"The only evidence upon which N. A. was convicted," he said, "was the alleged confession wrung out of him by police brutality. This confession was made after the prisoner had been 'sweated' and intimidated. One ear had been almost torn off, he had been cuffed, kicked and trampled upon, and then, under the influence of threats, he made his alleged confession." NEWS THAT SON IS TO HANG BROKEN TO AGED WOMAN BY HER DAUGHTER AND CAUSES COLLAPSE. Sitting and staring with a blank look into space, at intervals relieving the tension of her misery by low moans, and then again ejaculating pitifully, "Oh, my boy! My poor, poor boy! Can I live and know that you died upon the gallows?" Mrs. J. A. is now hovering on the borderland of life at the home of her daughter in Denver. It was not until noon yesterday that Mrs. A. was told that the pardons board had refused to grant her son, N. A., a commutation of sentence from death to life imprisonment. Up to that moment when the terrible knowledge became hers she had a mother's hope that the pardons board must save her boy. From the moment she heard from her daughter's lips that the son and brother must die, Mrs. A. has been verging upon a semi-comatose condition, and under the constant care of a physician. She was illy prepared to hear the news yesterday, for she had spent the night previous without closing her eyes in sleep. It was not until 5 o'clock that slumber came to her mercifully, and even then she merely slept in a fitful doze until 8 o'clock. SUPPRESSED EMOTION. The serious phase of Mrs. A.'s condition, her physician regards, is that with her it is all suppressed emotion. She does not cry out or rave, but endures her intense suffering in quiet. It is but seldom that tears come to her relief, and the only vent her emotion has is in her low moans for her "poor boy." After the news was broken to her, Mrs. A. spent most of the day in bed. Late last night she was still in the same condition, and the gravest anxiety is felt by her relatives. Mrs. A. is 70 years old. She lives in Buffalo, N. Y., and made the long trip of 1,500 miles to personally plead with the State Board of Pardons for the life of her son. TO TEST GALLOWS.