Lakeland Evening Telegram Newspaper, September 11, 1914, Page 7

_ pain and big aches and big pains Is quickly absorbed—good for sores, neuralgia, stiff joints, rheumatism, etc. 25¢ at druggists. For Sale In Lakeiand by HENLEY & HENLEY Style Has Much to Recommend It, Especially for Wear in the Warm Months. not get one of those large urns to beautify your yard? not get the oldest reliable j man to put In your walk? The sleeveless coat is an adaptation of the military coat. The gracerul | lnes of this cloak design, with the: long slant over the shoulder, are re- sponsible for a very charming type of coat and skirt that has just made | its appearance among the new models, wherein somewhat the idea of the cape is suggested without either its length or weight, neither of which 1s' needed when merely a walking cos-' | B¥ Dot get. vour brick and blocks = prices are right, go are the £f s 0N NATIGNAL VAULT G- . B. Zlmmerman, Mgr. One of these coats and skirts shows how exceedingly graceful the style can be—the coat being entirely sleeve- less, a fact that for summer wear is obviously a great advantage. The completed model was ecarried out in navy blue suiting of a fine qual- ity, the coat being made with a long. shaped basque, and a round cape ef- fect over the shoulders. The skirt was very original, having a deep slanting hip yoke of the same mate- rial, into which the drapery was set and firmly sewn along with a double row of machine stitching. The coat fastened across the front with a number of small painted china buttons, while beneath it was worn a blouse of navy chiffon, with long, transparent sleeves, completed with a winged collar of white lawn wired up- ward at the sides. Gan Talk to Practically the People in the Town L OUGH THIS PAPER —_— of AND MULES ¥OR HIRE 3 Office 109; Res., 57 Green If you want your Shirts and Collars Laundered the VERY BEST Send them to the akelana Steam Laundry 1 Weare better equipped than ever for giving you high s Laundry work. Phone 130 >HONE 348 BLACK for House Piers, Cement, and all Concrete BUILDING MATERIAL Prices right. kinds of Cement Work. B g g Estimates given on all v 9 @ B B. H. BELISARIO, Proprietor ' LAKELAND, FLA. i Does it keep correct time? Have you had trouble in get- ting it fixed? If so bring it to We cater to such jobs. v w About Watch? us, four % “A Pleasure to Show Goods” COLE & HULL - Jewelers and Optometrists, Lakeland, Fla, Phone 46 THE ELECTRIC STORE 307 E. Main St. Itgufe With Us We offer you the best and largest assortment of Electric Fixtures in South Florida On Display at Our Store lorida Electric and Machinery Co. [ bbbhdbioitbbhidaas st LT L LT TR L2 LTI T T TXTETS 24 ! THE EVENING TELEGRAM LAR ELAND, FLA., SEPT. 10, 1914. “QUALITY OF MERCY” —————— By HAZEL W. NELSON. Fr—— — —————% (Copyright.) It was hot—and very still—in the| court room. From without came a dis- | tant rumble of life, a faint clanging of | trolley-car bells, or the roll of heavy trucks over the cobbles of the thor- oughfare blocks away; but this was a Quiet side street. In the intense heat of mid-afternoon in July the rows of wooden houses, pretentious enough in the early part of the century, were now little used and falling to decay; the overgrown yards, the wide street with its few old trees, stretched sunny and deserted. Now and then a footstep might be heard far up the street, pass, and then grow fainter in the distanoe. But for the most part people pre- ferred to doze behind closed blinds till the cool of evening brought some re- lef. Inside the court room there was also a stillness, not of desolation, but of Ligh tension. The lawyer for the de- fense was pleading. In the beginning of his speech he had stopped often to wipe his perspiring brow with a large red-bordered handkerchief, or to pour himself a glass of ice-water from the pitcher on the table. But now he had become so interested that he talked on and on, regardless of the heat. The jury, one by one, had tucked their handkerchiefs inside their wilt- ed collars, then had stripped off their coats, and now sat, a study in blue, red, plaid shirtsleeves, all inwardly oursing the fate that called them to Jury duty in such intolerable weather. A cool, fair-minded jury, indeed! But there was one person in the court room that cared neither for the heavy sflence nor the oppressive heat. The defendant was & young man, un- der thirty; the whiteness of his clean- cut face was intensified by dark lines of dissipation under his eyes. He held his head high, scorning to feel the dis- grace of his position or to ask any mercy. Even the crankiest member of the jury felt vaguely that he was not Just like the other timorous, or sul- len, wretches who had come before them during that term of oourt. He himself could hardly acoouat for the strange exhilaration, the wonder- ful hope, that possessed him. Even the witnesses against him, who in turn had come to the stand and testified as one man concerning his evident guilt, smiled at him as they stepped down. That bad affair with the inn- keeper at Paterson had been painted pretty dark; but, although things looked rather black for him from