Tonopah daily bonanza. [volume] (Tonopah, Nev.) 1906-1929, 1907-12-08
WATTERSON ON
MRS. BRADLEY

done ny the criminal courts were o.
not for the allenist who PUSHES tn
the rescue OF the defendant like the
hero OF the melodrama. Let ms con
slider. for the sake of illustration. the
case of Mrs. Bradley at Washington.
Mrs. Bradley. woman of not par
ticular tender years. becomes en-
tangled with middle-aged married
man. She was gentle and refined
but i'm her efforts TO discipline Brown
she was sometimes severe. Upon
one occasion she expressed the opin-
ion that he was liar. and by way OF
emphasizing that opinion knocked n
few of his front teeth out. After a
cat-and-dog existence that extended
over a number of years, Mrs. Brad
ley loaded hoss-pistol into her grip
sack at Salt Lake and set out for
Washington. When she arrived at
Washington she went to Mr. Browns
room at a hotel. drew a bead upon
him and put out his life spark with
the unerring aim of cowboy shoot
ing at an incandescent light. Brown
deserved it. His finish was as logi-
cal as the course of an iron safe ont
of a third-story window under the
guidance of the laws of gravity. But
it was not more logical than the eli
max of Mrs. Bradley's trip from Salt
Lake with the hoss-pistol in her grip
sack To the layman whose mental
limitations prevent him from putting
two and two together and making
them four, it looks as though Mrs.
Bradley took her hoss-pistol to
Washington for the purpose of let
ting daylight through her recreant
lover. 1t looked as If she were a
more or less calculating, not to say
cool, agent of retributive justice. 1t
is just possible that her statement
that she didn't intend to shoot
Brown when she oiled up the boss
pistol and damned handful of car
tridges into the cylinder is true. She
might have brought her shooting
iron along merely to bluff Brown. Of
possibly she thought the butt end Of
1T might come in handy in the event
that she should find it necessary to
hammer some more of his front teeth
out; but many persons would have
believed that she seriously, not to-
say cold-bloodedly, planned to make
Brown bite the dust, had it not been
for the erudite Dr. Wilfred NJ. Bar
ton of Georgetown university, whose
marvelously expert testimony proves
beyond reasonable doubt that the
lady was insane.
DR.. Barton is no common alienist
He is the Shelock Holmes of the
American medical profession. Here
is what he says:
Mrs. Bradley was an abnormal wo-
man because she was interested in
things that do not usually attract
women. She was secretary of po-
litical club.
The plain physician. Boosting moth
ing more than fair education and
fair share of the sort of horse sense
that God gives to men and fishing
worms and other creatures, would
have sees nothing significant in the
fact that Mrs. Bradley had a job as
secretary of political club. But
when the eyes of the learned Barton
became fixed upon that fact it was
plain to him that she was an ire
sponsfble maniac, who could not be
blamed for pistoling gentleman in
Salt Lake or for hopping on train
and travelling from Salt Lake to
Washington to knock some more of
the mans front teeth out with the
butt end of hoss-pistol, and then
shooting him in vital spot while
laboring under the excitement caused
by reading a letter she had purloined
from his effects.
Verify, verify, the alienist in his
capacity as rescuer of heroes in court
house melodramas, is useful and
faithful servant of society Without
him the courts might easily get ball
ed up and hang irresponsibles by the
score. Although it had not occurred
to the average person that holding
the secretaryship of a political club,
for honor or emolument, constitutes
incontrovertible evidence of wo-
mans insanity, it is now quite plain.
Hereafter the personal history of
the defendant must be more careful
ly looked into by experts upon in
sanity Here are some questions
that should be considered.
If the accused is man, did he
ever try to make money out of Bel
gian hares or race horses? Did he
ever try to support a family by pur-
chasing stocks upon margins? Did
he ever remove from the city and
abandon a lucrative position under
the impression that neither brains
nor industry iS rauuirad RI p,alyo