In The Never-Ending Wrong (1977) Katherine Anne Porter tells of the "enormous" crowd assembled outside Charlestown Prison, in Boston, on the evening of 22 August 1927. Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were to be executed at midnight for a murder that many believed they did not commit, and the police, on horseback, sought to keep the crowd clear of the center of the square. "They galloped about, bearing down upon anybody who ventured out beyond the edge of the crowd .... Most of the people moved back passively before the police, almost as if they ignored their presence; yet there were faces fixed in agonized disbelief, their eyes followed the rushing horses as if this was not a sight they had expected to see in their lives. One tall, thin figure of a woman stepped out alone, a good distance into the empty square, and when the police came down at...