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“The Chair.”
(Suspended From Above Is the Cap That Fits Upon the Head. At ths
3ase Gn tie left the Second Electrode, Which Fits Above the Leg.
rtircugh These Passes the Death Current).
4 |* HE Little Green Door” Is
{ tho door between the
Death House at Sing Sing
Prison and tin Execution Chamber.
The Deatii House is where con
demneii murderers wait tor the sum
mons that wiil take them through
‘The Little Green Door." When
they pass its threshold, they as
cend “The Chair,” from which their
souls are hurtleu out of their bodies
on 30,000 volts of electricity.
“The Little Green Door" never
opens except for this very definite
summons. On one side of it is life
• —on the other, death! That is all
there is to it.
But the door is not simply a thing
of steel plates, bolts and bars to
the occupants of the Death House.
It is the entrance to the grave, the
little acolyte to Death, who keeps
watch over the condemned. And
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...
i h Other Side of the “Lillie Green Door.” A Remarkable Photograph Showing How a Con
demned Murderer Is Electrocuted at Sing Sing.
so becaust of this It becomes
a living being in the minds of the
condemned. It has a personality.
It is not therefore “a door,” or “an
entrance.” It is “The Little Green
Door.” No one knows who christ
ened it that first —but no one ever
1 thinks of calling it anything else.
It dominaies the Death House,
“The Little Green Door. Those
few who have escaped it tell of the
1 horrible fascination it wields. Un
til recently tho occupant of every
cell in the Death House had an un
-1 interrupted view of it, but the build
ing of a necessary annex added
1 several cells on the side next to the
Execution Chamber, from within
which the door of the final exit is
’ not visible. In one of these—the
- one opposite the death chair it-
' self, standing close to the wall
' on the other side —Becker is placed.
There is one celt between his and
It Leads from Sing Sing's Death House to “The Chair,"
It Is the Threshold of thf} Grave--None of the
Condemned Ever Forget It, No One Who '
Passes Through It Ever Returns
the passage leading to the Execution
Chamber; beyond this are three
more cells—one now used as a store
room—which abut on the wall which
separates the Death House from
Principal Keeper Connaugbton’s
office. The Morgue lies on the other
side of the Execution Chamber.
Across the corridor of the Death
House are two tiers, the lower of
eight cells, the upper of four.
The upper four at the en
trance end of the Death House are
now occupied by "Gyp the Blood.”
"Lefty Ijouie,” "Whitey Lewis” and
"Dago Frank,” counting from that
end. The upper tier cell directly
opposite Becker's in the lower tier,
holds “Whitey Lewis.” but all five
are within plain view of each other
—except when curtains are drawn
across their cell doors.
No one of the four gunmen can
approach the door of his cell and
not. see "The Little Green Door,”
whose sinister significance grows
upon him day by day. Becker, from
his cell, can see their eyes turned
upon it —though he cannot see it
from his cell door. He knows,
though, at what they are looking
and he himself cannot escape the
sight of it whenever he is taken out
for his exercise hour. He feels its
presence at all times.
What is the road that leads to
the little door? After the con
demned has entered Sing Sing he
is dressed in the plain gray costume
of the Death House. Keepers take
him through corridors of the prison
until a great gray door of steel
stands before him. This is opened
and he enters. He Is in a long, nar
row room lighted brilliantly with
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electricity. The cells are heavily
barred and all along in front of
them and a foot or two from them
runs a wire netting. When the con
demned talks to friends or family,
he has his bars and this netting
between him and them. There is a
window at the far end of the cor
ridor looking over the small exer
cise yard.
And at his right is the small door
painted green.
At each end of the Death House
is a guard. They will watch him
until “The Little Green Door” opens
for him.
hen tho condemned enter their
ceils pipes and tobacco are fur
nished to them and a wide range
of books for those who wish to
r pa <l- The daily spell of exercise,
the three meals, -the weekly bath
and shave and an infrequent visit
from lawyer or near relation —from
whom they remain separated by cel!
door and the wire screen—are the
only material breaks in the mo
notony of the weeks or months of
fleeting hopes and growing despair
that stand between them and their
first and last personal experience
with "The Little Green Door.”
Os all their apprehension, their
horror and their gradually be
numbing despair, "The Little Green
Door” is the focus. Though they
know that, beyond the Door stands
the death-dealing electric chair,
they cannot see it. The .chair is
an abstraction, "The Little Green
Door” an ever-present reality. They
can see it with their eyes shut. It
is like a magnet, attracting irre
sistibly the metal of all their senses.
