Evening star., 1926-11-27
HALL TRIAL SCENE
IS MOST DRAMATIC
Figures at Murder Hearing
offer Sharp Contrast
in Little Court.
BY DOROTHY DIX.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
SOMERVILLE, N. j., November 27.
"A dreary, dull day at the Hail-Mllls
trial, with the defense picking up the
loose threads of their case and trying
to weave it into a cable strong enough
for Mrs. Hall and her two brothers TO
walk over to freedom.
The first witness on the stand was
Henry carpenter, who was only per
mitted to say that he did not see
either one of his three cousins who are
on trial either ON the day of the muir
der or the day thereafter. The de-
fense had hoped to get in his allbl
that at the time of the tragedy he
was dining with friends, but the court
barred this out.
Most of the morning was taken up
by Senator Simpsons cross-eXamlna-
tion Of the fingerprint experts from
the Army and Navy departments and
the New York Bureau of Intelligence.
All of them asserted that the finger
print on the card found at Mr.. Halls
feet was not the fingerprint of Willie
Stevens, and they all declared with
one voice that finger-printing is an
exact science and not a matter OF
opinion.
Then came Mr.. Sipel, a neighbor of
Jane Gibson's, who told that Mrs.
Gibson said to him that she would
like him to say that he was coming
through De Russey's lane and he saw
an automobile with two men and
woman in it, and that he also saw
woman riding on horse or mule.
He said she told him to say that he
had quite a sum of money in his
pocket and when he saw these people
he turned back, and that she further
told him that he wouldn't have to
identify any of them. He said she
told him she had gotten money from
the newspaper people and she would
give him 500 if he would tell this
story.
Letters Damage Story.
The effect of Mr.. Sipel's story, how
ever, was considerably damaged by
the fact that he had written Mrs. Hall
three letters, in which he had dunned
her for money for the time that he
claimed to have lost in going before
the grand jury to tell this story.
Then came Di Martini, the dark and
sWarthy Italian detective who has
fitted like a sinister shadow through
all the trial. He is the man who has
been accused of trying to bribe Mrs.
Demarest and of manufacturing senti
ment in favor of Mrs. Hall and her
brothers. Di Martini denied indig-
nantly having attempted to bribe any
body or threaten anybody, and of even
having seen Mrs. Demarest or Mrs:
Gibson. In fact, Mr.. Di Martini
seemed to have detected nothing in
the 120 days in which he was on the
case, and for which he drew down the
munificent sum of 5000. No wonder
every small boy cherishes a secret
yearning to be a sleuth.
After Di Martini came Detective
Ellis Parker, who went to see Jane
Gibson, who told him that she had
gotten 500 from the newspapers. And
he also examined the famous card
with a magnifying glass and saw no
fingerprints or smudges upon it.
NeighbOrs Tell About "Jane."
And after him came a long line of
neighborS of the pig woman, who all
testified that Jane Gibson's name was
not Truthful Jane" and that they
had n poor opinion of her veracity.
So the tedious, dull day dragged
along. and one fell to watching the
little drama of the courtroom that is
always the same, yet always chang
ing.
The judges on the bench--the old
judge and the young one. 1t is pretty
to see them confer together and how
deferentially the black head bends to-
ward the white one-the old judge, so
patient, SO painstaking. Several times
when there have been shy and fright
ened witnesses on the stand, so over
aWed they could scarcely speak above
a whisper, he has left his chair and
gone and stood behind them, looking,
in ir Hnu-in&r h1only GILL no
was outlined against the white wall,
like the very spirit and substance of
justice itself.
The jury. A composite photograph
of them would show a mddle-aged
man, just beginning to turn bald.
stout, we'll fed and prosperous looking;
a sensible, hard-headed. horse-sense
sort of man who would not be stam-
peded by eloquence nor carried away
by his emotions, but who would turn
things over in his mind and come to
a slow decision, from which he would
not be easily shaken.
Lawyers Plentiful.
The lawyers-dozens of them, it
seems to the onlooker-all busy with
piles and piles of papers, and each
side huddling together for conferences
every now and then, as they do on
the foot ball field.
Like Napoleon, Senator Simpson
might almost say, II am the state
so completely does he dominate the
prosecution. A little man, meticu-
lousy dressed, brilliant, dynamic,
witty, with a tongue that stings like
a whiplash. Next to him, Prosecutor
Bergen. a handsome, brownish-look-
ing young man; Detective Underwood,
"a nd rk Of
At the defense table Senator Case,
slim and urbane, a Somerset man
among Somerset people; Mr.. McCar-
ter, gray and elderly, slow and pro-
found; Mr.. Pfeiffer, with a face that
looks like the pictures of Savonarola;
Mr.. Nelson is never still, but roams
around like the Wandering Jew.
Back Of them the defendants. Mrs.
Hall, always dressed in black, sitting
calm and dignified and still between
her two brothers. Sometimes there is
the fourth prisoner, Henry Carpenter.
And back of them the family-Com-
mander Carpenter, Mrs. Henry Car
pender. Mrs. Edwin Carpenter and
Mrs. Henry Stevens. A looking
family group-the men all handsome.
outstanding fellows; the women good
looking, middle aged, handsomely
dressed in dark clothes, but with no
f1uffery no jewelry, no bobbed hair
no rouge or lipstick.
800 Newspaper Folk.
In the three rows beyond the railing
that shuts in the bar are the news
paper folk-300 of them, mostly young
men and women, full of pep" full OF
enthusiasm, keen as mustard, sending
to the four corners of the world their
impressions, writing the thing as they
see it for the good of things as they
are. Here and there an old timer
men and women who have seen a
hundred murder trials, who wrote the
bizarre evidence in the ThaW trial
who heard Grace Browns pathetic
love letters read in court, who could
tell vOu q Thousand inside stories OF