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le HileEscifii oftte' Little Green Door y ' r® ■Bfl S ■■■ ia iK JpF'>wf S y ■ o n « Offl ■ _ . ■ t wbm j IB jMb obi "■r, •■<■•;...,,■■* ‘<sfi f i I Ar*-’- H— \ yJTM® .'X * ' %' ? ■ * WiM. , ir~- - ; fZLfa. * jt / “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 HUSH ; BlllllilL- ' < ... 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 ./WPUm.iWi wuw if \ W W m M / fair? wb/A »j Im I HF?\\snw / F Wbw w IlwMWwb J/\ ZA Cw r ~ m f\ // J \ " x 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? * t h,»ree.T;„S.’ .... ../"S"™,/ 1 “°‘” n " 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.