Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-04-10
END DRAWS NEAR.
Delmas, Eloquent, Invokea
 "Dementia Americana"
EVELYN THAW'S NOBLE SACRIFICE.


 EVELYN FLAWS NOBLE SACRIFICE
 Califernian's Long Sustained Orator.
 ical Effort Ends-Pictured Whites
 Slayer as . Knight of Old.
 Declares Our Homes Sacred.
 NEW YORK, April 10.-After speak ing upward of seven hours Dolphin Mi chael Delmas, chief counsel for Harry Thaw, ended his argument with a Scriptural quotation.
 Just before he closed Delmas de. scribed Thaw's insanity as ''dementia Americana" the sort that makes Amer jeans defend the sacredness of their homes and their wives and children.
 True" he said, 'the learned alien ists have not given name to the spe- cies of insanity which Harry Thaw had. But will tell you. It is d spe- cies of insanity which is recognized in every court of this land. It is the spe- cies of insanity which makes a man believe his home sacred, that the hon. or of his wife is sacred, that the honor of his daughter is sacred
 With the exception of the moments when he was reading from testimony MT. Delmas' speech was one of sus- tained oratorical effort. He threw about the form of Harry Thaw the cloak of chivalrous knighthood. Why he shouted, should we who admire the chiyalry of the knights of the mid dle ages who went about redressing wrongs and rescuing maidens in dis tress withhold our sympathy from this brave man?"
 Bitterly the attorney again assailed Stanford White. He declared White sought to play with the girl so long as her beauty remained and then would have thrown her away Hike dirty rag to float down life's sewers to a grave in the potter's field" Again he said, Harry Thaw had snatched the girl from the old lecher who saw in her but toy to gratify a moments lust and then be cast aside to go her way down the paths of fallen women"
 With dramatic emphasis Mir. Delmas cried out that when Harry Thaw be- held Stanford White on the Madison Square roof garden the story of his wife's wrongs overcame him. He pie tured in an instant-as a dying man may picture his past life-all that Stanford White had done-"the ruin he had wrought, and he struck; struck as the tigress strikes in defense of her young; struck for the home; struck for American womanhood: struck for hu- manity, and Stanford White fell.
 "Ah. gentlemen" the advocate went on, If Harry Thaw believed he was the instrument of Providence, who will say he was mistaken"
 Mir. Delmas discussed but briefly the testimony of the expert witnesses. de. claring that whatever weight might attach to their utterances was on the side of the defendant. He declared the burden of proof as to Thaw's san ity at the time of the homicide rested with the prosecution, which had failed to make out it's case.
 It was in discussing Thaw's mental state that Mir. Delmas came at last to the ''unwritten law" He declared the experts had been at loss to classify the form of insanity from which Thaw suffered.
 "I will suggest its name." he de- clared. T would call it 'dementia Americana It is a species of insanity which has been recognized in every state of this Union. It is that species of insanity which makes the American man believe his home. his wife. his are sacred and that whoso- ever stains the virtue of his threshold violates the highest of human laws"
 Mir Delmas quoted briefly from the speech of District Attorney Jerome when Abraham Hummel was up for sentence. At that time Mir. Jerome urged the maximum penalty of the law ,n the ground that Hummel "had been l menace to the community for twenty years."
 Mir. Delmas next reviewed rapidly the story of Evelyn Nesbit told upon the witness stand.
 You know. gentlemen of the jury. that no human imagination ever in- vented such story. You know that ao actor could have stood as she did, lnflinchingly. all the tests known to skilled lawyers to elicit the truth un- ess she was telling the absolute truth. Relying upon the intelligence of you gentlemen. I will take it as fixed fact | that the story she told was rue as she told it. shall now pro- .eed.' said Mir. Delmas. ''in an effort | Q depict to your eyes the effect of this tory on the mind of Harry K. Thaw.
 shall tell you the story in Evelyn's 'wn words. the words you heard her lse on the stand.' Mir. Delmas then read dramatically 1 he young woman's story of Thaw's ctions when in Paris in 1903 she told jim her story: how he walked the floor nd bit his nails and sobbed and sob- ed. He also read that portion of her estimony in which she said she had efused Thaw's offer of marriage be- ause she loved him so much that she rould not drag him down.
 " Sublime renunciation.' says the neering district attorney in an effort Q make you believe that this story is Iot true. that if is impossible said fr. Delmas. .But I shall prore fo rnn