CONDEMNED MAN WRITES A PLAY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1018, 2 November 1912, Page 4

CONDEMNED MAN WRITES A PLAY.

Jacob Oppeuheimer, the socalled man tiger of the prisons, who is awaiting execution at Folsom (U.S.A.), is spending his remaining days on earth in literary pursuits. He has completed the manuscript of a play entitled, “The Law,” which is based on his own experience in prison and on incidents which led to his trial and conviction under a State law that provides the death penalty for life termers who attack guards. The scene of the play is laid at Folsom Prison, and has to do with an attempted gaol break of six desperate life termers, They fail, and three of the conspirators are shot to death by the guards. The remaining three are wounded but all recover. One of the ringleaders, whom Oppeuheimer has named Finn, is brought to the Sacramento County Gaol, and while there he wins the friendship of two women prisoners, Daisy and Nellie. The latter schemes to assist Finn to his freedom.

The details of the plot are cleverly worked out, and with liberty almost in sight, Finn is struck senseless by a trusty. During his trial, which followed, Finn is convicted and sentenced to

Many of the incidents related by Oppeuheimer in his play have been drawn from actual experience of his life in San Quern in and Folsom. Two of the characters mentioned by Oppeuheimer, Farraday and Quigley, are none other than Finley and Quijada, who participated in the big gaol break at Folsom in 1905. Both were sentenced to death for their part in the affair. Finley is still awaiting execution and occupies a cell adjoining that of Oppeuheimer Quijada was stabbed to death last September during a fight with Oppenheimer. Through a friend in Sacramento Jake hopes eventually to have “The Law” produced. It will first be revised at his request, and later forwarded to a New York theatrical manager. In a letter to Gilbert H. Parker, a newspaper man in Sacramento, Oppeuheimer bitterly criticises the law which cost him his life.