LINDBERGH TRIAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 February 1935, Page 14

LINDBERGH TRIAL

DEFENCE COUNSEL & WITNESS [BY CABLE —PBESS ASSN.—COPYBIGHT.] FLEMINGTON, February 7. The Hauptmann trial almost seemeft.to become a farce to-day when the defence put on the stand, three neighbours of Millard Whited, who lived near- the Lindbergh estate, and who had. testified he saw ai man lurkingin a bush shortly before the kidnapping. Each witness declared of Millard Whited’s reputation for veracity “it ain’t no good!” Mr Willentz (Prosecutor) made, ■short shift of these witnesses. He said to one: “It is true that Whited has-never been in gaol?” The reply was “Never.” Mi’ Willentz: “But you have?” Witness: “Yes.” A comic opera touch came, how-, ever, when Henry Uhlig, a German furrier who allegedly was the defence’s best witness turned upon Mr Riley, defence counsel, when the latter suddenly declared him hostile, and shouted the lawyer down with cries of “You are lying!” This arose when Mr Reilly, by innuendo, attempted tp show that Uhlig had tried to get the ransom money from Fisch. WHERE TRIAL IS HELD. An Englishman, dropped from the sky into Flemington, which is so small and so neatly arranged that it looks more like a village than a town, would probably think that he was in an out-of-the-way spot among the Sussex Downs (says the London “Daily Telegraph.”) The little wooden houses with their gaily-painted shutters might puzzle him. He would wonder why their lawns and gardens ran down to the road, unprotected by fences of any kind, but a glance at the church would reassure him.

That, at least, looks definitely English, and the visitor from the sky, if he had any suspicion that he had landed in the United States, would at once feel reassured on arriving outside the very Georgian red-brick Hall of Records, and the neat white building next door to it, which has the following notice displayed above the rotund columns that support the portico: “Hunterdon County Courthouse, 1828.” Tte town is the scene of the climax to.ofe of the most famous criminal caises in history, because Col. Lindbergh’s former home, Hopewell, is in Hunterdon County, and. only six or seven miles away as the crow flies. Hauptmann, the accused man, is the principal occupant of the brand new gaol immediately behind the courthouse. His wife has made her home in Flemington, and may be seen on any day of the week pushing her child along the main street of the little town in a perambulator. The room in which Hauptmann is being tried is a large, square one with accommodation for two or three hundred people. It is painted a shiny white, and large windows in every wall flood it with light. On the bench are three chairs, while at their left the judges have the witnesses, seated in a chair which is so bld that it is considered an antique and discreetly wired to the floor. ' At the end of the room opposite the bench there is a narrow gallery such as one might expect to find in a Friends Meeting House. Here and on rough wooden benches erected at various vantage points some 400 reporters, representing the world’s Press, contend for space. Photographers are not allowed to take pictures in court.

Nearly all the adjoining rooms are surrendered to the telegraph companies’ or reporters’ typewriters. It is estimated that during exciting phases of the trial as many as 1,000,000 words a day will go forth to the world from Flemington.