10

-10-

Steal away to Jesus,
steal away
Steal away, Home,
I ain't got long to stay here."

Just as we came to the last line of the chorus, we came to the death
chamber. It was a small rectangular room with the chair sitting like a throne
in the center of one part, comprising almost two-thirds of the entire space.
The other third of the room was partitioned off from the first by four or five
iron pipes, rising to the height of four or five feet, and running completely
across the room. The chair itself was almost regal in its simplicity and
solidity. It as of yellow oak, with broad arms and legs. The only electric
apparatus visible was a resistance board in the back of the room. A head-rest
similar to that in barber-chairs rose from the back of the chair. The chair
itself was raised from the floor, so as to give space between the floor and the
victim's feet."

"The little enclosure was faced by the chair. Within it there stood a
crowded mass of fifty or sixty men, smoking and shifting impatiently from foot
to foot. As the ministers to accompany the condemned man, we stood not more
than seven or eight feet from the chair, and when our singing threatened to
slacken, we were encouraged by muttered encouragements "Sing, sing, don't stop
now!'"

"There was about the death chamber nothing of the solemnity which I had
considered one of the accompanying features. The jostling men swore and smoked
and alughed as Washington was strapped into the chair. The straps worked
rapidly, buckling in an arm, then a leg, and finally adjustice his head and
neck to the head-rest. I was carefully watching his face furing this adjustment,
and here I noticed his first expression of emotion. As the assistant brought