugh.

Arriving at the penitentiary, we went through the customary routine. The necessary descriptions were entered, the formal minute of our conviction, the county from which received, the crime charged, length of sentence, etc., etc., was made. We were given the regulation bath, duly shaved by the convict barber, and then we donned the stripes, that badge of infamy which burns into the soul as the branding iron into the quivering flesh. We were assigned to labor in the shoe-shop.

I feel that it would be folly for me to hope to convey to the reader who has never tasted of the bitterness of prison life even a faint idea of the feelings of him who for the first time enters the gloomy gates of a penitentiary to do the State involuntary service as a felon. The overwhelming sense of shame, the sickening feeling of isolation from all that makes life sweet, the bitter memories of the past that crowd, like a horde of mocking demons, upon the brain—all these might well plunge into an agony of despairing grief, a stouter heart than mine. Nor is the unvarying routine of prison life calculated to draw a man from that self-contemplation which is at once the most tiresome and the most dangerous of all mental exercises. I shall never be able to recall without a shudder those wearisome days of bootless toil, rendered all the more unbearable by the alternation of those dark nights of loneliness;—nights whose bleak shadows were deepened rather than dispelled by memories of home, of wife and child, and of all that the heart holds dear. It is out of the utter agony of such a life that the helpless soul turns to its Creator as its sole remaining refuge, or in the bitterness of its torment curses even Him who made it.

After Sheriff Byrnes had safely landed us in the penitentiary, he proceeded to Indianapolis with the warrants for the arrest of Stewart, Rice and Mason, for the purpose of securing requisitions for their surrender. I had had a surfeit not only of Indiana justice but of Indiana lawyers as well. I therefore wrote to St. Louis and retained the services of Ex-Gov. Johnson. He came to the prison and learned from me all the facts of the case. Forthwith he set about securing the extradition of the guilty parties from Canada, whither they had fled.[A]

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Footnote A:

In her anxiety to secure the release of her husband, Mrs. Kerns went
to Detroit to see Higgins. Stewart was there in Windsor, Can., where
Mrs. Kerns and Higgins found him. He politely handed her twenty
dollars and told her to return home as “as every one must skin his own
eel.” That was the only satisfaction she obtained.

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It will not be out of place here to recount the heroic and magnanimous (?) zeal which Col. Jason B. Brown displayed in our behalf in due time. Some three weeks after our incarceration he made his appearance at the penitentiary and requested an interview with us. He did not leave us long in ignorance as to the object of his visit. He told us that old Deputy had been in debt to the amount of about $6,000 before that unlucky day, when, at one fell swoop, he lost both his $3,000 and his confidence in mankind. “If,” said the Colonel, “Mr. Deputy’s debt could be squared up, I could arrange to have you pardoned in about ten days.” This generous proposal being “declined with thanks,” he suggested $3,000, and later $2,000 as a sum the payment of which might at once convincingly prove our penitence and measurably solace Mr. Deputy under his existing weight of misfortune. Finding his mission fruitless he left us, but subsequently opened a correspondence, in the course of which he offered to accept $1,000, which sum he gradually reduced to $300, as the price which we were to pay in consideration of being pardoned for an offense which we had never committed. These letters, of course, were read by Mr. James Patton, the warden of the prison, who advised us to have nothing to do with Col. Brown, inasmuch as he was quite as likely to oppose our pardon as to champion it.

Meanwhile, requisition papers had been obtained from the Governor and sent to Detroit by Sheriff Byrnes. The Detroit authorities showed great vigilance. A watch was placed upon the houses in that city where the families of the guilty parties resided, as well as upon their accustomed haunts. The result was that one night in November, 1887, Stewart and Rice were arrested at their homes and Mason at a gambling hell. Although a messenger was despatched to Rice to warn him of the impending danger, the police were on the alert, and he was brought to headquarters within a few hours after his confederates. Sheriff Byrnes was notified and went to Detroit at once. For five weeks the rascals fought extradition in the courts, and the sheriff was offered $1,000 to drop the prosecution, an offer which he indignantly spurned.