‘‘On one side is life —such as it
is—on tho other instant death
I Al w
t»er. C—“ The Chair.’’ I)—Guardi oa Duty Night and Day. E—Tha
Whenever we look out of our cages
we see it; we close our eyes—we
still see it. When exercising in
the corridor one passes and re
passes it; though we walk away, we
know we are going towards it
Thinking by day and dreaming by
night, it is always with us, and
What the War Means to Cigarette “Fiends”
EARLY all of the best Turk
ish tobacco is grown on soil
from which the Bulgarians,
N
Servians and Greeks have driven
their enemies of the Ottoman Em
pire. It is certain that for at least
three years the amount of tobacco
grown in European Turkey will be
small. Two-thirds of the popula
tion of the villages have gone, and
it will be a long time before enough
men are tempted back to grow the
tobacco.
An inevitable result will be that
laborers’ wages will leap up, as tho
tobacco growers will offer anything
for their services, and it is equally
certain that the price of Turkish
tobacco will rise—no one can tell
how high.
This is the prediction of a manu-
irresistible in its fascination. And
to us the Death Chamber is but
‘The Room With the Little Door.’”
Thus wrote Roland Burnham
Molineux, who lived to tell the
tale. For, though “The Little
Green Door” exercised its fascina
tions upon him through four nerve
destroying years, it never opened
for him, and he passed out the way
he entered—into the sunlight.
Now the “Door” is fastening itself
upon the minds and hearts of five
who cannot yet recover from their
astonishment that it was possible
to bring them into its presence.
Astonishment, and the fate of
their appeal for a little while will
rob "The Little Green Door” of the
fulness of its terrors for these five;
but long before the matter of the
appeal is settled the "Door" will
have begun to work its spell. The
"Door” is no respecter of appeals.
It is the exit from the Death House
into Death. To occupy a cell in the
Death House, appeal or no appeal,
is to be the ordained victim of the
Door’s fascinations. Even by now
the five seem to be hearing it say
to them:
“Aha, the appeal! An appeal is
only an appeal—it can be denied.
But always I am here, ready to
open and admit you to the eternal
shadows. Watch me; when next I
open it may be for you—all in a
moment, as I close again, to blot
you forever out of the sight of your,
fellow men.”
Curiously enough the head of
Becker s cot touches the wall on
the spot which is almost directly
opposite the point on the other side
where the waiting chair all but
rests its back against it. A few
moments after “The Little Green
Door” next opens, Becker—if he
places his ear against the wall—
will hear the creaking of the chair’s
straps as the mysterious current
ends life in the straining body of
his recent comrade.
Becker, and even the four gun-
facturer of Turkish cigarettes in
London —whose ancestor founded
the business under most romantic
circumstances.
Fifty-four years ago a man who
made Turkish cigarettes in a little
garret in Air street, Piccadilly, re
ceived a visit from a stranger who
had heard of his cigarettes from a
lull friend.
They had a chat, ant the
stranger, as he was about to leave,
said: "Very good cigarettes, but
why don’t you take a shop? Take
a shop! Take a shop!”
“I have no money to take a
shop,” said the man, who was
onlj - making a small living at his
trade, which was new to London.
"Oh, that doesn't matter, said
the stranger, cheerfully, ' here’s my
has already learned that
there are two distinct sets of gov
erning regulations within the Death
House—the prison rules and the un
written laws observed by the com
munity of those under sentence of
death. The first night following
the arrival of a new member wit
nesses his initiation. This cere
mony, which is one of the Death
House secrets, and tn which each
condemned man in his cell plays a
part through the medium of speech
and song, is the newcomer's ghast
ly adieu to all that he represented
H- the outer world, and seals him to
ail of the habits and observances
of the doomed fraternity up to the
moment when “The Little Green
Door” shall close behind him for
ever.
In the case of an appeal, which
acts automatically as a stay of exe
cution, and the appeal is denied,
there is mystery in the Death House
about the new date of the now quite
hopeless prisoner’s taking off. No
verbal announcement is made to
him. but presently there are signs
which none can misunderstand.
One Saturday, on stepping from
his bath, the “fortunate one,” as bis
comrades call him, is ordered into
a new cell. It is the cell next to
the "Door.” "Here,” as Molineux
wrote, "he receives everything new;
new bedding, new clothes from head
to foot, and then his knicknacks,
pipe, tobacco, boxes, books, and the
package of letters from home, reg
ged and blurred from reading and
rereading—after ail have been care
fully searched. But he knows that
he has received something else
his unuttered notice that one week
from the following Monday he will
Pictorial Diagram of the Death
at Sing Sing. A—The "Little Green
Door.” B—The Little Yellow Door
That Face* the Execution Cham-
Prison Morgue. F. Store Room.
be moved again. No questions are
ever asked; he has seen it all be
lore. But should he ask, tha only
reply would be “I don't know.”
