Three Wise Men of the East Side by Irvin S. Cobb

While he was in the death-house Tony Scarra did a lot of thinking. You / couldn't imagine a better place for thinking; it goes on practically / all the time there and intensively. But no matter where the thoughts / range and no matter what elements enter into them -- hope or despair, / rebellion or resignation, or whatever -- sooner or later they fly back, / like dark homing pigeons, to a small iron door opening upon a room in / which, bolted to the floor, there is a chair with straps dangling from / its arms and from its legs and its head-rest -- in short, the Chair. This / picture is the beginning and the end of all the thinking that is done / in the death-house.

Such were the facts with regard to Tony Scarra. As nearly as might / be judged, he felt no remorse for the murdering which had brought / him to his present trapped estate. But he did have a deep regret for / the entanglement of circumstances responsible for his capture and / conviction. And constantly he had a profound sense of injustice. / It seemed to him that in his case the law had been most terribly / unreasonable. Statistics showed that for every seventy-four homicides / committed in this state only one person actually went to the Chair. / He'd read that in a paper during the trial. It had been of some comfort / to him. Now he brooded on these figures. Over and over and over again, / brooding on them, he asked himself about it.