LAUGHS WHEN SHE
SPEAKS OF GALLOWS.
ROSE PETERSON GETS GLIMPSE
OF GRIM MACHINE.
That, and a Trip to Church With a
Policeman as Guard, Filled the
Day for the Woman Who
Shot Her Husband.
Flowers from fellow employes at a printing plant, where she had worked for some time, greeted Mrs. Rose Peterson when she returned to the county jail yesterday from church. She is charged with killing her husband.
On Thursday Mrs. Peterson asked for permission to to to church and this was granted by Judge R. S. Latshaw of the criminal court. Patrolman John Coughlin took her to 8:30 o'clock mass at St. Patrick's, Eighth and Cherry. She had never missed church a single Christmas in her life.
"And to think that he was in citizen's clothes and not in uniform," said Mrs. Peterson afterwards. "We did not attract a bit of attention and I had been so afraid that the officer would wear a uniform." This bit of consideration seemed the best gift of all to the child wife.
"Since I was 14 I have been at work feeding presses," said Mrs. Peterson. "I married at 16. I can't tell why. Yes, it was young. I am only 19 now. Do you know, over at the police station they measured me -- I'm five feet one and one-half inch in my stocking feet. I weigh 123 pounds. And they measured my arms and my fingers and took finger prints and everything. Did you get my picture out of the rogues' gallery for the paper? Because the pictures they printed of me looked awful. I saw Aggie Myers's picture there."
"MY TRACKS ON THE GALLOWS."
"This morning they left the doors open and I walked around to see the gallows where they hanged Bud Taylor. Maybe I'll leave my tracks on that scaffold some time," she smiled.
"You want to know why I got married at 16? I don't know myself. We separated after a year. It will be three years next march since we were married. After the wedding I kept right on feeding the presses. My husband kept bothering me and for a long time I have been carrying a revolver." Her husband slapped her and she shot him.
"Did we run away to get married?" repeated the blue-eyed Irish girl, who seems hardly over 17. "Really, I can't remember." Which was only another way of saying that she did not want to remember.
"I'LL NEVER MARRY AGAIN."
"If I ever get out of here I'll never get married again, never, never. A woman is a man's slave after she is married. I don't believe in marriage. It hurts me to see my sister growing up and to think that she may fall in love with someone. Oh, I am going to talk her out of it if I can. There is nothing in marriage."
While Mrs. Peterson was talking, Mrs. James Sharp, one of the band of fanatics and a cellmate, walked across the room and stood behind the girl's chair.
"Ask Mrs. Sharp," was suggested.
"Do you believe in marriage?" the childwife asked.
"Yes, of course I do," said Mrs. Sharp, as she stroked the girl's brown hair. "Of course I do," s he repeated with a smile that flashed for a moment, a memory of her former attractiveness. Mrs. Sharp is a native Missourian.
"Last Christmas I was in Minnesota," added the elder woman quietly, with a touch of reminiscence in her tone.
Mrs. Peterson had stopped talking. Her brother and sister had come to see the little member of Press Assistant's Union No 20, who wants to be a linotype operator if she gains her liberty.
