The Spokane press. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.) 1902-1939, 1908-09-04
Capt. p. c. Hams.
BY MARLEN e. PEW.

McAlCO SlIy has lcl JUL uShto,
London has her royal family; Paris
has her Latin quarter; San Fran
cisco her prize ring; Chicago her
Roger Sullivan and smelly jungle;
Pekin has her opium; New Orleans
her mardi gras; Cleveland her John
d. Rockefeller and Cassie Chad
wick memory, and New York.
''dear old New York"--has her an
nnal murder.
AS Mexico likes fancy dress at
u her bloody spectacles, SO New York
demands bells on her homicides.
They must not be common, every
day killings They must furnish
situations that neither old Poe or
Laura Jean Libby had even the
audacity to dream of.
DR.. Darlington, head of the city
heal department, recently issued
his annual statement of vital sta
tistics, showing that, in 1907. there
were 2S7 homicides among New
York's four millions. This fact is
astonishing, but mainly because
New York remembers only one
the exquisite Staying of Stanford
White by Harry Thaw.
There will be some 800 murders
in New York in 1908, but, unless
the metropolis is exceptionally
blessed. the Hains-Annis blood let
ting, which this city is now devour-
ing, will be the only one that will
cause 4,000,000 hearts tostrain,
100000 eyes to burn, that will
furnish conversation in the clubs
and shops, in the restaurants and
gin mills, in the palaces and tene-
ments.
For the Hains-Annis crime is one
worth while from the metropolitan
point of view. 1t possesses all of
the elements that soothe and sat
isfy the New York mind. Here
We have high class people" They
are always an essential. II the
little Jew girl on the east side, who
rec -ntly killed a cheap doctor who
hs1>,rugged and assaulted her, had
worn her hair up the front instead
OF up the back and had had the
forethought to- be rich instead of
poor, New York might have looked
with some favor on her case. For
"Gotham.' as this city is called
west of Poughkeepsie, insists, yea,
demands, wealth, position, youth,
beauty, high life and such kindred
frills as the dressing for the muir
ders that she really takes to her
heart
What more could she desire than
Ia offered in the present case? Two
brothers, sons of an honored gen.
eral of the American army. Nice
old gray haired general, with nice
old gray haired wife. Some wealth
and some position. Ancestry, A. A.
A. Brothers possessed of college
educations. Nice looking fellows,
as men go
No New York murder case can be
accepted as first rate without a
generous sprinlling of situations
risque and voluminous discussion
of life questions that some people
don't talk about. 1t can hardly be
hoped that the Thaw case will ever
be equaled in this respect. Evelyn's
story of Whites den, for instance,
nj n In
omitted nothing. Back numbers of
newspapers which carried her tes-
timony in full sell today for 81 a
copy. But, admitting that Mrs.
Hams canot be expected to recite
pieces about red plush swings, New
York does expect, and will be ter
ribly disappointed II she does not
tell a story of army life and private
life that will make all Broadway
fingle. and bring life to the pale
eyes of the oldest roue. For she
must have suffered, o, God. how
she must have suffered!
Off high class villains one could
mot be painted with more evil
eye than that of T. Jenkins Hams,
the brother He has a part to play
on the New York stage that will
hold 'em for awhile, He's the gent
who murdered his chum. II years
ago, because his chum wouldn't
stoy out In small boat during
TJstorm. His father bought him a
good lawyer. so jails haven't held
him, nor ropes soiled his collar He
held the crowd back at the Bayside
Yacht club There must be plenty OF
club life In n double A New York
murder), while his brother was
shooting the feathers of of Annis,
who has to be considered as a
bird for the purpose of correct de.
all in this municipal play
Mrs. Hams says that Il. Jenkins
Iains was the root Of all the evil.
md, judging from the magazine
short stories which he has written,
md other untoward circumstances
he evidence Is against him. Ills
French housckeeper has come to