Now, the unwritten etiquette of
the community Is most punctilious
ly observed. The comrade for
whom "The Little Green Door” will
card, and you go and take a shop."
Then he walked out.
The poor cigarette maker shook
his head and smiled at the strang
er’s advice, and then, glancing at
his card, saw, with a shock, that
his visitor was the Prince of Wales.
He, however, went around London,
witii no money, but with the Prince
of Wales’s card as a reference, and
soon he bad bis shop and every
thing else that he needed to set him
up-
King Edward remained one of his
customers. He made lots of money
and sold Turkish cigarettes to all
the crowned beads of Europe.
To-day the tobacco manufactur
ing firm he founded is wondering
what is going to happen to the
Turkish tobacco supplies now that
the Turks are being swept out of
Europe.
I. gyf •*
awsiia
“The Little Green Door” On
One Side Is Life, On the
Other, Death.
swing open a week hence Is dis
tinguished above all others. so
far as they can manage it, he is
to have his own way in everything,
promptly and without argument, if
he asks for a song or a story, or
wants to play checkers—by the
Death House system of calling out
the moves from one cell to the other
there is instant acquiescence.
All quarrels are completely for-
Kotten. Every comrade possessing
delicacies, or cigars, presses them
upon him. In return for all of which
evidences of consideration he is ex
rtv ed ’ iurins that week to
give utterance to all the ghastly
legulation jokes. Two of these in
cannot fLi W t hen , made wlth uncti on.
OTlOStta'l, hl " “ *»
?l le ,iee P e r who hands him
sl v U “? eW SUlt Os clothea He must
f„ y » 1 su PP° s e you will be wear-
Ing them week after next ”
tiet ß^ 1 ' are , famihar with'the prac
of the ±, Vln f the top of th « head
tha the tn a ?°2 t t 0 die ’ in o'-der
Dying all that last week the
i S ? ared by two k
night.
Ill—thZ nd l« r t r he greatest horror of
wife
Green 9 Ror’’ ° fr ° r r° f " The LkU «
times o^. r
that Is never mentioned. J
the last night, the unwritten
code prescribes for everts-
P i ot ] b ' ng may be omitted, no custom
violated. At midnight , , fetom
stops before each of tl,l 6eper
eupfed cell, SUtau’rei’ “
lODtoiiie, to the comrade who is about
to go. who calls out as each ml
sentation Is made: “ p *
nr.,^ CGpto rem ember me by”
And each recipient answers? *
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MOT Si.-'" 1 ’M
tni? y „ ten years a "°; they
now ” the Eame twenty year ®
sh£ IlPr - 6 ,S no s,een for anyone. But
him ®° more falk ‘ The y hear
ear ?!-. Up ,etters his
family and irlends, resolutely, after
one last reading. Long before the
I??", n‘ e 'L Can faint) y hear, or feet
the vibrations of the dynamo that
is being made ready to supply the
death current. Presently they hear
new, soft footsteps. They know
they are the footsteps of priests,
lor thpre is soon the murmuring
oi Latin prayers.
The curtain of each cell door has
been drawn so that the others may
?? c ,. Wltn ess these last scenes.
Molineux describes what he saw.
’•‘ng flat on the floor of his cell
and looking under the curtain:
i,- 7 S K W . J tlle P rleat bless and kiss
mm; hold up the cross before his
eyes; bid him have faith, and then
ack out of the cell. ‘He,’ who was
soon to bo ‘it,’ followed. Then 1
heard the procession march rapidly
into the next room. ‘Bang,’ said the
lungry little door as it closed.”
ror all who remained behind, the
banging of “The Little Green Door”
was the end. All whose last hope
lad been shattered envied him.
Ihe real torture chamber is not the
, room with the chair at one
side, in which the condemned is
lastened with straps about arms and
lops, to have trouser legs slashed to
the knees, moist electrodes bound
to his calves and his skull, and then,
ail at once—to be nothing! The real
torture chamber is where “The
Little Green Door” awaits —
through weeks, months, sometimes
for years.
The other side of “The Little
Green Door,” where the chair waits,
is bright yellow. “The Chair” is
right before the eyes of those wno
pass as they go through. “The
Little Yellow Door.” “The Little
Yellow Door” is set in cement
painted a fine sky blub. The floor
in front of it is brightly varnished.
But no one in the Deatii House
can know this—because no one
ever comes back to tell them.