Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-21

acquaintances was SO unnatural. what must
have been his feelings toward White, mas
much as appearances to a certain point
justified him In jealousy regarding the
architect?
IF any other evidence were needed to
explain Thaw's crime. 1t lies in this fact:
He was born a degenerate. To be more
precise, an epilepttc. moral mailman, whose
smallest causes or even without any ap-
parent cause.
Unconquerable Instinct.
Merely by an uncomfortable instinct his
epileptiform madness is traceable not so
much to the fact that his aunt died Mad
as it is to the fact that he is the son OF a
man who, in few years, made himself
from nothing into millionaire. Now, the
children of great geniuses and those who
exhaust their energies by enormous work
are often morally mad or imbeciles. Peter
the Greats son was a drunkard and a
maniac. The nephews and grandchildren
OF Charles were mad and epileptic. The
sons of Cicero. Socrates, Scipio and Goethe
were idiots or madmen.
The abuse of alcohol or narcotics, espe-
cially when begun in youth, inevitably
intensifies epileptic tendencies, ma king
more frequent and serious outbursts of
that moral insanity which jacob discovered
and illustrated by numerous instances of
hereditary degenerates.
There are many reasons which make
me suspect that Thaw has the physical
characteristics of the hereditary degenerate.
From his photographs emerge the sparse
ness of beard. the lobeless ear close to the
head, the asymmetry of face, the species
of forehead that bulges on the right temple
almost like the hydrocephalous. Then 1
projection of the jaw. The nose instead of
being in the center of the ocular globe, Is
somewhat displaced on one side, and the
eyelids fold like those of a Mongol.
His Mind Lapsing.
1T is evident from Thaw's alterations
that some time before the commission of
the murder of Stanford White his mind was
lapsing into a vacant state peculiar to
epileptics. from which he only recovered
when Evelyn spoke to him. That is an
other proof of the extraordinary influence
his affection for her exercised on his mind.
Apparently Thaw perpetrated the MUIR
der of White in a moment when, by abuse
of alcohol and exasperated by malignant
stories of White conveyed to him by
friends, his persistent hatred of White
translated itself into impulse.
Epileptic mania does not debar a mad
man fromsstudying beforehand the best way
of making. a homcidal attack effectual
Grimes cleverly and ingeniousiy planned by
madmen are numerous. Gay Iheditated his
ferocious project of Staying the Chirols for
five days. He even went so far as to devise
q opcNidl tlOdh iOT tue cTlIfle, 10 De cast OH
should it become bloodstained. Otherwise
also. he schemed his attack with diabolcal
ability. Verzini. the son of mad parents
who strangled several women through
erotic mania and the lust of killing, had
laboriously prepared an alibi for each case
as we'll as other means of defense.
'Homicides have been committed without
precautions or any attempt at flight by
men whose diseased minds prompted them
to believe their cause just and that 1t would
so appear to the world. On the other hand
1t Is not uncommon for criminals to simu-
late madness. One recalls how ably an
American named Holmes tried to make
himself out mailman inventing crimes he
had not committed Thaw did not feign
madness. but Indignantly repudiated it at
the first suggestion