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#Post#: 5638--------------------------------------------------
The Scapegoat Of Circumstances
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: October 16, 2025, 3:58 pm
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Ali spent 17 days in Sing Sing ( a real prison ) in 1891...and
for a brief spell in September 1893.
He spent 17 months in Auburn Prison....July 1891 to January
1893.
A total of 1 1/2 years of the 11 he served in a real prison.
He spent a little over 7 months in Matteawan Asylum in 1893. He
would spend 7 years and two months
at Mattewan ( 1893-1900 ). He spent 17 months in Dannemora
Prison Asylum ( Nov. 1900 to his release in April 1902).
A total of 9 and 1/2 years out of the 11 he spent incarcerated
were in asylums...not in prisons.
In this lurid piece, it is first stated:
"judicial methods that railroaded him to prison..."
Then we see:
"...an accidental miscarriage of justice.."
Finally:
" ( the) murder of Old Shakespeare necessitated an immediate
victim.."
So....which was it, Evening World? An accidental miscarriage of
justice, or was he railroaded? ;D ;D
New York Evening World
April 17, 1902
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#Post#: 7546--------------------------------------------------
Re: The Scapegoat Of Circumstances
DIR By: HowBrown1953
Date: October 5, 2026, 4:32 am
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"FRENCHY'S" RELEASE FROM PRISON. If there is enough of
"Frenchy's" mind left for him to cherish a grudge he will emerge
from his eleven years' confinement behind prison bars justly
embittered against judicial methods that railroaded him to
prison for a crime of which he was innocent.
He is fortunate, of course, to get his freedom at all, even
thus delayed, but what recompense is there for the liberty of
which the State has deprived him?
To take eleven years from a man's life, while condemning him to
brood all that long while on the injustice done him, is a very
grievous wrong—an accidental miscarriage of justice, but one
nonetheless severe to its luckless victim.
As for what prison life is, hear the testimony of Wardman
Bissert released yesterday:
Being locked up in a cell doing nothing is horrible, horrible.
I will never be able to understand how a man can go out after
serving one term in that awful place and then
commit another crime. Only a lunatic would do it. I'd rather
face the horrors of hell than be locked up there again. It would
make a madman of me.
Bissert was in only seventeen weeks. Fancy the mental
condition of a man confined for eleven years, knowing that he is
innocent, but powerless to help himself!
Poverty was "Frenchy's" real crime. A little lump of ready
cash with its purchasing power in legal talent would have
averted his misfortune,
or at least kept him in the not uncomfortable custody of the
county jail until his innocence had been established.
He was the scapegoat of circumstances. The occurrence of the
"Jack-the-Ripper" like murder of "Old Shakespeare" necessitated
an immediate victim to sustain the prestige of the Police
Department and make good its boast that the series of atrocious
crimes in London, of which this was imitative,
could not be paralleled here. Fate put "Frenchy" in the way,
and he paid the penalty.
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Ali spent seventeen days in Sing Sing in 1891. He returned on
September 11th, 1893, but went back to Matteawan shortly
afterward.
To me, the most significant part of this article is the absence
of any mention of why Ali remained in jail: George Damon. The
author of this piece accepted
the Damon story. To him, and just about everyone else, Damon was
the reason for Ali's eventual freedom, but instead he chose to
blame the quality of Ali's legal
counsel and the canard of a need to preserve the reputation of
the NYPD for Ali's predicament.
If there were doubters, as there definitely are today, of the
veracity of Damon's story, we don't see it published in the
contemporary papers for the simple reason that it didn't exist.
It would be easier to sell ice to an Eskimo than to find one
article that critiqued the Farmhand story. While two out-of-town
papers criticized Damon for not coming forward earlier, their
criticism was not directed toward the alleged evidence, but at
his reticence.
The New York Sun was the only New York paper to rival the
World & Evening World for case coverage. IMHO, the fact that the
Sun avoided criticizing Damon is self-evident.
Four of their reporters or former reporters filed affidavits
in favor of Ali's release. The Evening World was only rivaled by
the NY Journal for sensational news stories.
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