assistant deputy warden blundered, the deputy, who
knew the boy's record, as well as knew that he was wanted in Kansas,
should have ordered him back within the walls. With no hope whatever,
with many years in prison staring him in the face, you could hardly
blame the boy for running away. Perhaps you, my reader, would have
done likewise; but you can rightfully blame the officers who put
him on the outside as well as the superior officer who sanctioned
it. If he had escaped, what would the Kansas prison officials have
said? Could you blame them for thinking that the escape was a frame-up
and that someone was getting "a piece of money" for it?
Again,
when at his desk one afternoon, Warden Melick saw a lifetime safeblower,
one of the most notorious men behind the walls, a desperate man
and a "dope" fiend, working on the outside shoveling
coal. He immediately turned him in. I wonder what the Nebraska Bankers
Association would
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have said had this man escaped, for Mr. Johnson had
spent much time and money tracing him from place to place. From that
day a rule went into effect that no man was to be taken outside of
the prison walls, not even for a few minutes, without permission
of the warden; consequently there were no more escapes.
During the first week in May, 1912, came the trial of Morley, and
he having no funds wherewith to employ an attorney, Judge Stewart
appointed Mr. W. C. Frampton to defend him. Morley was tried on May
4, 1912. At noon on the following Monday the judge notified the court
that they had rendered a verdict. The prison was notified, Morley
handcuffed to Warden Melick, and accompanied by Mr. S. A. McCandless,
arrived at the court house. Morley walked in briskly, holding himself
erect. While waiting for Judge Stewart to arrive he was calm but
showed some evidence of nervousness by drumming with his fingers
on the
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