A Phelps Man at the Execution

     Dr. Howe was one of the favored 26 who were privileged to witness the execution of Leon F. Czolgosz in Auburn last Tuesday morning. The doctor is very pronounced in his praise for the dignified manner in which justice was meted out to the criminal. He says death must have been instantaneous and that the contact of the current with the criminal’s body was attended by little or nothing of a horrifying or repulsive character. There was only a general rigidity of the muscles of the body lasting about one minute. It was not more than 70 seconds from the time the assassin entered the death chamber before he had paid the penalty for his dastardly crime. His declaration while sitting in the executioners [sic] chair that he was not sorry for his crime, dispelled every vestage [sic] of sympathy which any of the spectators might have held for the wretch. His entrance to the death chamber was prompt and almost pompous in appearance. He died glorifying in his terrible crime. The autopsy which was begun about one hour after the execution, revealed a general healthy condition of all of the organs of the body. His brain presented an exceptionally strong and healthy appearance which substantiated the opinion given by Dr. McDonald and other alienists at the trial, that the man was perfectly sane. Dr. Howe says he is under obligations to Drs. McDonald and Gerin not to divulge any of the detailed findings of the autopsy, otherwise he would be pleased to describe fully the searching work which was done on the body after death. The doctor wishes us to deny for him the published interview in the New York Journal of yesterday, in which he was credited as stating the weight of the brain. He says he has not divulged the weight of any organ, nor will he until the report in full is published by the attending physicians.