LINGG COMMITS SUICIDE.
His Excellency, the Governor of Illinois, took action in the anarchists’ case on November 10, commuting to imprisonment for life the sentence of Samuel Fielden and Michael Schwab, sending the death warrant of the remaining four to Sheriff Matson by his son, Robert Oglesby, who arrived early on the morning of the 11th of November. Prior to the Governor making known his decision, Louis Lingg anticipating what his fate would be, and in keeping with his threat, had by some process unknown to the keepers, secured a fulminating cap such as is used in exploding dynamite, which he coolly placed in his mouth, and igniting the fuse which protruded from his mouth a short distance, calmly awaited the end. A terrific report sounded in the jail about 9 o’clock on the morning of the day previous to the day set for the execution. The deputies hastened in the direction of the sound of the explosion and beheld clouds of bluish-white smoke curling out from between the bars of the door of Lingg’s cell. On entering the cell Lingg was lying upon his face. On turning him over he presented a ghastly sight, the entire lower jaw was blown away, and the features mutilated beyond recognition, only the stump of his tongue was remaining, which fell back into the larynx and made respiration difficult. He died in great agony at 2:45 of the same day. He had eluded the disgrace of the hangman’s noose and the ignominy of a public execution.
During the ensuing night the gallows was erected in the north corridor of the jail, and tested by heavy bags of sand to make sure that everything was in working order.
THE CONDEMNED MEN’S LAST NIGHT.
SPIES AND DR. BOLTON.
The ex-editor of the “Arbeiter Zeitung” refuses the minister’s sympathy.
Not long after the death watch had been set the Rev. Dr. Bolton, pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal church, called upon the prisoners.
The reverend gentleman visited the whole four unfortunates, and his reception was almost the same in every case.
Spies received him quietly and with a smile. “I have called on you, Mr. Spies,” said the clergyman, “to help you to prepare for the awful end which is now but a few short hours away.”
Spies smiled again, but shook his head slowly. “There is no use praying for me,” he said in a meloncholymelancholy tone; “I need them not; you should reserve your prayers for those who need them.”
The two men then discussed matters of religion and social economy, and Spies waxed warm in his defense of the doctrines of socialism as it looked to him. The conversation was a long and somewhat rambling one, and finally Mr. Bolton arose, bade Spies adieu, and left him.
When he had gone the latter turned to the two deputies (Quirk and Josephson) who kept watch over him, and with a short laugh exclaimed: “Now, what can you do with men like that? One doesn’t like to insult them, and yet one finds it hard to endure their unlooked-for attentions.”
Spies then waxed talkative and aired his opinion freely to his death watch, Deputy John B. Hartke. Speaking of the anarchists’ trial, he said that its conduct and the finding were without precedence in the history of this country.
“Why, don’t you know,” said he, “that when the jury brought in the verdict they were all so badly frightened that they trembled, and the judge himself, when he pronounced the sentence, shook like a leaf.”
This, he said, looked bad.
“The anarchists had no reason to be afraid, but the judge and the jury had good reason to be afraid.”
“I told him,” said Deputy Hartke, “that I had heard that Fischer had signed a petition to the Governor asking for mercy, and added that I had heard he had done the same thing.”
“That is not true,” he responded. “I said in my letter to the Governor that if one was to be murdered, I was the one. That is the kind of a document I signed.”
“I’ll tell you,” he continued, “in five or six years from now the people will see the error of hanging us, if they do not see it sooner.”
With this Spies, who had been lying on his back with his hands above his head, removed them and turned on his side with his face to the wall.
The anarchist editor then lay down on the bed, and with his white face upturned, talked continuously with Deputy Hartke about mutual acquaintances and things and events of days gone by. He never referred to to-morrow, and seemed desiriousdesirous of keeping the thoughts of his approaching execution as far as possible from his mind.
Engel grew a little more serious as the night wore on, and when he came to be more familiar with the death watch (Deputies Bombgarten and Hastige) he talked with them about the cause for which he was about to die. He protested his innocence over and over again, and told the story of the Haymarket riot, and all he knew of it.
The Rev. Mr. Bolton called on Engel as he did on the others, but with the same unsatisfactory result. The wretched Engel dwelt with bitter emphasis upon the fact that it was the informer Waller, who afterward swore his life away, that first informed him of the massacre. “I was drinking beer and playing cards with my neighbors when Waller called and taunted me with not being down in the Haymarket fight,” said Engel, as a big lump seemed to rise in his throat, “and he afterward swore my life away, but I die for a just cause.” Engel slept none until about 1 o’clock, but at that hour, just as the death watch was being removed, he turned round in his couch and dropped into a light slumber.