FISCHER AND PARSONS.

Both refuse spiritual comfort and Parsons sings “Annie Laurie.”

Fischer’s last night was quietly spent. He talked but little, but was restless. His death watch, Deputies Healy and Shomberg, said though he did not sleep much, he appeared to take the terrible ordeal put upon him with great composure—almost indifference. He, too, coldly repulsed Dr. Bolton’s proffered spiritual aid. Though his sleepless eyes stared vacantly at the wall of his cell, he talked but little. No sign of nervousness or fear could be traced on the hard, clear-cut features. He was evidently prepared to meet his fate unflinchingly and to die boldly. “Annie Laurie,” sung in a fairly good tenor voice, broke the the silence. It was approaching 12 o’clock. A dread silence overhung all. All along the anarchists’ corridor not a sound was to be heard. The absence of any noise might be likened to the stillness of the grave. Criminals were asleep. The indications were that the anarchists were asleep too.

But hardly so. Parsons was awake, and the spirit of his wakeful hours urged him to sing “Annie Laurie.” Soldiers in a foreign clime have shed tears at the strains of this song. It is a passport to the emotions the world wide. And almost within the shadow of the gallows tree, when life was to be registered by hours, Parsons’ striking up this song seemed certainly suggestive of the fate he felt to be close at hand. There was in his tone a lonesome melancholy as he sung the first stanza, then on the second one his voice wavered and finally broke. He was cast down. The memory of his wife and little ones seemed to rise before him, a sob, full of pathetic despair served as a period to his further recitation. Once stopped singing, Parsons was in tears. He cried within the quietness of his cell, not through fear of his approaching death, so far as his demeanor indicated. Rather it was due to recollection busy with scenes of the man’s early life. His boyhood came back to him as he sung that old song. He could not do else than break down.

When Dr. Bolton called upon Parsons he was received with the same courtesy which has always distinguished that erudite anarchist. The condemned man, however, did not seem to take kindly to the proffered ministrations of the clergyman.

“You are welcome, Dr. Bolton,” he said; “pray, what can I do for you?”

The reverend visitor explained his mission, and the old cynical expression stole over Parsons’ face. “Preachers are all Pharisees,” he sneered, “and you know what Jesus Christ’s opinion of the Pharisees was. He called them a generation of vipers, and likened them to whited sepulchers. I don’t desire to have anything to do with either.”

Dr. Bolton remonstrated a little, and finally Parsons appeared to be relenting somewhat.

“Well, well,” he said, “I will say that while I do not absolutely refuse your kind attentions, I will impress on you the fact that I did not want you.”

A desultory conversation ensued, and the missionary, on leaving, told Parsons that he would pray earnestly for him during the night.

The anarchist’s hard gray eye grew moist, and he ~~murmered~~murmured hoarsely: “Thank you,” but added: “Don’t forget, though, I didn’t send for you.”

SINGING THE MARSEILLAISE.

Parsons talks freely to the death watch and sings for them.

Parsons slept little but kept heart marvelously well. He chatted with the guards on the death watch and furnished them each with his autograph in this form:

“Cook County Jail,
Cell No. 4.
A. R. Parsons.
Nov. 11, 1887.”

With Bailiffs Rooney and Jones he calmly discussed the outlook, touched without emotion upon his pending death, and dwelt with satisfaction upon his assurance of his wife’s ability to maintain herself. When told by the guards that Spies was deeply affected by the parting with his wife and complained that of all the incidents of the unnerving time, it most deeply moved him; that Fischer, though reckless of himself, bemoaned the destitution of his young and feeble wife, Parsons feebly expressed his sympathy for his companions and rejoiced that he left behind a lion-hearted wife, and children too young to keenly feel bereavement. Then he commented upon social conditions both here and abroad.

“I will sing you a song,” he said about 1 o’clock, “a song born as a battle-cry in France, and now accepted as the hymn of revolution the world over.”

In a low voice he then sang a paraphrased translation of “La ~~Marsellaise~~Marseillaise,” which the guards commended as both inspiring and well performed.