The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-06-30
THE HATHAWAY TRIAL.
Personal Appearance and History of the
Prisoner-Scenes in the Court Room.

Resting upon table between District At
torney Graham and First Assistant F. A.
Breezy was a cigar box which contained the
CHASTITY fragments of the twenty-one infants
that had been dug up in the cellar of house
formerly occupied by Hathaway. The whole
of them could easily be held in the two
hands. Whenever the box was moved they
ratified like hard, withered leaves. There
were many bits of skulls some almost COM
plete. They were as thin as a sheet of note
paper, but still retained their natural shape,
though they had lain in the clay for three or
four years. One piece contained an linden
tation that physician said was a part of the
outer line of an eye-socket. The thing looked
like broken sea-shell that the sun and surf
had bleached. Many of the bones were the
remnants of arms and hands, shoulder-blades
and bits of tiny legs and toes.
The prisoner, as spectacle, seemed to be
quite in hideous harmony with the terribly
significant contents of the cigar-box. He
said that he is eighty-three years of age. He
looks about sixty-seven. He is quite six feet
high. His face is very thin. The dry, yell
lowish skin is drawn tight over high cheek
bones. The mouth is sunken. The lips thin,
compressed, feelngless. When they part to
permit shrill, penetrating voice to issue
forth, they display few yellowish teeth, set
apart, with broken and black remnants be-
tween them. His eyes are light blue, beary
and shallow. A grayish beard covers the
lower part of his face His expression yes
terday was like that which classic tradition
ascribes to the shades of the unsepulchred
dead repulsed forever by the memorable
Charon. He wore a long, grayish alpaca
coat over faded trousers and vest. His neck
was unadorned by collar or tie.
Hathaway took the stand in his own de-
fnnCo He had rnpar0 for the
Queens English than for abstract morality.
He studied medicine, he said, sixty years
ago, with a physician, whose name he
thought, after a long deliberation, was Bou-
tan. He did not recall the first name at
once After a time he thought that it must
have been Jacob He took up the study
again about six years ago.
"Why again?' asked the District Attor-
ney.
Ito learn the new school,"
"Dd you go to college?'
Eyes, to the one that DIR. Miller was the
head OF, at Tenth and Ridge avenue
did you get diplomat
Eyes"
"After an attendance of what timer"
"Three months"
After his removal from the city the pris-
oner "doctored' awhile in Bradford and in
Susquehanna county. Patients however,
were few He had gone away he declared
for his "health." He denied that he had
ever seen the woman Mary Butler, and swore
that he had never performed q criminal op-
Grafton on any one. The district attorney,
with significant gesture, opened the cigar
box. Before question could be asked con-
corning its contents, counsel for the prisoner
objected and court ruled that no testimony
could at that time be given on the subject.
The judge charged that little weight should
be given to the testimony of the prisoners
son. The statement of the woman Mary
Butler, however, with the surrounding cir
cumstances, was sufficient, he said, to con-
vict the defendant, if believed. The Jury re-
turned a verdict Of guilty, without leaving
the box. Detectives Miller and Wolf then
gave testimony as showing the character of
the man, to the finding of the bones Coro-
ner Januey testified that many of the bones
were those of well-grown beings He took
up femoral bone which required the force
of both his hands to break That, he said
was the bone of one who had almost looked
upon the world.
ut was murder" exclaimed the Judge in
an undertone of horror. The prisoner was
directed to stand up.
"You have done that which mankind de-
dominates murder" said the court. you
have been tried with care and found guilty
l feel bound to inflict upon you the extreme
penalty of the law. The sentence of the
court is that you pay fine Of $500 add costs
of prosecution and undergo an imprisonment
in solitary confinement at labor in the East
ern Penitentiary for period of seven years.
The prisoner became as pale as DEATH but
when the van came to take him away he lad
quite recovered his solidity. His son was
sent to the House Of Refuge.