regarding her lunacy. She wondered if she were not mad; she felt that

she soon should be among these loathsome creatures. Better almost to

have died, than to slowly go mad in this confinement.

--We beg the reader's pardon. This is not history, which has just been

written. It is really what would have occurred if this were a novel.

If this were a work of fiction, we should not dare to dispose of Laura

otherwise. True art and any attention to dramatic proprieties required

it. The novelist who would turn loose upon society an insane murderess

could not escape condemnation. Besides, the safety of society, the

decencies of criminal procedure, what we call our modern civilization,

all would demand that Laura should be disposed of in the manner we have

described. Foreigners, who read this sad story, will be unable to

understand any other termination of it.

But this is history and not fiction. There is no such law or custom as

that to which his Honor is supposed to have referred; Judge O'Shaunnessy

would not probably pay any attention to it if there were. There is no

Hospital for Insane Criminals; there is no State commission of lunacy.

What actually occurred when the tumult in the court room had subsided the

sagacious reader will now learn.

Laura left the court room, accompanied by her mother and other friends,

amid the congratulations of those assembled, and was cheered as she

entered a carriage, and drove away. How sweet was the sunlight, how

exhilarating the sense of freedom! Were not these following cheers the

621

The Gilded Age