How the President’s Assassin Will Die

     CZOLGOSZ, the assassin, who must die under the laws of New York State within the week beginning October 28th, will pass the remainder of his days on earth in a monotonous manner. He occupies the fifth cell in “murderers’ row” in Auburn State prison. There were four condemned men in the row when Czolgosz arrived, and he took the only remaining cell. Despite the fact that he is the last one sentenced, and to reach the prison where his closing days are to be spent, his execution is ordered to take place the first. His fellow-murderers, whose crimes made a stir only in the localities where they were committed, suffer the same penalty as the assassin who threw the entire nation into mourning. His fellow-murderers include Clarence Equor, the twenty-two-year-old Buffalo man, who, while serving for a minor offense in Auburn prison, snatched a revolver from Archibald W. Benedict, a guard, and shot him with it. He is in cell No. 4, adjoining that in which Czolgosz is confined. Frederick A. Krist occupies cell No. 3. He killed his sweetheart, of whom he was insanely jealous, in Waverly. John Truck, who killed a farmer in Cortland County, is in cell No. 2, while George A. Smith, the Monroe County wife murderer, spends his time in cell No. 1, hoping that the courts, to which an appeal has been taken, will grant him a new trial.
     When the grated door was closed on Czolgosz on September 27th it signaled the fact that the condemned would never leave the cell until such time as the officers of the law, charged with putting him to death by electricity, should take him to the execution chamber. There are two guards on duty constantly in the corridor on which the five cells face. These cells are in the basement, in the southern wing, and removed from the general cells. Czolgosz’s incarceration in the condemned cell precludes his seeing any one save the guard, members of his immediate family, and a clergyman. These persons have access to the corridor as often as they see fit to call, or as often as Czolgosz may desire.
     The rules of the prison department allow the condemned to eat whatever he may see fit to order, and on the day of execution he may have a new suit of black. Many criticise adversely the giving of the assassin the right to select luxuries, feeling that he should be kept alive on the plainest diet. If he should choose to order birds and fancy dishes, it will be the duty of the warden to provide them.
     The putting to death of Czolgosz for the terrible crime he committed will be the same as that of any other condemned man in a capital case. On the morning of his electrocution, which will probably be October 28th, Czolgosz will be given his breakfast, will don a new suit of clothes, and then be permitted to have a meeting with his spiritual adviser. The witnesses to the carrying out of the law’s mandate and the official surgeons will assemble in the chamber which contains the electric chair. The condemned, when he and his spiritual adviser have finished the[i]r devotions, wil[?] be marched from his cell with the clergyman, and surrounded by guards, headed by the warden, will proceed to the room where the witnesses are assembled. The strapping of the condemned into the chair and applying the electrodes to his arms and legs and the adjusting of the fatal electric cap will be the work of but a few minutes. Then a minute inspection will be made to see that everything is properly adjusted. The order to apply the current will follow and in an instant death should result. To make death doubly sure, a second application of the current is always made. The doctors then examine the executed man and next perform an autopsy on the body.