that he had made three separate examinations of her husband shortly after the murder, and on each occasion found him insane. He swore:
“Thaw exhibited delusions of a personal character, an exaggerated ego, and, along with them delusions of a persecutory character. He thought himself of exaggerated importance and believed himself persecuted by a number of persons.”
By an “exaggerated ego,” Dr. Evans said he meant “a disproportionate idea of importance of self, a belief that one is clothed with powers, capacity and ability far above normal or above those actually possessed.”
These symptoms, he said, were characteristic of several mental diseases.
One of the mental diseases indicated by Thaw’s actions, Dr. Evans declared, is known as adolescent insanity. It is characteristic of the development period of life—from 10 to 40 years. The person thus afflicted is known as having a psychopathic taint, a predisposition to mental unsoundness, the result of heredity.
The death of the wife of Joseph B. Bolton, who succumbed to pneumonia, delayed the trial for three days after Dr. Wagner’s testimony, and for a time, grave fears that a new trial would be necessary, were expressed. The day after the funeral, however, the juror resumed his duties. Up to this point the defense had expended $1,000,000 on the trial, and the state had paid out $250,000. If Juror Bolton had been incapacitated by his wife’s death, all this expense would have been useless.
When the failure of the trial was feared, Mrs. Thaw sought to cheer her husband. Perhaps her woman’s wit had warned her that she must look her prettiest, for on her visit to the Tombs prison she wore for the first time a new and modish little brown frock, its coat set off with jaunty silk fixings. She was radiant and smiling as she jumped out of her cab and ran up the steps to the iron gates of the Tombs.
As she waited to be taken to her husband, a jail guard showed her a message which had come in the mail for her husband. It was a postal card, a picture of a bunch of violets, bearing in a childish hand this inscription:
“Dear Mr. Thaw: I am a little Baltimore girl. I send you this as a token of my sympathy. Yours,
“Lulu Bell.”