Therefore the Convick Wept When They Killed His Pet Rats.
    A few days ago, at sunrise, there was an execution in the damp, chilly yard of the New Jersey penitentiary, at Trenton, and as the sharp sound of musketry died away Burglar George Pytzel, a twenty-year convict, wept piteously and refused to eat or be comforted. Kitty, his pet rat, was sacrificed with the other rodents which infested the prison, and the man who had sinned and had borne sin’s consequences without one word of complaint was overcome with grief.
    Prisoners have made strange comrades in their loneliness before this, but Pytzel’s friendship for the rats was peculiar. Years ago he was directed to clear the cook house of the pests, but much to the surprise of the keepers he became the master of them. He taught them to respond to his voice and perform all sorts of tricks, calling them forth from their holes by whistle and sending them back by a signal similar in kind. But the old quarters had to be demolished, and for fear the new cook house would be infested Keeper Moore decided the rats must go.
    The man who loved them was commanded to call them out to be slaughtered, but with flashing eyes and colorless face the usually tractable and obedient convict sullenly refused. He was urged, commanded, threatened and finally punished, but he would not yield. Then the rodents were tricked into traps and sentenced. Pytzel begged for the life of the one he called “Kitty.”
    “She is such a comfort to me, sir,” he pleaded. “She knows as much as a child.”
    But the word had been given and Kitty was killed, but there is genuine sorrow in the heart of the old prisoner, as he cries in his cell for his only real friend.
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