While in jail, the prisoners were photographed. Rice was obstinate and had to be held during the operation, in consequence of which the picture obtained showed him with closed eyes and open mouth. Poor as the likeness was, however, it was recognized by no less than ten persons as that of the man who had stopped at the Snodgrass House in North Vernon on the day when Deputy had been victimized. The other two were easily identified, and Stewart was recognized as the man who had boarded at that hotel for a week preceding the crime. When the Detroit court finally directed the surrender of the prisoners to the Indiana authorities, there ensued an attempt to rescue them by force, but the officers succeeded in placing them in a wagon in which they were driven to the Indiana State line. Albert Boebritz, a detective, and James J. Houston, a deputy sheriff, both of Detroit, accompanied the party to Brownstown.

The best legal talent of the State, including such eminent advocates as United States Senator Dan Voorhees and John Lamb, of Terre Haute, were engaged for the defense. The trial was had in January, 1888. The accused were positively identified by twenty-three reputable witnesses, among them all the members of the Snodgrass family. The fact of their driving out of town on the morning of the day of the robbery with two of Burge’s teams, was also established, and a liveryman from Kentucky testified to their having hired a rig from him.

It grieves me to say that the aged Deputy and Colonel Jason B. Brown did not appear in a favorable light in connection with the investigation. Relying upon the assurance that the nature of his evidence should be kept secret, the old farmer went before the grand jury and identified the men then accused, virtually admitting that he had lied while giving his testimony at our trial. It was also learned afterwards that the unsophisticated old man, under the tutelage of the astute Col. Jason B. Brown, had received from Stewart and company $1,000 not to appear as a witness against them at the trial, and had been promised the remaining $2,000 of his loss immediately upon their acquittal. Kerns, Forbes and myself were brought from the penitentiary to testify that we were not within the State at the time the crime was committed. Upon our parole to accompany the officers quietly and make no attempt to escape, we were permitted to go without hand-cuffs in custody of Deputy Warden Barnes and Mr. Lemons, one of the guards. At Brownstown we were kindly treated, occupying a private room in the sheriff’s house.

After the case of Stewart, Rice and Mason had been submitted to the jury and that body had deliberated for thirty-six hours, a ballot showed eleven for conviction and one for acquittal. Finally the jury returned, announcing that an agreement was impossible and they were discharged. It was understood that the final vote was nine to three in favor of conviction. Sheriff Byrnes had predicted a disagreement from the first. He had himself been offered $500 if he could induce the court to reduce the prisoners’ bonds to $1,000 each, and afterward said that he had learned that Philip Davis, one of the jurors, had been promised $300 and an increase in his pension if he would “hang” the jury. It is unnecessary to state that the sheriff rejected the offer, but the judge, Collins, saw fit, of his own motion, to make the desired reduction. The prisoners then gave bail and fled the country, their bonds being declared forfeited at the next term of court.

The officers of the penitentiary now took an active interest in securing our release. A strong petition for pardon based upon the allegation of our innocence, was addressed to Governor Gray and was endorsed by Senator Voorhees and John Lamb, counsel for Stewart, Rice and Mason, who not only wrote to, but also personally called upon, the executive, Governor Johnson of Missouri, rendered invaluable service in securing favorable action upon the petition. He demanded, not clemency, but justice. He had sifted and weighed all the evidence bearing upon the case, and he spoke with no uncertain sound. Words such as his, prompted by the deliberate judgment, unerring instincts and warm heart of one of the greatest criminal lawyers of the Mississippi Valley, could not fail to carry weight. The result was inevitable. The executive of the State in whose so-called courts of justice we had suffered such a grievious wrong, restored to us our liberty and citizenship by his pardon. But to remove from us the stigma of the felon, to atone for the weary months of suffering which we had undergone, in a word, to put us back where we were upon the morning of that day when we first became entangled in the machinations of that diabolical plot,—these were boons which even this great seal of the Sovereign State of Indiana could not bestow.

In a private letter written by Governor Johnson some months ago in reference to this matter he says:

ST. LOUIS, May 4, 1889.

