        The image that I picked from the book is "The Modern Samson" by William Balfour Ker.  The image shows a man blindfolded and strapped to a big machine. From the print we can tell the man was punished for some reasons. The color of the print is in black and white, which make it more serious. 

         People were all gathering in a tiny room for see what's going on with this man. Most of them are standing on the stair and some of them even standing behind the door, but there two guys wears black suits and sitting on the chairs.  One of them is holding a book, which showing us that he either is the judge or the people making the decisions. There is no telling of what the man did that he is getting punishments. In the painting, we can see him body is ripped and he had no shirt on for some reason. According to the shape of his body, we can tell he is a strong guy. If a strong muscular guy getting punishments at nineteen century, it will gave us the hints that maybe he used to be a farmer or a gangsta, may even a very attractive man.  His head is toward the ceiling, like he was praying to the God for mercy. The position of his body is forward and half knee down, which giving us the feeling of he just got tortured and very painful.  According to all the reasons that I implied. I have three theories that why this man is getting punishments. The man may suffer for stealing money because he was very poor; maybe he just killed someone for selfishness; or he raped a woman. Those are just theories from the way I'm reading the picture. There are other four guys are in the picture with suit on without holding a book. We still can see the face expression from one of those guys. He was looking serious but also feeling enjoyable of watching some one getting punishments. He looks enjoyable the scene because he was sitting on a chair and in a comfortable position. He had one of his hand lying on his leg and the other hand was behind his back. He may think that the guy finally got punishments and the rights got justice. There is another guy was standing closely to the judge, and he is trying to listen carefully of what the judge was going to say. The guys in the image are all looking very serious at this moment. They all desperately want to listen something form the guy with the book.

        The women in the room are all dressed in white.  We can see three women clearly in the image. All of the women were standing near the door and one of them was even behind the door. The woman in the front was doing a hand gesture. According to her hands gesture, we can tell she wants everyone be quiet because what the may with the book will say going to be very important. The room seems really crowed but none of them was not pay attention on what's going on to this man. All the women had some kind of decoration on their hair. They may think this is a very serious occasion so they need dressed up. According the distance form those women to the men, we can tell they are not allowed to be close to the guy. They may not have the same rights as the guys do at that time. The painter gave the face expressions for the women inside the door, but the face of the guy who near the woman is blurry. The women seem really in to the scene, like they never had being in this kind of occasion before. The woman who is trying to tell everybody be quiet may really care about this man. The things that he had done maybe affected people's family, or their own safety. For so many reasons, we can tell this guy is important to anyone in that room. People are standing out and against him for some reason. We don't know if this guy had his own family or his wife was there but nobody knows. Why he got blindfolded? People maybe afraid to show their face, in case of someday he got away and wants to revenge. People don't trust him maybe the reason they blindfolded him. The guy can't see where him at and what is happening to himself.  

        We can see the room is small from the picture and it is not a formal court. The guy was strapped to a machine and there are only three stairs beside the machine. It is make the serious more intense because every one in a tiny room and they even can hear each other breathing. The room is no decoration and only a big machine stood up beside the guy. The room is dark because the light only form door. The darkness and the setting in the image do appeal our emotions. All the details that painter showed us in the image make we feel sad for the guy getting punishment, but we also curious why he is getting punishment. Did he really make any mistake or people judged him by false evidence? We don't know the answer. Maybe that is one purpose of the painter that he wants us judged guy by looking his paint. There are so many questions that us should trying to solve it.  The painter uses the details of the face expression from the people, and the setting of the room to getting us attention to think deeply into the picture.  The man was suffering as we can see but we don't know people are happy about he being punished or sad about it. 

        The overall design of "The Modern Samson" make us feel it was serious that the way people judging him. The room, lighting effect and the face expression of the people all telling us that the painter really tried to let us feel like we were there standing by the judge. It didn't show what's going to happen at the end but we know that the guy is not going to end well. He did something bad that he had to live in miserable through the rest of his life. The message that the painter tell us is people are crazy about people getting judged and they enjoy watching someone to get punishment.  The woman in the picture trying to tell people be quiet maybe for two reasons. She may care about that guy or she just enjoy hear that he is going to suffer.

The Modern Samson. William Balfour Ker. Copyright 1906 by J.A. Mitchell. Published in: The silent war / John Ames Mitchell. . .illustrations by William Balfour Ker. New York: Life Publishing Company, 1906.