that point of view, his high hopes were not daunted for a moment. His law- yer was 80 encouraging, and the case seemed so plainly merely one of hard luck on his part. His eye lighted in contempt on the jaded little clerk bending over his writing; how old and weary and dried- up and humdrum he looked. And he himself was so overflowing with life, with the splendid joy of living and with the thoughts of that new and higher life now being unfolded to him. The old life was dead and gone. “Jove!” he told himself, “there are 80 many big things a fellow can do— such a satigfaction working day and night toward some one end—" To be sure he hadn't worked very much yet, but he had always meant to —always dreamed of great things he would do for the world some time. So far his life had been something of a failure, it's true; these last four years, anyway, he had gone a pretty fast gait. But had he had half a chance? His face grew dark as one memory after another crowded upon him; one of a mere lad eagerly pleading for- giveness from his father for some thoughtless prank, but the stern frig- idity of the old gentleman did not soft- en; of a young man, with a face grown harder and more sullen, suspended from college without a fair hearing because he would not “peach” on his chum—and a thousand others. The lines of bitterness around his mouth deepened; then came his lawyers words: “How well we remember our own young days, when perhaps we, too, sowed a pretty good sized crop of wild oats. Gentlemen of the jury, what is this so-called crime but a boy- ish trick, carried, perhaps, too far? And always—" The defendant’s face cleared, and he smiled. It seemed as if the harum- scarum lad, that young daredevil, were another person entirely; he himself was 80 changed now. Of course, peo- ple would make allowances for the wildness of a young man; they were always ready to forgive the scrapes of mischievous boys, especlally the good- looking ones. And then like a flash came a picture of a day long ago, when he was a boy off in the country; a picture of the old, weather-beaten court house at Pleasant Mountain, overgrown with woodbine, | and a great weeping willow almost in front of the door. That day he and Bud Wilkins and Andy Blake had been to the circus at Upton—Upton was twelve miles from his father’s farm; it was such a large, flourishing town, with a brick walk down Main street, and the circus always came there; and that exciting day he and Andy and Bud had been to the circus, and then—oh, joy! had happened in upon a real live trial at the court house. Bud and Andy had shinned up the willow tree and peeped in the window, but he had on his Sunday pants and frowned upon shinning; so he had shoved and ducked in through the crowd of farmers. He could see now, after all these PAGE SEVEN years, the drawn, haggard face of the prisoner at the bar, and fecl sgain the pity with which he had eyed the poor prisoner. And yet— With a start he reaiized that now he, that same little boy, was the pris- oner. It surprised him to notice how the thought stung him. But then that man had been tried for murder, the murder of a lifelong enemy, in a pas- slon of rage, and had been sentenced to death. And though his crime was not so monstrous, the penalty loomed unutterably worse. He saw himself, in a convict's suit, and with close shaven head, pounding stone on the public road, marching in automatic lack-step, or sitting, a sol- itary figure, in a dim cell, the monot- ony of the prison life added to the never-ceasing cruelty of his thoughts, slowly eating away his sanity; and then, to go out into the world, to run across old friends again, with the brand of a jailbird ever upon him! His fingers clutched fiercely at the arm of his chair; it had all passed through his mind in one brief instant—and again the sweetly persuasive tones of the lawyer: “Gentlemen, we are not yet so old or so hardened that we cannot smile with condescension upon the indiscre- tions of the young. Surely you have not forgotten your own college days. Perhaps, as 1 draw for you the scene of the—the—er—unfortunate escapade of these thoughtless young men, some similar scene from your own experi- ence will rise before you and move you to pity. “It 18 a very dark night, no moon, only a few stars. Several young men WHOLESALE GROCERS ““A BUSINESS WITHOUT BOOKS” We find that low prices and long time will not go hand in hand, and on May Ist we will instal our new system of low prices for Strictly Cash. We have saved the people of Lakeland and Polk County tkousands of dollars in the past. and our new system will still reduce the cost of living. and also reduce our expenses and enable us to put the knife in still deeper. We carry a full line groceries. feed. grain, hay. crate material, and Wilson & Toomers’ Ideal Fertilizersalways on hand Mayes Grocery Company 211 West Main St., Lakeland, Fla. i * P PBPRP PR B SO DBDDDOD B DI BFDE a3 PRGBS Pdhdd PP id dPPPP o ol in a huge Packard are returning from ¢« CONSU LT L] S” a midnight revel, rendered perhaps rather—er—irresponsible—you get my |« i g G meaning, gentlemen, by long reveling For figures