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Reade, Charles, 1814-1884

"Hard Cash"

" The death-torrent had driven the whole circulation from the
surface.*
* This mode of execution is well known in the United States. They settle
refractory prisoners with it periodically. But half an hour is not
needed; twenty minutes will do the trick. _"Harper's Weekly,_" a year or
two ago, contained an admirable woodcut of a negro's execution by water.
In this remarkable picture you see the poor darkie seated powerless,
howling and panting his life away under the deadly cascade, and there
stands the stolid turnkey, erect, formal, stiff as a ramrod, pulling the
deadly string with a sort of drill exercise air, and no more compunction
nor reflection than if he himself was a machine constructed to pull
strings or triggers on his own string being pulled by butcher or fool. A
picture well studied, and so worth study.
Mrs. Dodd was terrified, and in spite of Sampson's assurance that this
was the asylum of all others they would not settle another patient in
until the matter should have blown over, got Eve Dodd to write to Dr.
Wolf, and offer L. 300 a year if he would take David at once, and treat
him with especial consideration.


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