“Gentlemen, at the time I made that declaration, I wish you to bear in mind that three things had not been developed:
“First. That the mother had been in receipt of $200 a month from White.
“It had not been developed at that time that the mother was assisting the prosecution in the work of this case.
“It had not been developed at that time that the mother had given a written statement to the District Attorney by which he might torture the soul of her daughter, a daughter who had been left alone in the world except for a most unnatural mother.
“And when I saw the District Attorney with that paper in his hand, when I heard him read from it on the cross-examination of this girl, when I learned that every shaft which he aimed at her heart came from a quiver furnished by her mother, when I learned that every sore in her poor soul had been pointed out to the District Attorney, that it was a mother who was pointing out those sores, and when I learned that the poor little girl had been sent away to school so that she might get the money she desired from Stanford White—I now retract what I then said.
“Oh, most unnatural mother, you, who left the girl a victim of the lust of this gray-haired man! You who received the wages of her downfall, funds with which you bedecked yourself with diamonds and finery, now in the hour of her supreme agony this mother assists the prosecutor of her husband!
“Why, a beast that wants reason protects her young! I have seen a poor little bird no larger than your fist while I was out hunting. A number of young ones were playing in the dust around her and I have seen a pointer come running upon them and I have seen the little bird ruffle its feathers until it looked as big and old as an eagle, making the dog pause and return abashed.
“I have now laid before you in outline what was given you in evidence. I propose to prove by evidence that will demonstrate the truth, which will leave no hook upon which to hang a doubt, that Evelyn Nesbit told the story she swears she did in Paris in 1903.
“In the first place, you have the undoubted, undisputed fact that Mr. Thaw in September of that year, when Evelyn’s mother returned to New York—that Mr. Thaw narrated that story in a letter to his counsel, Mr. Longfellow. In the first letter he says:
“Mistress Nesbit sails to-morrow for New York. Her daughter can’t be with her, because Miss N. was beguiled by a blackguard when she was but fifteen years of age. The child was drugged.