Item Info

Publication Date: 1/5/1914
Media Type: House Organs
Source: Theatre Collection
Notes:

Lubin’s Cinelogue

The Inspector’s Story

Copyright 1913, In Two Reels, By Clay M. Greene.

“We’ve feelings all right,” said Mulvaney, 

As he ordered another drink,

“For policemen ain’t quiet so hard hearted

As most people seem to think.”

Once a little girl wept in an attic,

As dying her mother lay. 

With the one of all others most needed

The husband and father away.

The dying one called to the watcher, 

Then sobbed with a pitiful cry:

“My husband, my darling – find father,

That mother may wish him good-bye.”

Out into the pitiless rabble

That jostled and fought in the street,

The little one strayed along blindly

Peering into each face that she’d meet. 

Through alleys and byways she wandered,

Her little feet throbbing with pain:

In pitfalls, and bar rooms and hovels

She searched for her father in vain. 

A pistol shot rang through a doorway,

A voice that she knew reached her ears:

“I told you I would and I’ve done it!”

Her little heart throbbed with dark fears.

Oh, the sight that she saw as she entered!

A dead man lay stretched on the stone;

Her father accused of his murder.

And he sobbed at her pitiful moan. 

She followed the crowd to the prison, 

Her father she saw in its gloom,

Then, ‘twixt sobbings and sighings she told him

The tale of that lone attic room.

He shrieked in despair as he heard her, 

His little one held to his heart:

“Oh, Mary! I never deserved you,

And to think like this we must part!”

Out into the office she hurried.

“Oh, Captain!” she cried, ‘Can’t you see?

My Mother is dying, my dad there,

Please, sir, can’t he go home with me?

“Now who’ll ever know that you did it,

Save God, you and me, sir? Oh, say

That you’ll let him bid goodbye to Mother, 

Whose poor life is ebbing away?”

We are more or less hardened to sorrow, 

But I thought of the wife who had died

While I was away on some mission. 

“By Heaven, I’ll do it!” I cried

[End of First Reel]

 

Out into the street went we three then,

The prisoner, Captain and child,

And wended their way to the attic, 

Where a fond Mother died as she smiled.

The trial was brief, and the sentence

Was life. But he couldn’t atone

For the death of the wife he’d deserted, 

And the child left to struggle alone.

Somehow she eluded the faithful 

Who lost children find and immure,

And roamed through the streets selling papers

With my men on the watch to make sure

She asked me how pardons were granted,

One day, as a carriage passed by.

“See that lady?” I said, “She can tell you,

That’s the Governor’s wife, Mrs. Tigh.”

The carriage drew up at a mansion;

The rich lady paused, when my friend

Told part of her story, then asked her

To listen to all to the end.

Up the broad marble steps went the lady

And the child of the streets. And she cried

When she heard of the father a lifer,

And the line little mother who died.

Next day, in the Governor’s office, 

The girl made an eloquent plea

That might have brought fame to a lawyer,

And for proof she referred him to me.

I gave him my side of the story: 

The defense was as spineless as punk,

Didn’t prove the dead man the aggressor,

Nor the prisoner recklessly drunk.

The Governor cried as he kissed her, 

Gave at misapplied Justice a fling,

Then we hurried away with the pardon,

And took the first train for Sing Sing.

I’ve known many a scene that was touching

When I’ve torn erring loved ones apart, 

But my eyes were afloat when that father

Took his brave little girl to his heart.

There’s a little bookstore over yonder, 

Which I helped out a bit till they owned,

Her pride was in saving her father,

And his that his crime was atoned.

I hold there’s no sin past redemption,

Nor a serpent that hasn’t its dove,

And there never was heart so abandoned

That it couldn’t be conquered by love.

 

Released Thursday January 14th, 1914. Code Word TAQUE. Length about 2,000 feet.

 

Call Number: Lubin - Bulletin I:5