Evening star., 1935-01-25
BY FORD MADDOX FORD.

BY FORD MADDOX FORD.
PENNINGTON, N. j., January 25
R.-The most impressive-as it was
indeed the most satisfactory feature in
Flemington-wast the personality of the
Judge. His honor Supreme Court JUS
tice Thomas w. Trenchard is a heavy,
graying, fresh-complexioned man
and deliberate. Above all, deliberate.
To the verge of a slowness that is al
most insupportable. But when he
speaks to an objection-when the
words reach you the sensation is one
of supreme satisfaction. He speaks
reasoningly, even little tentatively,
but what he says strikes you as the
only thing that could be possibly
said-by justice that is at once su-
premely impartial. And benevolent.
There is about the trial lack OF
the formality to which one Is accus-
toned in an English court Of justice.
The whole assembly has the air Of a
family gathering in not extraordi-
nary room. With faint touch Of the
Colonial in the simple proportions OF
the snoW-lit place There is no dock.
Prisoner, counsel, familiar figures,
court officials, all sit together without
any demarcation.
POIiteness Before udge.
The only trace of the almost divine
reverence that is paid to the solemn
figure of an English judge of aSsize
appears to be in the peculiar crouch
ing walk of any stenographer or court
attendant who passes in front Of the
Judges small stage. That looks like
a salaam of alteration until you realize
that it is an attempt not TO get be-
tween the judge and the faces OF
learned counsel
Compared with the judge no in
mate of the large room with the snow
lit ceiling is at all impressive with the
exception of the witness in the COM
mon kitchen chair that is called the
stand and Of the shabby, black figure
of the prisoners wife.
For you have not been in Flem-
ington 3 minutes before you realize
that in all the figures of possible
tragedy in that grim town she alone
is tragedy made absolute. Upon that
I do not need to enlarge. You have
only to think Of her-at one moment
a. calm housewife in the Bronx, ex-
pecting nothing but an addition to
her savings bank account, and at the
next the appalled, and tragic center
of spot on which are centered the
eyes of the entire civilized world. For
that Pennington court house had.
queerly enough, the feeling that
Westminster Abbey had at the coro-
nation of George v. You felt as you
sat there that the thoughts Of the
entire world were coming toward you.
Fantastic Evidence.
The plane specialist. Arthur j
Koehler, Wisconsin wood technologist
was lmpreSSive-was overwhelming
for another reason. A little. baldish
shining implacable man with an
amazingly clear vocal organ, he was
like the instrument of a blind and
atroclously menacing destiny. You
shuddered at the thought of what
might happen to you if such a mind
and such an inconceivable industry
should get to work upon your own
remote past A man who searched
| 1900 factories for traces of the
scratches of your plane on piece Of
wood 1t was fantastic and hor-
rifying
! have never-and in my time
have seen some things-imagined thai
any moment could be so shockingly
moving as when with the air of G
conjurer producing a rabbit from {
top hat he brought out from invisible
ity common plane and proceeded
/ utterly matter of fact: to plane &
| piece of plank. producing exactl.- thu
grooves and scratches that are to b.
found on the ladder that is the prin
cipal item OF the States evidence
You felt that if the motionless-anC
! always neutrality-suspicious. sits il
| the end motionless in the electri
chair, that little sleuth, with tn,
implacability of a weasel hunting b,
scent an invisible prey, will be tn
man who will have sent him there.
The complete immobility of tn
priSoner-he only moved twice in tn
whole course of the afternoon, once t.
look at the jury when they were ex
amining a photograph of the plan
scratches and once very unobservabl
to scratch his head-that complet
immobility was the only thing tha
was at all intriguing about him.
Prisoner Not Impressive.
He is SO exactly like his press photo
graph that at his appearance h
causes you no surprise and he excite
neither aversion nor sympathy.
Col. Lindbergh, too, is so familiar
sight that he also excites no emotion
At his first appearance, surveying tn
court room from little door with tn
light behind him, his carefully ar
ranged hair makes him look a littl
more definite than you had expected
But he is continually in motion, Gran
ing from side to side, and very 500
his hair assumes the rufledness tha
you had expected.