Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-06-24
REVELATION OF STATE
PLOT KTDNAP THAW
PROMISED BY COUNSEL
Robert A. Ewing, of Sher-
brooke, Canada, Tells of
Overhearing T a ! k of
Selling Prisoner After
Escape From Matteawan.

NEW YORK. June 2A-sensatlonal rev
Citations about the alleged plot to kid
nap Harry X Thaw by New York State
officials, headed by william Travers
Jerome when the slayer OF Stanford
White was a fugitive In Canada, were
promised by John y. stanchneld at the
Thaw sanity trial today.
In lighting for certain testimony Of the
| Canadian witnesses, Thaws chief cotin-
| sci said their statements would be sus-
talned by evidence which he later would
| dlvulge.
Despite Assistant Attorney General
| Cooks strenuous objections, Justice Hem
! drlck allowed the testimony 90 be adj
| nltted. Robert A. Ewing, an alderman
OF Sherbrooke, Can, was allowed TO tell
Of stories he had heard about the alleged
kidnapping plot.
when went into court the first morn
ing that Thaw was arraigned," said
Ewing II saw many strange men, As
1 passed inside the court / heard one
OF the strangers say to his companion,
The best way for us to get him Is
70 snap him up and rush him across the
line"
Nothing developed from Bwlng's tesu-
mony that showed how Thaws attorneys
hope to strengthen his plea OF sanity by
testimony concerning the supposed kid
would make any explanatory statement
Ewing followed Henry Rousseau, the
Coaticook hotel proprietor, who went on
William Travers Jerome's bond of $1,000
when Thaw's 'nemensis" was arrested for
gambling in CoatlCook He furnished
Thaw's meals while Whites slayer was
in the Coatcook jail.
"Thaw expressed profound regret at
Jeromes arrest" Rousseau said. "Ie |
seemed glad that l would go on Jeromes |
bond, Thaw's actions impressed me as |
rational"
Several other witnesses from Canada |
and New England connected with the |
case In his flight from Matteawan, testl- |
fed they thought him sane.
Thaw said that he did not fear his |
coming examination at the hands of At
torney Cook, and rather welcomed the |
mental test that he would have to un-
1ergo.
Mrs. Mary Copley Thaw, the aged
mother of the "relator." as Thaw Ia
Known in the case, may be unwillingly
'actor in keeping her son from gaining
MS liberty.
Deputy Attorney General Cook today
announced he would read to the jury tho
testimony OF Mrs Thaw, given at the
second trial, In which she admitted that
rhaw and members OF his family before
him had suffered from mental disorders
Cook plans to use this testimony as a
boomerang showing that Thaw is af-
ected by hereditary insanity. If this
court will not allow this to be read into
he record Cook said he would be forced
% call Mrs. Thaw to the stand, as no
considered her testimony vital to the
State.
The first witness who faced Judge Hem
Trick and the jury in the Supreme Court
vas Gustave Roeder, a newspaper re-
,orter, recalled for cross-examinatlon by
Deputy Attorney General Cook. When
ohm B. Stanchheld. of Thaw's counsel
examined Roeder yesterday about an
with Thaw Cook requested
hat the cross-eXamlnation be put Off
loeder had said that Thaw impressed
I'm as being rational.
Roeder testified he interviewed Thaw
he day after he was sent TO the Tombs
I 1905. !
How did no Impress you them" asked
ook.
AT that time" replied Roeder "Thaw
impressed me as being not quite him
elf"
On redirect examination Roeder said
e had interviewed Thaw many times
yer n period OF nine years, and that the |
haw of today "fs vastly different from
he Thaw of 1906"
William l.. Shurtleff. a Kings Counsel
( Quebec, who was retained by Thaw
hen he was arrested at Coatlcook, then
Dok the stand. He said that Thaw's ac-
ons and conversations impressed him
s being rational.
From the early events in the trial to-
ay 1t became evident that Cook is re-
erving his heaviest attack on the Thaw
efense that he is now legally sane until
ne State calls the prisoner as its own
illness. When he puts Thaw on the
illness stand he plans to make him tell
10 jury all the facts of his life from
ie day Of his birth until the present
me-"