Page:The Great Harry Thaw Case.djvu/272

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know it was Stanford White. I didn't know I was killing him, nor did I know it was wrong.'

"It was wrong under the law. When the anarchists threw the bombs in Chicago they had no personal grievance against any of the four policemen who were killed. It is not a question whether the slayer justified himself, not the form of his own conscience. It is the law of the land that must be satisfied.

"Let me first deal with the dead man. A middle-aged man, care-gray already, a man with a wife and children, a man of position in the community, a man of genius. He comes into the life of this girl. He assists her and her family. Does he make a single insidious advance until the night mentioned here?

"Does he give her a single rich gift? Why, it was stipulated here that the gifts were trifles—a hat, a coat. Did he try to dazzle her with rich gifts? Did he try to see if she would yield to drink? No. Night after night at dinners he would tell her she could have but one glass of champagne. In the company of actresses, and those miserable persons about town who seem to think that the society of a chorus girl is the only one for them, did he not seek to protect her from them?

"This angel child, as Delmas depicted her—this chaste, good being, cannot recall the time within three months of it when this brute ruined her.

"When she could not fix the time of her life's wreck my learned friend from the Pacific slope concluded, 'Why don't you prove an alibi for Stanford White? The doors are thrown wide open.' When the people called Wittans to testify that there was no such drug as she described the door was closed. When Eichemeyer, the photographer, was called to fix the date of the event—it occurred the night of the day after this picture was taken—the door was closed.