The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1907-04-03
EVELYN THAWS LONG
CROSS.EXAM|NAT|ON ENDS
Wife of Stanford Whites Slayer
Completes Court Ordeal.
SYNOPSIS OF Her TESTIMONY
.lbc Hummel Not Permitted 10 Prove
Document Which the Prisoners
Wife is Alleged to Have Signed
in His Law Office.

in His Law Office.
New York City.-The cross-exam.
ination of Evelyn Nesbit Thaw was
concluded at the trial of her husband,
Harry K. Thaw, for the killing of
Stanford White, and the young WON
an left the stand without having to
answer any further questions about
the affidavit she is alleged to have
made on her return from Europe on
October IS, 1908, in which she is said
to have accused Thaw Of many cruel
ties. When Mrs. Thaw left the stand,
her appearance was in no way
changed from that of the morning of
February 7, when she first began to
tell in direct examination the story
of the wrong she said she had re-
ceived at the hands of Stanford
White. Altogether she had been
about six court days in the witness
chair and of these she was under d
fire of Mr.. Jerome's cross-eXamina-
ton for more than three.
Abraham H. Hummel, a disbarred
lawyer, by whom District Attorney
Jerome hopes to prove that Evelyn
Nesbit Thaw signed a statement be-
fore a notary public ~retracting her
charges against Stanford White and
alleging that she vas beaten with a
cowhide by her husband, was the first
witness called.
Only a few feet in front of the
disbarred lawyer sat Evelyn Thaw.
prim and sedate, in her schoolgirl at
tire. The young woman, who had de-
scribed Hummel as an ugly little
man with warts" gazed at him un-
finchingly as Mr.. Jerome tried to
elicit from him testimony that would
show the vital points of her story, the
chief bulwark of the defense, to be
false.
After some sparring between coun-
sci, Hummel was allowed to testify
that Evelyn Thaw came to his office
on October 81, 1908. He had an &C
Quaintance with her extending to
1901 or 1902, he said. He was then
asked if she had dictated the affidavit
on which so much hinges, but
Dolphin NJ. Delmas objected to the
question and he was not allowed to
answer at once.
Mr.. Delmas parted nearly every
question Mr.. Jerome asked and the
prosecutor was finally compelled to
direct Hummel to leave the stand.
Finally Jerome called Evelyn Mes
bit Thaw back again to the chair.
From the nav of his black bag ne
fshed out the young wife's own
schoolgirl diary, written by her back
in 1902, when she entered the De.
Mile Seminary over in New Jersey
on money furnished by Stanford
White. 1t had been put into his
hands by Evelyn Thaw's WI mother.
Jerome read the nve extracts from
the little book. Plainly he hoped by
quoting the girls words to cast a sim
lister shadow upon her viewpoint Of
life at that period-siX months after
she said Stanford White had wronged
her in his room of many mirrors.
What he did succeed in showing was
that Evelyn Nesbit knew more about
Broadway than most girls of sixteen
know. :
1t was Jerome's valedictory stroke.
When he had got the diary into evil
dence, and had asked a few final
questions to close up a few ragged
ends Of evidence, he announced that
the cross-eXamination of Harry
Thaw's wife was practically ended.
Five days of severe questioning by
the prosecutor had failed to shake
her remarkable testimony, and the
girl wife stepped off the stand smil-
ing.
Prior to this the District Attorney
had demonstrated that as Evelyn Mes
bit was not above taking a letter of
credit to Europe as a gift Of the
architect, whom she professed to hate
land loathe, she was also content
after her return from her unmarried
travels with Thaw in Europe to live
in high priced New York hotels upon
Harry Thaw's bounty ven at the
time when she was Surrendering
Thaw's letters to Hummel, was listen
ing to and believing the stories of mis-
perfdy and brutality toward other
women and was one more enjoying
the friendship and hospitality of
SldulOIu WNllS, uel SlOlS VI "AOSC
cruelty to her, she ayers, had driven
Thaw to desperation when she told
him it's details in Paris.
One of the witness most surprising
admissions was her constantly reiter-
ated assertion that, even after she
had made her Paris confessions to
Thaw concerning her former relations
with Mr.. White, Thaw, though he
showed anger and indignation, mani
tested in her opinion no signs of in
sanity.
Mr.. Jerome brought out the fact
that when these confessions Of hers
were made to Thaw in Paris and
when she had refused to marry him
she was already sharing the same
apartments with him, and that they
subsequently, had travelled over
Europe together, living for a time
in the katzenstein Schloss, in the
Austrian Tyrol, where Thaw is al
legged to have whipped her with a
cowhide, according to the statement