Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-04-13
LoNDoN's SEVERE COMMENT.
Every One Connected With Thaw
Trial and the American Public Scored.

Every One Connected With Thaw
Trial and the American Public Scored.
LONDON, April 13.-The keynote Of
| nearly all the editorial comment here on the
result of the Thaw trial is strong and some
| times violent cenSure of almost everybody
concerned. including the bulk of the Amer
| lean public whose intellectual appetite. ac-
cording to the opinion of the writer's, is
| largely responsible for a discreditable ex-
| hibition. The American methods of admin
| istering law are denounced unsparingly
and the contrast with Britain practice is
| scathingly emphasized.
The Daily News, which assumes to repre-
sent moral. social and political puritanism,
finds in the trial proof of how an undis-
ciplined press and INSCRIPTIONS wealth
may combine to defeat criminal justice as
they combine to defeat representative gov
eminent. 1t is shocked by the sympathy
evoked in public for Thaw and his wife 1t
says:
1T would not be surprising if Latin
community. which does not make profess
sions of severe puritanical virtue had made
a heroine of Mrs. Thaw and condoned
Thaw's loose life. The amazing thing is to
find this phenomenon in a country which
has just bounded Maxim Gorky from it's
shores.
1.-THE American press forbid the perform
| ance of Shaw's play. yet print with every
! noisome detail full reports of this painful
and disgusting trial. Both alterations be-
tray undisciplined sentimentally, but worse
than the sentimentality is the power of
money to override the puritanism which is
still the dominant note in American public
opinion One scarcely knows whether to
be more amazed at the insincerty of such
a press or at the guillibility of such a pub
| lie.
THE total result of an expenditure Of
money, false sentiment and mercenary skill
without parallel in the recent history of
civilization is simply this, that a man may
henceforth murder in America UNPUBLISHED
provided always his crime is interesting
and he himself is millionaire"
The Standard says: Seldom has justice
| been so fiagrantly abused as by the ques-
tons Jerome allowed to be put to Mrs.
Thaw He has been professionally punished
by the assurance that nothing but his own
misconduct of the case saved the prisoner
from condemnation 1t wiped out in the
| mind of a sentimental but acute people the
contempt excited by the trash in which Mr.
| Delmas INDUCED and the gush of greasy
sentiment about Thaw'S girl wife,
What puzzles the average sensible En-
glishman is how the average sensible Amer
lean can tolerate the waste of public time
I and money by lawyers when their clients
have command of millions and how news
papers of a certain class are allowed day
by day to PREJUDICE an issue of life or
death.
unfortunately. although our legal pro-
cedure is short sharp and summary, we are
not in a position to cenSure the maudlin
weakness of American sentiment. The dg-
ia ton here for the reprieve of Rayner was
allowed to prevail and he escaped the gall
lows because it was claimed he was only
parricide."
! The Telegraph, referring to the long
drawn out trial says that it would in this
country have ended in a week. 1t adds:
1T seems to us travesty upon the pas
sionate regard of the American nation for
the purity of home life and the honor of
women to represent Thaw as the champion
of the unwritten law that man may take
vengeance in his own hands in defense of
the sanctities of his hearth.
Public conscience may condone private
vengeance for such acts but the hearth
that has been violated must have been kept
tolerably clean before. What is disquieting
is not the revelation of vice, for the lower
side of human nature is much the same
every where, but the mawkish desire to
make vrtuous hero out of a degenerate
criminal"
The Daily Mail confines it's criticism
mainly to showing the superiority of Eng
lish procedure as seen ut the Rayner trial,
remarking that little of that hustle. in which
! Americans are popularity supposed to excel,
was shown. Continuing, it says: For dis
patch We must look to the English courts
and their more up-to-date Methods
The Express says that American prestige
has suffered severely by the trial. TT is
signal PROOF, 1t says, OF Cne utter lNef-
ficiency of American craftsmanship to
| evolve practical legal system. 1t is a dis
astrous instance of trial by the amateur
Judgment of democracy. Law. dignity
and common sense have all been wanting"
The Chronicle and the Morning Leader
are practically the only two papers that do
not indulge in imprisoned comments The
former praises the prolonged endeavors of
| the jury to reach verdict, saying that no
British jury would have stuck to it so long
| 1t adds:
There have been features which present
| American practice in an unfaYorable light
compared with ours, but the judges charge
| conformed to the best standard of any
| land. while the eloquence of the American
| bar was conspicuously Illustrated
| The Morning Leader, dwelling upon the
| great human tragedy which underlay the
| court proceedings, says that the jury has
| really epitomized the verdict of the world
| Reading Room for the Blind