NEW YORK MURDER TRIAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13861, 26 March 1907, Page 5

NEW YORK MURDER TRIAL

TIIE QUESTION OF SANITY. Prasa Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. NEW YORK, March 25. (Received Murch 25, at 10.2 p.m.) In the. trial of Harry Thaw, chargcd with the murder of Stanford White, Mr Dclmas, Thaw's leading counsel, filed eight allidavits, including one from Thaw's mother, denying insanity, Tile general opinion lias boon that the defenco would set up the pica of insanity, though Thaw himself appca.rcd to he opposed to this course, hut the above cablegram points to I lie fuel that Thaw's couiltei am now endeavouring 1o show that, he is not insane. Jlr Ulcason, one cf Thaw's lawyers, at. (lie opening of the case, stated Ihat. it war. his intention to show thill there was iiiFanily on hot!) sides of the defendant's 'family. ''Harry Thaw," he said, "suffered from a diseased mind we shall show by the testimony of his mother, his wife, and other relatives, by tho evidence of ids doctors, and by lelters which he wrote to the txii'iety for the Suppression o[ Yicc in this eily. When you liavo heard this testimony it will he impossible for you to ray ihat, tin.' act of this man for which he is now undergoing lib trial, was Ihat of a sane |>er;.on. Working in his diseased brain, we slia.ll show you, were many things contacted with his jiasi life, and lliafc of his wife. They culminated: in the explosion which caused llio defendant to kill Stanford White. Thaw long laboured under tlio dcltision (bat bis life was in danger whenever he was in Now York. Consequently, after Ja-nuary, 1904, he always carried a revolver when visiting in this city. The pistol was in his overcoat pocket, with somo oilier belongings, when lie went. to the Madison-square ltoof Garden, on June 25 last. His diseased brain guiding hint, lie saw what, was a demon glowering at him, and acting under the impulse of the delusion that his act was an act of Providence, he walked coolly and deliberately, as you or 1 would walk down the stroM, to where White sat. and, still believing that the act was cue in which Providence was guiding him, he shot and killed Stanford White. I!?lieving that act to bo right, he bad no idea of evading any of (he conscqv.ences. and l si ill regarding himself as an agent of Providence lie stood there, and held the pistol aloft, as if mutely to say. 'It is done; it is right; it. is not wrong.'" After Mr G'eason's address t'>cre seems to have been a. change a'p regards the lino of defence, for it was announced thaf thcro hid been a. difference of opinion among tho lawyers, and Ihat Mr Dcdpbin Dclmas, the eminent C'alifornian lawyer, had suceetcod Mr Ulcason as commander-in-chief of tho legal forces in Thaw's defcncc.