and wrote at once to her man, tipping off the fugitive's hiding place. The gunman went to the Warden and told him that he would guarantee to deliver the runaway at Sing Sing within twenty-four hours if permitted to go after him, accompanied by two fellow prisoners. The three departed from the prison on their honor one morning and were back with the cowed fugitive before dark.
Under Osborne's régime all such offenders were tried before the Welfare Committee, made up of convicts elected to office by the entire convict body. Only if the committee failed of a verdict did a case go to the Warden. Several members of the committee had been lawyers, and such trials were conducted with all the circumspection of a court of record, but with a refreshing absence of technicality.
The verdict in this instance was that the man who had run away should have a broad stripe of vividly yellow cloth sewed to his uniform diagonally from the left shoulder down to the bottom of the right trouser leg, and that he should be "sent to Coventry." That is, for the period of his punishment, no one, guard, prisoner, Warden or other should speak a word to him or notice his existence, beyond providing
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