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Brought Back To Life

Brought Back To Life image
Parent Issue
Day
27
Month
July
Year
1894
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

At 5 o'clock on Sunday morning Warden Chase of Lansing, Kan. , unlockei the cells of Arthur Winner and Charles McNutt. He took Winner and McNutt to the prison barber shop and af ter they were ehaved gave them two government suits, which did not fit at all. Winner, who worked in the prison shoe shop, had bronght two pairs of patent leather shoes. The men put these on. With the highly japanned and stylishly pointed footgear and with the ridiculously cheap and awkward clothes they, in company with ex-Senator O. EL Bentley of Wichita, stepped outside the great Btone walls. For 20 years they had geen neither tree, shrnb, bird, flower, grass nor domestic animaL Two of Warden Chase's daughters met them just outside the door and presented them with twojbeautiful flowers. Several trustees approached them, beaming, and presented them with bonqnets as they went down the path. Tears were in both men's eyes. "See!" cried Winner, the more demonstrative of the two. "There is a town. There was no town here when I went in. " "That is Lansiug, " said Mr. Bentley. "Let'snotgo there, ' saidWinner. "I want to go to those woods. ' ' McNutt. agreed, and they went over to a thicket by the roadside. The two carne across a cow. "Is that a cow?" asked Winner hesitatingly. "Don't go on. Let me look at it." And he circled around the animal. Then he approached her timorously and laid bis hand on her back. "This, " he said, "is theonly cow I have seen in 20 years." "Arthur," said McNutt very slowly and deliberately, "do you notice how queer it is to talk loudly? How queer the words come?" "I wonder if I could sing. I guess not, " said Winner. And he did not try. Both men curiously feit the bark of every tree they came upon. Finally, with their arms filled high with green twigs and fiowers, they went to the hotel in Lansing Later in the day the whole party went to Kansas City. The long imprisonment had dulled the men's minds. They asked abont everything they saw. McNutt wanted to know whát grapevines were. When they reaclied Kansas City, they both began to place things that they had read about in the newspapers. McNutt could not distinguish between a cable car and electric car. He insisted npon trying both and finally got it into his head which was which. Winner was 19 years old when he went to the penitentiary and McNutt 20 years of age. McNutt has secured a job of decorating in Leavenworth and will open a shop thera Winner will go back to the penitentiary as general manager of the Burr company's shoe business there, that company having the convict labor of the Lansing prison. The Winner and McNutt case is probably the most famous in the history of Kansas. Early in 1878 Winner and young McNutt came to Wichita and started a paintshop. Soon af ter McNutt insured his life in favor of Winner for $5, 000. One night a few months after the young men settled in Wichita some one discovered that their shop was on flra The people of the town tarned out and extinguished the fire, but McNutt was missing. The partly burned body of a man was found in the ruins of the building. Winner declared that it was McNutt, but the people of Wichita did not believe him. The body was recognized as that of a tramp known as "Texas. " The sudden departure of McNutt and the fact that his life insurance was in favor of Winner, though McNutt was married and the father of a child, excited so much suspicion that Winner was arrested the next day. A few days later McNutt was captured in the woods in Newtown county, Mo. They were tried for murder. The evidence was so clear that they were convicted and sentenced by Judge W. P. Campbell, now department commander of Kansas. Under the law they went to

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News