The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-12
TESTIMONY ENDS
 IN SORSBY CASE insanity Experts Appear Upon
 the Witness Stand SORSBY CONSIDERED SANE Prominent Hospital Men Answer Hy- potheticaI Questions and Give Their Opinion of Defendant
 As a Sane Man.
SORSBY CONSIDERED SANE

Jackson, Miss, April 11.-tSpecial. )-Ar- gument will begin in the Sorsby case the first thing Monday morning, and the chances are the case will go to the jury by Tuesday. Intense interest is mani fested and scores of the ladies of the city have attended every session of the court this week. The consequence is that many of them are taking sides, great sympathy being expressed for the comedy young wife of the defendant, who has been the personifcation of devotion during the or deal through which he has gone sitting day after day with her arm about him in the courtroom.
 On the other hand, and within arm g length, sit the widow, sisters and three orphaned daughters of Charles Fitzgerald, one of the most beloved citizens of Jack son. Attired in deepest mourning they ex- cite the sympathy of the majority of the audience, and doubtless affect the jury some of whom wept while the widow was telling his dying message a few days since.
 All the defense's testimony Saturday was to prove Sorsby's inherited insanity, while the state had several witnesses in rebut- tai, chief among them being the jailer who has had charge of defendant since
 
 never seen or heard anything to indi- cate insanity or that his prisoner is of unsound mind. He declared he did not even look crazy or stare vacantly in jail.
 For expert testimony as to the sanity of the defendant the state put on Dr. Buchanan of the State Insane asylum at Meridian and pr. Mitchell of the State Insane hospital at Jackson, both declar ing that after hearing all the testimony of the week they were of the opinion the prisoner is sane, and that he is no pa ranoiac.
 Practically all of the testimony offered at the forenoon session Saturday was in contradiction of the insanity plea. Sew eral prominent citizens of Clinton, in- cluding President W. T. Lowery and members of the Mississippi college facul- ty, testified that they had always re- garded Sorsby as a sane person, and could not recall any irregular or irrational acts committed by him prior to the trag edy. Two second cousins of Sorsby, the McGowen brothers, declared that they had always regarded the defendant as sane, and denied that there had aver been a taint of insanity in the Sorsby family, saying that they had never heard of in- sanity among their relatives until after Sorsby killed Fitzgerald. The McGowen brothers testified that pr. c. F. Sorsby and Everett Sorsby, grandfather and father of the defendant, were both hard drinkers. On crosse examination both wit nesses denied that there was any i'll feel ing between the McGowens and Will Sors- by, but one of them admitted that his mother and Will Sorsby had not been very friendly. Two Clinton merchants testi- fled that Sorsbys manner immediately after the fatal shot was fired, and while he was fleeing in the depot, was not that of an insane person While the state s rebuttal evidence was being presented the attorneys for the defense frequently in terposed objections.
 pr. J. M. Buchanan, superintendent of the East Mississippi Insane hospital at Meridian. and recognized insanity ex- pert gave 1t as his opinion that Sorsby was sane at the time he fired the fatal shot, and that he is now sane.
 The hypothetical questions asked by the defense on cross examination did not shake Dr. Buchanans testimony in any
 material respect He was brief and ex- plicit in his answers, and based his opln- Ions on the observation of the defendant during the trial and hearing of all of the evidence for the state and defense.