_Dear Sir_:—Your letter of inquiry as to Mr. John Quinn is received.
Permit me to say in response, that if ever there was a case of
judicial wrong and oppression, he has the misfortune of affording the
illustration. At the solicitation of his friends I became his attorney
after conviction and sentence, and visited him in prison, at
Jeffersonville, Indiana, where I heard the statement of the facts in
his case. I immediately went to work to find out the truth of the
recital. I examined into the matter exhaustively and became convinced
of his innocence of the perpetration of the crime charged against him.
I collected all the facts and circumstances going to show that my
opinion was correct and worthy of consideration, and in laying them
before Gov. Gray, of Indiana, he righted a great wrong and pardoned
him. He is not the first man in my experience who has suffered so
great a misfortune. I am very truly yours,

CHAS. P. JOHNSON, Atty.

Of my prison life I care to say but little here. Not that my memory of it has grown indistinct, or that I might not say something that would awaken interest. To dwell upon it in detail in this place would swell to too great dimensions a sketch which has already outgrown my original intention. It is enough to say that I was what is known as a “good” convict, respectful in my demeanor to the officials and yielding unhesitating obedience to every command. I think that I do not exaggerate when when I say that I won and retained the confidence of the officers, from whom I received every kindness compatible with the necessarily inexorable discipline of a penal institution. I shall always recall with gratitude the generous words of encouragement repeatedly spoken to me by the warden and his deputy and by many of the guards, and notably from Messrs. Miller and Wilkinson. In the solitude of my workbench and cell I had ample leisure to reflect upon the follies of my youth, and the graver offences of my maturer years. My wasted life, with its miserable vacillation of purpose, passed before me in all its shameful reality of color. While cleaning out the rubbish from under my bench one day, I picked up a battered Testament, upon the fly leaf of which were written the words, “From your broken-hearted wife.” The entire sacred volume contains no more touching epitome of a blighted existence than was laid before me in this inscription, with its pregnant suggestion of early love, girlish confidence, marriage, womanly love, home, perhaps paternity, crime, misery, punishment, and, at the end, the despair of a broken heart. But I do not intend to moralize. It is enough to say that within those four stone walls in which I passed so many sleepless nights, and behind that grated door which so effectually barred all communication with the outer world, I felt the first emotions of what I still believe to have been true penitence. To prove it such shall be the aim of my future life. Acting under these newly found impulses, I became the teacher of a Sunday school class, and was one of the ten convicts who founded, under the supervision of Chaplain Bornhill, a Young Men’s Christian Association within the prison walls. I was made assistant librarian—under Mr. Martin, a lifetime prisoner—and entrusted with the writing of a considerable proportion of prisoner’s letters to their friends.

I entered the penitentiary on Sept. 19, 1887, and just two months afterwards I received the most severe blow of my life. It happened on Thanksgiving day. On the recurrence of anniversaries such as this, one’s mind naturally reverts to thoughts of home and kindred. On this particular day I was lying upon my prison bunk, lost in a day dream of my wife and child, when my musings were suddenly broken off by the abrupt announcement of the death of my darling, my only, boy. The shock of the awakening was too great for me to endure, and I fell senseless on the stone pavement of my cell, nor was I able for days to realize the overwhelming force of the blow that had stunned me.

I have already said that my wife was with me during my trial at Brownstown. She also visited me twice during my imprisonment in the penitentiary, and on both occasions had expressed unshaken confidence in my innocence and had assured me of her unswerving fidelity to her early love. Very precious to me were these pledges of undying constancy, and on my part I had vowed that not even death itself should ever abate my love for her. Her letters, down to April 15, 1888, overflowed with tender sentiment. She gently chided me for even seeming to question her devotion to me in my hour of darkest need. It may conceived, therefore, with what mingled emotions of astonishment and grief I received from her, on May 5, the following letter:

“CHICAGO, May 5th, 1888.

JOHN:

Yours received. I had hoped your attorney would inform you of my
intentions. * * * I have studied long and earnestly, and have
concluded that this is best for me. I do this of my own free will. It
was my intention to wait until you were free, but it is best to be
candid with you now. You know the way we have lived in our six years
of married life. There was nothing but sorrow and poverty. You took me
from a good home, to which I have returned, and I hope you will leave
me in peace. Heaven knows I pity you, but look deep into your heart,
and see if you can drag my young life further, as it has been. I don’t
wish you to blame anyone for this but myself, and I don’t wish to have
further correspondence with you. If you have anything further to say
you can say it through your attorney; but don’t expect a reply, as I
have filed for a divorce. Wishing you good luck and a speedy release,
I am,

Yours respectfully,
MRS. LILY QUINN.”

