On the 16th of October, by appointment, the U. S. District Attorney, A. M. Lea, Col. J. H. Neville, Special Counsel employed by the Government to assist in the trial, and the express officials, who were familiar with the facts, all met at Jackson, Miss., to arrange for the approaching trial of L. C. Brock and Rube Smith. All of these gentlemen called in company upon Brock, in his cell at the penitentiary, and District Attorney Lea told Brock if he had any witnesses he desired summoned he would have subpœnas issued, and that he was free to choose as to whether he would plead guilty or employ counsel. Brock then and there reiterated his determination to plead guilty, so frequently made prior to that time to the author, and said he had no money, and did not intend to employ any counsel. He said he was willing to testify against Smith, but remarked: “What will people think of me for doing that--see how the world looks upon Bob Ford?” When told that all fair-minded and Christian people would applaud him for standing on the side of honesty and truth, he added: “Well, the Bible does not give Judas Iscariot a very fair name.” And so it was easily discovered that the ill-fated criminal was battling against opposing ideas. On the one hand he was confronted with the certainty of conviction and an ignominious death at the hands of the hangman, on the other life imprisonment, with the added alternative of standing as a witness against his copartner in crime and assisting to fasten guilt upon him. He had often said: “I prefer death to imprisonment for life, for what is life without liberty.” On Saturday, the 8th of November, two days before his suicide, he said to a fellow prisoner, whose hat was worn and old: “You need a new hat; you may have mine Monday.” Brock had evidently made up his mind, as indicated by these remarks, to take his own life. About nine o’clock on the morning of November 10, 1890, the day set for his trial, Detective Thomas Jackson and United States Marshal Mathews went to the penitentiary building to bring the prisoner to the Federal Court, as he had been notified would be done. Sergeant Montgomery sent the officer of the prison charged with the special surveillance of Brock to bring him into his office, where the detective and marshal awaited him. At night he was confined in one of the cells on the ground floor of the prison, but was permitted to occupy during the day one of the guard rooms situated on the third floor of the building. The prisoner was in this room when the keeper went after him to bring him to the sergeant’s office. Just as the keeper was in the act of unlocking the door, Brock walked to the iron barred window of the room, and beckoning to a fellow convict standing in the yard of the prison, threw out of the window the following note: NOVEMBER 10th, 1890.