Death Row Gambling Refused

Three bandits went to the electric chair in Illinois, but the singular thing was the grim scene before the execution. They were offered a chance to gamble to determine the order in which they would die: Flip a coin. Many a time they had enjoyed gambling. Many a time they flipped a coin in the hazard of chance, to see who would win the money.

But this time the gambling was too forbidding. They refused. Allowed to choose the order in which they would go, they couldn’t bear the clink of the coin on the stone floor. They decided to walk to the chair in the sequence of their cells along death row at Joliet, the nearest man first, the farthest man last.