This blow, following close upon the death of my little boy, well nigh prostrated me. I saw that I was also to lose my wife. Only the Searcher of all hearts knows the depth of my affection for the mother of my child, since whose death she had seemed doubly dear to me. The thought of her had been, next to my newly found trust in an all-merciful Providence, my main-stay amid the misfortunes which had engulfed me; and when I had thought of my release from prison (and at what hour of the day did I not think of it?), I had looked forward to her affectionate companionship as the only refuge and solace of my earthly life.

I well knew on what grounds she would demand her divorce. The State of Indiana had branded me as a convict, and this was enough, in the eye of the law, to release her from a yoke which she had come to regard as galling. Defence was impossible. Nor did I hope to be able to move her heart by entreaty. Yet I could not forbear to write to her once again, even if only to say farewell. As this last letter of mine embodies my inmost feeling at the time, I venture to hope that the reader who has honored me with his interest up to this point of my narrative may pardon me if I transcribe it here. It ran as follows:

“JEFFERSONVILLE Penitentiary, May 13, 1888.

MY DEAR WIFE:

I feel that I cannot say anything to do justice in this case. But as
an act of justice to God and our child in heaven; to you in Chicago,
to myself in the penitentiary, I will make this feeble effort.

I am alone in my little home—a cell of 6 by 8 feet,—suffering my own
afflictions, and knowing it is far beyond my power to touch your
strange heart in sympathy; after what you have done to one you once
loved, and one who loves you still.

I do not blame you for trying to get my attorney to impart the sad
information to me, for your own conscience’s sake. I know it was a
hard trial to tell me what you have written, knowing I am innocent of
the crime for which I am placed here.

You tell me you did it with your own free will. Let us not question
the cause, but the effect. It is—that much we know. You say: “Heaven
knows I pity you.” If this is what you call pity, Heaven forgive those
who despise. You say, “I took you from a good home, and from a father
and mother who love you.” You ask me to look deep into my heart; that
I have done. Never did I forsake a friend while in trouble.

Let me ask you to seek seclusion in your own unhappy reflection. Sit
down quietly and let conscience penetrate the deepest recesses of your
heart, and you will right this terrible wrong. You act as though God
was asleep, and his all-merciful care was dormant.

You say you do not wish any further correspondence with me. Are you so
cruel after exchanging so many testimonials of affection with me
during the past six years? There is a letter in the office, addressed
“Dear Wife” to you. There is a little boy above us, looking down on us
both.

You have clung to me in many trials of adversity, and have proved to
be a brave, sweet little woman. I have neglected God for you, and it
may be better that this has happened now, for the day might come when
I would be dependent on you, and you cast me into the poor house.

When I go out of this prison I shall begin a new life; as the woodsman
in the forest hews out a new home. Where, I do not know, but will
trust to the kind hand of Providence to direct me. You conclude your
letter by saying you wish me “good luck and a speedy release.” I thank
you for that. You know I am overpowered, I surrender. I am not a
William Tell, and feel that any attempt to keep your affections would
be ineffectual.

I have had many trials. I have dwelt in the mansion of sorrow and
pain. I have associated with the neglected and forsaken here, and have
listened to the sad stories of those whom their wives have forsaken,
with tears in my eyes. But the husbands of these wives were guilty.

But that my own dear wife, whom I love so devotedly, should forsake me
in the hour of trouble, when she knows I am innocent, is a heaviness
of sorrow of which there can be no avoidance,—the severity of a mental
torture from which there can be no escape. It forms a complication of
horrors that will impel me to a convict’s grave.

Since you have turned from this scene of distress, it has shown me
that interest alone moves you, since by your actions you punish
misfortune as crime, and raise crime to a level with misfortune. Have
you forgotten the last night in the jail at Brownstown, where you said
you would never forsake me, knowing that I was not guilty? Did you not
tell Mrs. Withy you would never forsake me? No, never; that I had been
so good to you? And so many letters I have received to the same
effect. Your letter before the last one addresses me as “Dear
husband.” * * * Quite a change in so short a time.

