"'The Silent Witness,' a powerful story in McCLURE's MAGAZINE for January, portrays in a graphic and thrilling manner the evil, which in some cases amounts almost to a horror, of holding in confinement witnesses in cases of capital crime who are unable to furnish bail. "The story tells of a young and stalwart country lad who goes to Boston in search of fortune, and on the night of his arrival, while wandering about in quest of lodgings to suit his scanty purse, is the unwilling witness of a murder. "He is arrested and held in the city jail to await the trial of the murderer. "The news of his imprisonment reaches his widow mother up among the New Hampshire hills. She knows nothing of the circumstances further than the rumors brought to her by her country neighbors. She dies of a broken heart, though never doubting the innocence of her noble-hearted boy. "The unfortunate young man learns of her death through his sweetheart, who comes to the Boston prison to see him. "His grief is beyond endurance, and he curses the law that forces such suffering upon the innocent. He has brain fever, and when the case is called several months after the incarceration, the sheriff, who is asked to produce the only witness for the commonwealth, responds that he died that morning. "The murderer, a saloon-keeper and ward man, has been at liberty under bail during the time that the innocent witness has been suffering the untold agony experienced by one who comes with spotless character from green fields and rural simplicity to the company of felons in a wretched cell. There being no witnesses against him at the trial, a _nolle prosequi_ is found, and he goes free. "This story is fiction, but it is not overdrawn. Such horrible things do happen in these _fin-de-siècle_ days in a civilized country. "In Scranton, only this week, a woman, Mrs. Nicotera, was released after having been in custody since February 28th last, as a witness in the Rosa murder case. She was confined with, her husband, who was also a witness, in the Lackawanna county jail until her health broke down, when she was removed to the Lackawanna hospital. "On Tuesday she was released on her own recognizance. Her husband had been given his liberty in a similar manner some weeks before. She was thin and pale when she appeared in court, and had evidently passed through severe suffering. Careful nursing will be required to restore her to health. "It would seem as if some means of meeting the ends of justice could be devised without the necessity of subjecting innocent persons to a felon's fate for simply being a chance witness of an affair that is to be brought into the court." In the editorial columns of a recent number of the Cleveland, Ohio, "World" appeared the following: "A DISGRACE TO CIVILIZATION."