on wiring your house. We and much champagne. e will save you money. Look out for the “One of the young fellows is in % . rather low spirits because of large ) rainy season. Let us p.ut gutter around losses at cards early in the evening— | ' your house and protect it from decay. very hard luck he had had that night i —and the crowd devises a crazy|g scheme of hiding at a corner and—er @ T. L. CARDWELL, —picking somebody’s pocket. And so they draw up in a dark side street leading from the park, and the one young gentleman gets out—.nd waits not many minutes before footsteps are heard—and you know the rest, gen- tlemen. “In the excitement of the moment no doubt he struck harder than was intended—and the old gentleman was not strong—but surely to jurymen of your discrimination the affair will not be regarded as serious, especially as the old gentleman is reported out of danger. The law is a punisher—not an avenger, and when we administer law without mercy we oppress the people!” In an unconscious way he heard the lawyer's voice going on, but his head teemed with a surge of thoughts: Yes, if this were the old, dogmatic, narrow-minded system of law, he agreed, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, why, he, who had done & criminal’s deed (he could face the cold facts now), would have to pay the cor- responding penalty. But the defendant had no fears. That old, narrow law was out of date. He could trust these modern, intelli- gent jurymen to discern between & cold-blooded crime and a sad mirtake. How kind and broadminded they looked; how ready to listen to reason and be convinced. He thought that he had never seen such a benevolent face at the judge’'s. It recalled a verse from some old book, “Charity suffereth long, and is kind.” Yes, that was the Judge’s face exactly. What a splendid thing this Ameri- can system of law is, thought the ac- cused. No hanging a man by a crazy mob, swayed for an instant by a blind fury against some poor wretch. No tyranny of a headstrong king, banish- ing a noble to the Tower for a mo- mentary dislike or the whim of a fav- orite. What a difference now—noth- ing rash or emotional—all coolness and keen judgment, justice and— mercy! How alert his every sense was! Now bis lawyer had finished the appeal, had taken his seat amid a burst of applause, and the jurymen adjourned to the next room. He watched them untfl the door shut. There was no look in a single one of the faces, of that hard relentlessness that he had been used to; the very broadness of their comfortable backs seemed tolerant with that charity for a human being that was stirring all humanity. The jurymen were not out of the room ten minutes. The facts of the case were quite clear to them; they were in a hurry to get home, and this was but a trifle; the murder trial on for tomorrow promised some excite- ment. One must have held back, vot- ing against the decision of the others, but the outer room and its furnace breath had overcome his slight re- luctance. In the court room the accused sat with his head in his hands; his thoughts were still running riot, he to exert a supreme effort of will to hold himself in the chair. His pulses were tingling flercely, with the love of mere living, with an exhilara- tion of gratitude that contracted his throat, with the sweetness of freedom after this tense nightmare, with a mighty resolve for the future— “Thank heaven! I'm not an old man yet. Really, I'm awfully young!™ He | almost laughed aloud in joyous real- | ization of the long, free life stfll be- lNo 'No. 666 fore him— I} p This is a Prescription ared il ill break an ::ken then as s tonic the Fev’;: .W.lel‘l :: Iom'el It acts on the liver better than mel and does not &ripe or sicken, 25¢, Electric and Sheet Metal Contracts Phone 233. Rear Wilson Hdwe Co. PP MEPS SRR PR R PR D P ERDDSSBDSRO BRI T 00000000000000000088880887 C00LIFLLLL L4 F L4444 4410000 TP YOU ARE THINKING Of BUILDING. SEE MARSHALL & SANDERS The O1d Rellable Contractors Who bave been buildihg houses in Lakeland for years, and who never “"FELL DOWN" or failed to give satisfaction. All classes of buildings contracted for. The many fine residences built by this firm are evidgnces of their abilityto make good. MARSHALL & SANDERS Phone 228 Blue Laa sl ol g e e B0 Bl W. K. Jackson W. K. McRae JACKSON & McRAE REAL ESTATE Large Listing--Always Some Bargains W. P. Pillans & Co. BroforgoorgoiBecfeolr BB filltf Boofrefrfrdr Bl oo el BB B PGSR DB B PEHDPID ‘3"5"3’*2‘2 Phone 93-94 - Just Received Today B A Sl S R e R e ] L el L LS e I L SER L $1.00 $1.15 Fix ’Em Shop Garage /| * THE TIRE SHOP Inner Tubes a Specialty All Work Guaranteed. 35 Phone 282 Blue i li PETE BIEWER, Mgr Brandy Peaches . Brandy Cherries - Imported Cherries Preserved Figs Imported Olive Oil Also Piemente and Cream Cheese B ook ol Sl PSP Pure Food Store FEPSBSPPbHD R ) & oy An expectant hush, following the restless stir of the room warned him that the jury had returned. He turned with a half smile on hie lips to hear the verdict as the little clerk asked: “Guilty or not guilty?” And the anawer was— “Guilty!” S0 Tires and Inner Tubes. VULCANIZING