Let us hope that mamma, Georgie and papa may some time occupy one of
those beautiful mansions prepared by the Friend of sinners, which will
prove as happy as the one at 1405 Olive Street, four years ago the
29th of last April, when our child was born. O, wife; if you could
only stand at the foot of my old straw bed and hear my cries, you
would weep for me.

Did we then think that this would ever happen? No, no, no. If I had
thought so, you would have heard the cries and groans, and witnessed
the streaming tears, and more than mortal anguish of a broken-hearted
husband, who is now in the penitentiary, innocent, yet forsaken by the
mother of his child, my wife.

The fatal blow falls hard upon me. In this hour of my deepest woe,
weakness seems to have seized upon me for my total destruction. Every
poisoned shaft, which malice could invent, has been hurled against me.

Our child has been dead nearly six months, and I have not yet heard
the story of his sickness. You began it in one of your letters (now
before me) when the doctor came in and told you that he would not live
thirty-six hours. You screamed, and the poor little darling put his
arms around your neck and said: “Mamma, don’t cry; I won’t die.” You
then walked him over and showed him my picture, and asked him who it
was. “That’s my papa,” was the reply. * * *

When I realize that you know I am innocent and utterly powerless, I
shrink with pain to think that the wound of my child’s death has only
began to heal when it is made to bleed afresh from the blow of an iron
hammer in the hands of my wife, the mother of my child. * * *

You have filed an application for divorce. Now comes the struggle. I
love you too well to oppose it if you ask for it. If you have asked
for it because I am in the penitentiary, change your complaint, for
you will have to make oath, and you know I am innocent, to which you
must swear. * * * Place it upon any other grounds and I will sign the
necessary papers.

Of course it is nothing to you now whether I stay here or not. I may
tell you that Mrs. Forbes and Mrs. Kerns will be here to meet their
husbands at the old iron door, and take them back to their affection.
Who will meet me and take my hand? I will stand alone. Where will I
go? * * * If you won’t come send Fankie (an adopted boy). I will let
him tell me what to do.

May God forgive and direct you in the path of virtue and truth, is the
prayer of your affectionate husband.

JOHN QUINN.

P. S.—I will say good-bye with the last words of our baby’s prayer:
‘God bless mamma and papa, grandma and grandpa, and everybody. Amen.’”

I was pardoned November 9, 1888, and two days later, when the long hoped for document reached the prison, I was discharged. I was at liberty, but carried in my heart a double desolation. Not for me did the sun shine and the face of Nature smile. In a cemetery at St. Louis was a little grave that held the sacred dust of the being once dearest to me on earth, and in my heart I carried the tomb of a buried hope.

My foreman in the prison shop, Mr. George H. Eastman, welcomed me to liberty, and invited me to his house, where I was most hospitably entertained for a week. I next went to St. Louis, but remained only one day; long enough to gaze once more at the home where I had last lived with my wife and child, now gone from me forever. A sense of utter loneliness came over me; the world seemed strange; my identity was all that I could call my own.

From St. Louis I came to Chicago, where I sought out my old friend and quondam partner, Ben Demint, whose warm greeting was a cordial to my heart, and under the influence of whose genial encouragement I began to look upon the world as not altogether lost.

Two objects were uppermost in my mind. One was to prepare and deliver a lecture, in which I might demonstrate my innocence of the crime of which I had been convicted; the other was to publish a work on gambling, through which I might, by exposing the cheats and frauds of the professional gamester, deter others from entering upon the path “whose gates take hold on Hell.” My first lecture was delivered in the auditorium of the First M. E. Church, at Chicago, on the evening of Monday, May 20, 1889. My book (the present volume) is before the public.

The fact that I was contemplating issuing the present volume became known to some members of the “profession” in Chicago a year ago, and on June 27, 1889, about ten o’clock in the forenoon, I was arrested by detectives Kehoe and Flynn, without the shadow of a charge having been preferred against me. For five hours I was deprived of my liberty. What a commentary upon the nature of the relations existing between the “profession” and the custodians of public morals.

