The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-08-13

make at will her plea for her son,
and In 80 doing to give certain incom-
petent testimony which embraced crit
icisms Of Mr.. Jerome, deem II my
duty to say these criticisms seem to
me to be mistaken and unwarranted,
although doubtless sincere. In the
very complete record before me find
no evidence Of any heartlessness or
undue zeal upon his part. II he made
the remark remembered by Mrs. Thaw,
to the effect that he hoped her son
would never be released from Mattea-
wan, I am confident that IT was made
as the expression, not of a hope, but
Of a conviction that he would not re-
cover"
Court Draws Conclusion.
After discussing the evidence Jus
tice Mills draws the following conciu-
sions:
First conclusions: The insanity with
which Harry X. Thaw was AFFLICTED on
June rs. 1905, at the time he COM
mitted the homicide. was of the Kind
known as chronic, delusive insanity. or
paranoia. This conclusion rests upon
the following facts. which appear TO
me to be clearly proven:
There was in his ancestral stock. u
substantial but not very strong trace
of insanity. BY not very strong 10
meant the fact that no one Of his d.
rect ancestors was ever insane. Up
on the maternal side two uncles were
of unsound mind, except at least Tor
a portion Of his life: and on his faith
er's side an aunt was at least an cpl
leptic and perhaps insane; and some
more remote relatives were undoubt-
eddy insane, though as to them the ev-
idence is not clear. but there had been
insanity In one of their ancestral lines
not common to the prisoners own de-
scent. As a young child he was phys
ically weak and puny, exceedingly ner-
vous and abnormally wilful. Older, he
was subject to violent spells amount
Ing almost to paroxysms of excitement
without any natural cause. He attend
ed various schools for different periods
from the age of six upwards, but made
little progress in study. While at
school. especially IN his early years. he
had frequent outbreaks Of uncontroll-
able excitement in which his facial ap-
pearance was wild and staring"
Continuing his history Of Thaw's
life. Justice Mills says:
becomes Enamored OF Girl.
About 1901 he became enamored OF
a young woman, Miss Nesbit. whom he
afterwards married. She was then,
by common reputation well known to
him the mistress or a mistress of
Stanford White. She assumed that re-
lation to Thaw and obviously, to ac-
count to him for her former position
with White, told him various wild and
grossly improbable stories Of the In
ception Of that relation. Although.
he. Thaw. evidently was himself far
from a moral man. was engaged or
soon thereafter became engaged in
practices OF a perverted character as
revealed by the testimony of the Mer-
rill woman, which with the corrobora-
ton afforded by other evidence in the
case, appears creditab1e. he gave abb
solute credence to the tales told him
by Miss Nesbit about White. He OBJ
tanned some information as to Whites
conduct with few other young wo-
men, either directly from them or
through Miss Nesbit, all OF which in
formation was OF the same Wild ana
improbable character. evidently to any
normal mind, grossly exaggerated. To
all. however, he gave implicit belief.
His mind became absolutely possessed
with these stories. He not only be-