The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-02-11
WOULD SUE FOR DIVORCE.
What Winifred Black Would Do to
Husband Voting for Conviction.
[By Winifred Black.l

Husband Voting for Conviction.
CBy Winifred Black.l
| New York, Feb. lift had hus-
band on that jury in the Thaw case
and he came home when the trial was
done and told me that he had voted to
send Harry Thaw to the electric chair
after hearing Evelyn Nesbit's story on
4 the stand and Harry Thaw's letters
| read in court, 1 would sue him for d.
vorce if 1 had to crawl to South Da-
kota on my hands and knees to file the
| papers.
When L listened to Evelyn Thaw's
story I felt as 1 did once when 1 was
stumbling along across country
| flash OF lightning showed me the black
and terrifying torrent of cruel water
eddying almost under my very feet.
We walk so safely on the bridge
built for us by loving hands, we shell
tered women. How little, oh, how
torrents that rush below our calm Sc
curityl
When I heard Harry Thaw's letters
read in court it was like finding in some
rant blossoms growing sweet and COM
forting, like a smile ON the plain face
of one who loves us in the dirt and
desolation.
oh, yes; I know it is funny. Love
letters are always funny-when they
are read in court to a crowd of grinning
strangers.
Harry Thaw is very funny. too. when
you come to that, sitting there in court
"a great, big, overgrown, clumsy,
broadfaced, slow wittad big-eyed boy
of a fellow, brought up to nothing but
the most selfish egotism and blind self
indulgence.
A roysterer, they say-a lazy ne'er-
dowell, who found a savage delight in
throwing money to the four winds of
heaven just for the pleasure of seeing
a lot of greedy hangers-on jump up in
to the air to catch it.
They would laugh If you told them
these hangers-on who lived by this
thing touching or beautiful in the let
tiers that he wrote to the woman for
whose sake he killed man. They
laugh so easily. that sort of people. But
somehow, have you ever noticed 1t,
they always seem to laugh at the
wrong placer
One of their very sort sat near me
in court, and he almost choked trying
to smother his boisterous laughter
when Thaw, in his poor, stupid. loving
wrote an angel. and told her that he
believed her to be a good woman, and
that he had never lied to her in his life
and would spend the rest of his life in
taking care of her.
1 looked over at him as the lawyer
l
ward in his chair, with his big, stupid, |
faithful. loving eyes fixed full on the
face of his pale, little wife. And 1
thought that he looked as if he were |
trying to say to her right there in that |
courtroom full of scoffing strangers:
1T is all true; I meant it then, and 1 !
will mean it as long as live"
District Attorney Jerome saw what |
those letters were before Mr.. Delmas |
had read two sentences of one Of them. |
- inc oh ffroey
to this or that of the other, as If he /
were trying to divert the attention of !
the jurors from the sweet. old-fashion- |
ed, foolish story that those poor, inco- |
herent, not Observation-Disclosures letters |
told. T.sG s-
she told about the attempt of some one
to make her sue Harry Thaw for |
breach of promise.
ct told him that I wouldn't think of |
such a thing" she said. shaking her |
delicate little head. framed in its sim
pie, dark hat in such a way that she |
somehow looked like a nodding flower.
'I said that I couldn't. If there was
any question of breach of promise it
was the other way about, because Mr..
good many times and I wouldn't do
When she said this her husband
Strengthened the stoop in his broad
one smiles when a pretty child says
something at once amusing and per-
'ectly true.
He leaned over and whispered to
lis counsel. and it seemed to me that
t was all he could do to keep from
showing his simple pride in the fact
hat it was he who had always loved
Ter and always wanted her and always
oeTeed for her, and not she who had
ried to capture him.
Whatever Harry Thaw is or has
in his dark and
haunted future he may be-one thing
lie has known. He has held in his
leart a pure, bountiful and loyal
owe.
I wonder If all those who are crying
o bitterly for the death of this poor.
driven creature understand
n the faintest degree what that j
means.
If they do, perhaps. But to a
lind man narrow plank is as pleas
mt to walk upon as broad and spa
ious bridge-as long as he doesn't