113. Boxed Summaries and Features.—When a story is unusually long and complicated and the number of details numerous, or when important points or facts need particular emphasis, it is customary to make a digest of the principal items and box them in display type before the regular lead. Boxed summaries at the beginning of a story are really determined by the city editor and the copy readers, but a grouping of the outstanding facts for boxing is often a welcome suggestion and a valuable help to the sub-editors. If the reporter is in doubt about the need of a boxed summary, he may make it on a separate sheet and place it on the city editor's desk along with the regular story. Types of stories that most frequently have boxed summaries are accidents, with lists of the dead and the injured in bold-face type; important athletic and sporting events, with summaries of the records, the crowds in attendance, the gate receipts, etc.; speeches, trials, and executions, with epigrams and the most important utterances of the judges, lawyers, witnesses, or defendants; international diplomatic letters, with the main points of discussion or most threatening statements; lengthy governmental reports, etc. An illustration of the boxed summary is the following, featuring the last statement of Charles Becker, the New York police lieutenant, electrocuted in 1915 for the death of Herman Rosenthal:
POLICE OFFICER PAYS PENALTY WITH HIS LIFE
"MY DYING STATEMENT."
"Gentlemen: I stand before you in my full senses, knowing that no power on earth can save me from the grave that is to receive me. In the face of that, in the face of those who condemn me, and in the presence of my God and your God, I proclaim my absolute innocence of the foul crime for which I must die.
"You are now about to witness my destruction by the state which is organized to protect the lives of the innocent. May almighty God pardon everyone who has contributed in any degree to my untimely death. And now on the brink of my grave, I declare to the world that I am proud to have been the husband of the purest, noblest woman that ever lived,—Helen Becker.
"This acknowledgment is the only legacy I can leave her. I bid you all good-bye. Father, I am ready to go. Amen."
"CHARLES BECKER."
Ossining, N. Y., July 30.—At peace with his Maker, a prayer on his lips, but with never a faltering of his iron will, Charles Becker expiated the murder of Herman Rosenthal at 5:55 this morning. Pinned on his shirt above his heart, he carried with him the picture of his devoted wife. In his hand he clutched the crucifix.
The death current cut off in his throat the whisper, "Jesus have mercy." It was not the plea of a man shaken and fearful of death, but rather the prayer of one with the conviction that he was innocent.
Just before he entered the death chamber he declared to Father Curry, "I am not guilty by deeds, conspiracy or any other way of the death of Rosenthal. I am sacrificed for my friends." Previously at 4 a.m. he issued "My Dying Statement." It was a passionate reiteration of innocence, and is left as his only legacy to his wife: "I declare to the world that I am proud to have been the husband of the purest, noblest woman that ever lived,—Helen Becker."