Molineux's Prison Life

MOLINEUX'S PRISON LIFE

Story of His Experiences While Awaiting Trial.

AWFUL AGONY OF THE DEATH CELL

Son of the Brave Old General Says It Is Impossible to Give Any Idea of the Suffering He Endured-Could Not See Fellow Prisoners-How He Played Checkers and Chess With Them.

In conversation with one of his old friends Roland B. Molineux, just acquitted of the charge of murdering Mrs. Katharine J. Adams, told many interesting experiences he had in the last four years while a prisoner in the Tombs and at Sing Sing, says the New York World. After expressing his thanks to his keepers in both prisons be speaks most affectionately of Mrs. Foster, the "Tombs angel," and of Sister Mary Xavier, whom he terms an "angel indeed."

"If ever there were two women who deserve to be known and worshipped as good angels," he said, "they were two. They were friends to all who were in trouble. They were my true friends.''

"And what about the deathhouse?" his friend asked.

"It is impossible to give you any idea of the suffering, the agony, one has to endure in such a place," Molineux said. "And to think that I, an innocent man, should have been made to suffer  thus!  Not a word will I utter against those who have accused me wrongfully not against those who were my prosecutors. I will endeavour to forget all this. I hope to be able to blot it all out of my mind, the awful experiences of the four years just past. Is it not almost enough to make one lose faith in mankind? Do you think, does think,  if I had not been innocent that I could have stood this awful strain and come out of it all a well man?"

"What were your feelings when you entered the deathhouse?"

"It was on a Thursday afternoon when I entered that place, and the following Monday morning an Italian was taken from his cell to be placed in the electric chair, where he was executed. The man's cell  was directly opposite the one that I occupied. He seemed to be out of his mind. He was calling out aloud, and his shrieks were practically the first sounds that reached my ears when I myself became an inhabitant of this awful place. His cries filled the place morning and night up to the moment that he was taken away.

"I speak of this not because I look for sympathy; I do not. I never look for anything except justice, and justice came to us yesterday. But I tell it so that you may know what I had to go through, what I, an innocent mam wrongfully accused of crime, had to suffer. I tell it to you so that you, as one of those dear friends who have stood by me, who have done all within power to cheer me up, who have assured me of their honest belief in my innocence, may realize what I was passing through during the nearly twelve months I had to spend as an inmate of the deathhouse in Sing Sing."

"Could you converse with your fellow prisoners in the deathhouse? "

"Yes, I could talk at times, but I could not see the other people who were confined there.  l could talk to them, even play with them at games by calling off numbers, but could never converse with them face to face or shake them by the hand."

"But you could receive visitors there?"

"Yes, the immediate members of my family. I could see my counsel, but I could never come close enough to him to carry on a private conversation, nor was I ever permitted to touch his hand. I was confined in my cell. Some feet away from that is an iron screen, and behind that screen stands the visitor, while between the screen and the cell door sits the guard, who overhears all that is said."

"Do you mean to say that during all the time that you have been confined in the deathhouse and when the general and your mother and your wife came to visit you they were not permitted to shake your hand or to embrace you?" Molineux was asked.

"Exactly. These are the rules of the prison, and one must live up to them. No doubt it is a hardship-a great hardship- but rules are rules."

"And did you pass your time in that place?"

"I read a good deal, and I wrote letters, and I studied, and I went over my case, and I communicated with my counsel."

"And what did you do for pastime?"

"We played games. I love to play chess, and I made the figures that are used to play that game myself. I made them with my hands. What material did I use? I used some of the mush that was served for breakfast, and I mixed it with paper that I chewed, and then with my nails I formed the various figures, and in that way I was enabled to play for hours."

"What other games were played there?"

"We played checkers. We drew a checkerboard on a sheet of paper and used slips of paper for the checkers and then called off the moves across the hall. in that way quite a nice game can be carried on, but it takes time to learn it. But what is time in such a place!"

"Did you ever doubt that the court of appeals would grant your motion for a new trial?"

"Never for a single moment."

As to the second trial not a word would Molineux say even to this intimate friend beyond the statement that he was positive from the beginning that he would be acquitted.