Page:The Great Harry Thaw Case.djvu/263



a young girl had looked before she went down to her ruin, his eyes grew wild and he just sat there and stared and stared at the object of his thoughts. She says, describing another meeting: 'At another time, when Harry and I were passing Herald Square in a hansom, we saw Stanford White on the street. Mr. Thaw grew white and his eyes glared. He talked so fast that I could not understand him. He carried on in this way for about fifteen minutes. I believe Harry had a fit then and there. He shook violently. He moaned and clenched and unclenched his hands, and that was the way he acted when he saw Stanford White.

"'One Sunday,' said Evelyn, 'he was sitting in a chair in my room and suddenly he began to sob and cry without any warning whatever, apparently gazing upon vacancy.'

"His mind was always on this man. He cried until at last his own wife could not but believe this subject—the thought of Stanford White—had preyed so on his mind that he had become insane.

"The man who had brooded over those pictures of horror for three years—this man would have been more than human if he could have preserved a calmness of reason. Now, gentlemen, place yourselves in the position of this defendant.

"Recall the time, those of you who have wives, recall the time that you led the one you loved to the altar, and if possible do this defendant justice. You remember when the little lady tells you that her husband on this subject had lost his mind—do you remember in this connection the spontaneous exclamation of the friend who, on hearing the shots fired on the Madison Square Roof-garden, made the exclamation: 'This is the act of an insane man.'

"Gentlemen, nothing now remains for me to do but to call your attention to the events of the night of the tragedy. With a view simply of elucidating the great point, fix your