“Subscribed to before me this 27th day of October, 1903.
“Sworn to before me this 27th day of October, 1903.”
(Signature of notary.)
“The state rests,” announced District Attorney Jerome after reading the affidavit, and Attorney Delmas then attacked Hummel. He read the record of Hummel’s conviction in the Dodge-Morse divorce scandal, in which the lawyer was accused—just as Evelyn Thaw had accused him—of preparing a false affidavit and false testimony. When Hummel was on the witness stand he denied that in drawing the affidavit he was acting as counsel for Evelyn Nesbit; the document itself proved that he was. The papers were to have been filed, it was stated, in a suit for damages against Thaw.
CHAPTER XVII.
Jerome Calls Thaw Madman.
PHYSICIANS ASSERT YOUNG MILLIONAIRE TO BE DEMENTED—ANGRY PROTEST BY DELMAS—SENSATIONAL ARGUMENT BY DISTRICT ATTORNEY—BAD FAITH CHARGED TO COUNSEL—LUNACY COMMISSION IS DEMANDED—THAW’S LETTERS USED TO QUESTION HIS SANITY—COURT TAKES QUESTION UNDER ADVISEMENT.
After the reading of the shocking affidavit, District Attorney Jerome swore five of the alienists for the defense, at one time. He sought, through asking them the same hypothetical question put by the defense, to prove that Thaw was insane both at the time of the murder and at the time of the trial.
“I do not believe Harry Thaw was sane at the time he shot Stanford White, nor do I believe he is sane now,” declared Dr. Graeme M. Hammond. “I do not know whether he will ever recover.”
Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe, professor at Columbia Medical School, swore he was convinced Thaw was crazed at the time of the murder, but that he “had a sort of insane knowledge” of what he was doing.