In this connection I desire to return thanks to John Cameron Simonds, Esq., and Mr. Matthew W. Pinkerton, of Chicago, for their generous intervention in my behalf. To their kind efforts I owe my speedy release.

During my lifetime I have thus far been called upon to mourn the loss of father and mother, three brothers—Dick, Robert and Victor—and two sisters—Laura and Roma. Of eight children, but three of us survive, George Sidney, who still lives in Randolph County, Missouri, where he was born and reared; Hatsel Seldon, at present at Hot Springs, Arkansas, and myself.

To the press of Chicago, which so kindly encouraged him in his early ventures in the lecture field, the author desires to express his grateful acknowledgements. Unknown and friendless, he felt the timidity incident to one inexperienced in public speaking, and who carried in his breast the knowledge of his own past wrong-doing. But the journals of the city in which he made his maiden effort, those leaders and exponents of public sentiment, sustained him, and their words of commendation imparted to him fresh courage.

I hardly know how better to close this recital of a part whose shameful recollections might well overcome a stouter heart than mine, than by the following quotation from an old verse-writer, which have long floated through my memory. They present, in homely language, a truth which strikes a responsive chord in the heart of every man who is not panoplied in serene satisfaction with his own virtues. The lines run as follows:

“Thou may’st conceal thy sin by cunning art,
Which will disturb thy peace, thy rest undo;
Yet conscience sits a witness in thy heart;
And she is witness, judge and prison too.”

THE THREE STAGES OF A GAMBLER’S LIFE.

The foregoing illustration presents, in a form calculated to strike the eye and impress the mind, a view of the gradations in the downward career of a gambler.

Starting out, with high hopes of pleasure to be derived and wealth to be gained through a life devoted to the ruin of his fellowmen, he boldly enters upon the way whose end is death and whose steps “take hold on hell.” Costly is his attire and elastic his step as he at first ventures upon the road whose path is a quagmire and whose downward course is beset with thorns.

As he advances, he finds the declivity growing steeper; his feet are sore and his raiment torn. Too late he perceives his error, and realizes that it is far easier to descend than to climb the tortuous, slippery path. The illusion is dispelled; the glamour has gone out in darkness. No longer the jovial, roystering, “hail-fellow-well-met,”—he has become the midnight prowler, dependent for his very subsistence, upon the scanty earnings which he derives from the percentage doled out to him by more prosperous members of the same villainous craft for betraying the confidence of his friends and luring the unwary to their destruction. He realizes his situation, only to curse it; he would retrace his steps if he knew how, but his chosen sin holds him with a grasp as close as the coil of the deadly anaconda.

In the figure of the forlorn tramp, a destitute, penniless wanderer, a pariah and an outcast, we see him approaching his wretched end. The pitiless storm that beats in his face is but the sighing of the summer wind as compared with that which rages in his breast. The wind that howls in his ears seems to chant the requiem of home, happiness, hope, honor,—all that men hold dear. And yet he must go on; on, into the blinding sleet; on into the unknown future; on, until he reaches the Potter’s Field; on until he stands before the bar of God.

Certainly it can be no mistake to call such an one a “fool of fortune,” a fool enslaved by his own degraded instincts and besotted passions, a fool who, in the words of Scripture, “has said in his heart there is no God.” But professional blacklegs are not the only “fools of fortune.” The young man, just entering upon the path of life; the middle aged man of family, who squanders at the gaming table the money which should go to buy luxuries, comforts, perhaps even necessaries for those dependent upon him, the old man, who, about to sink into the grave, finds it impossible to overcome the fascination of the vice which has reduced him from affluence to penury—these, one and all, are fools. The savings of a lifetime, dissipated in an hour, the cherished hopes of years blighted by the turn of a card—these are every day occurrences in the hells where one class of fools worship “Fortune,” and another class delude themselves by the belief that it is possible for money dishonestly acquired to bring with it anything but a curse.

It is with the hope that those who have not already entered upon this course may be deterred from entering upon it and that those who may have already tasted the false pleasures of an unhealthy excitement may be induced to pause before it is too late, that the author has made his frank confession of his own follies and his revelation of all the secret arts of the gambler’s devil born art.