a commutation of sentence, the miserable youth's mental condition being urged as a motive for legal consideration. A reprieve to the 6th of January was obtained, but no appeals affecting the executive attitude of the Governor and council, the doomed culprit went to his fate on the expiration of the reprieve.
The direct fatal result in the experience of the prisoner was not the only culminating tragical feature of this painful affair. The criminal executions of the day being public, immense crowds assembled to witness the morbidly fasinating scenes. On the day first appoint- ed for the execution of Prescott, a large crowd gathered about the jail, not at first knowing of the judicial reprieve. When the news of this fact came to the ears of the company, it raised such a tumult that a lady under confinement in the jailor's family died from incurred excitement and dismay.
Prescott was executed as above stated in an open lot just north of the village, on land now owned by George W. Currier, Esq. The miserable culprit died almost or quite without a struggle. Imbecility, fear, and long suffering, either one or all, had made him comparatively impassive and lifeless when he ascended the scaffold.
A CRAZY PRISONER.
Not far from the year 1830, Benjamin Rowell shot William Holmes in cold blood. Rowell was a lunatic, and Holmes had angered him in some way. Rowell was apprehended and confined in jail, but, being well known as a lunatic, though formerly considered harmless, he was never punished as a responsible culprit, though he was kept under legal confinement or surveillance till the erection of the New Hampshire State Asylum for the Insane, in 1843, when he became an inmate of that institution, remaining till his death, a few years ago.
While in jail in this town, being considered worthy of so much trust, Rowell was sometimes allowed the "freedom of the yard." There being no adequate inclosure about the premises of the county prison, such freedom as was sometimes allowed to trusted prisoners implied the privilege of strolling up and down a certain distance of highway. While enjoying the described privilege, Rowell, on one occasion, ventured to abuse the confidence imposed in him so far as to relieve the irksomeness of constraint by a little amusement at the expense of legal authority. Indulging an emphatic pretense of running away, he suddenly disappeared from sight, to be followed in rapid pursuit by the jailor and a posse of citizens, — all eager to restore to confinement the absconding culprit. As the whole company was tearing along the highway in the direction Rowell had apparently taken for flight, the pursuers were suddenly halted and vexed by the appearance of the prisoner far in the rear, shouting, "Here he is! Why don't you catch him?" Turning upon his heel, Rowell ran in the reverse direction, and the excited posse rushed pell mell after him again, but only to be tricked the same as before.
"Ben," said the jailor, "if you don't stop, I'll shoot you."
"Guess you'll have to go home first and get your gun," quietly replied Ben.
A gun was brought and Ben walked quietly back to his old headquarters.
Benjamin Rowell represented a family of unusually keen intelligence. In his earlier years, he served an apprenticeship with a carpenter. Having completed his service, he was sent into the woods to select timber and construct a frame. Being ambitious, anxious and nervous, the burden of his responsibility weighed upon him and broke his reason. In justice to the unfortunate man, it is gratifying to be able to say that the frame, in the construction of which he lost his reason, proved to be a perfect one.
STEADY WORK AND READY PAY.
While almost all people clamor for success and prosperity in the conduct of this world's affairs, there is a lamentably large quota of individuals who are exceedingly slow to avail themselves of the most reliable means of
