Dieringer. Reorganizations and consolidations have been affected; interurbans have been built northward from Seattle to Everett and southward from Bellingham to Mount Vernon. All of these, as well as the street railway lines of Bellingham, Everett, Tacoma and most of those of Seattle are under the control of the Boston firm.

Notwithstanding the thousand and one safe harbors for which Western Washington is justly famous in every port of the world, people of this state, on several occasions have been called upon to witness disastrous steamship wrecks at the very door to these safe harbors. The first of these in which any considerable number of Washington people lost their lives, was the wreck of the steamer Pacific. On the night of November 4, 1875, the Pacific, left Victoria about 10 A. M., passed Tatoosh at 4 in the afternoon and about 10 o'clock that night. collided with the steamer Orpheus and sank twenty minutes later with a loss of about 150 persons. Jefferson D. Howell, brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis, of the Southern Confederacy was in command of the Pacific and went down with his vessel. Among the passengers were Mr. Victor, husband of Mrs. Francis Fuller Victor, Oregon historian; G. T. Vining, of Puyallup; Mrs. Mahon, daughter of Job Carr, Tacoma pioneer; Mr. and Mrs. Hellmute, of Walla Walla; Colin Chrisholm, of the Utsalady Mill Company; and John Tarbell of Olympia. The Orpheus, next day piled up on the rocky western shore of Vancouver Island.

In September, 1894, the steamer Ivanhoe sailed from the Sound for San Francisco. Days passed; the vessel became listed as overdue and finally as lost. She furnished the second mystery of the deep to the history of Sound shipping. The first had been furnished by the George S. Wright in 1873. The Wright sailed from Sitka for the Sound, put in at the Kluvok fishing station and continued on her journey. Nothing further was ever heard of her or her passengers.

Within sight of land in all directions the steamer Clallam was wrecked in the waters of the Fucan Straits on the night of Friday, January 8, 1904, with a loss of fifty lives. The Clallam, a Tacoma built vessel less than one year old, was in command of Capt. George Roberts and left Port Townsend for Victoria shortly after noon. Rounding Point Wilson the boat encountered a northeast gale of sleet and snow and was holding her course when Chief Engineer Scott A. DeLauney reported to the captain that one of the dead lights was broken and the ship filling with water. All efforts to mend the broken headlight were futile; pumps were started only to become choked with coal and ashes from the engine. room where the inflowing water soon put out the fires beneath the boilers. Left in this helpless condition, the captain ordered the life boats sent over the side. Three boats were lowered and were swamped in the waters and the vessel drifted to within four miles of the Victoria Harbor before the tug Holyoke arrived and fastened a line to her. Captain Hall, of the tug, decided to tow the Clallam with the wind and set out for Port Townsend.

At 10 o'clock the following morning the tug Sea Lion arrived and was preparing to fasten a line to the sinking vessel when Captain Roberts signaled to cut loose, as his ship was sinking rapidly. A few minutes later the Clallam turned on her side and disappeared. Captain Roberts and those on board were picked up by the two tugs and taken to shore. An investigation was held, the testimony showing that the broken dead light had been reported some months before the disaster but no repairs had been made. Roberts was suspended for one year

and the license of DeLauney was revoked. Among those lost were Capt. L. Thompson, of Victoria; Bruno Leman, Tacoma customs inspector; C. W. Thompson, a Tacoma mining man; Mrs. Rouin, of Seattle, H. H. Swaney, of the Irondale Steel Company; W. B. Gibbons, Tacoma; Mrs. Deprose, Tacoma; M. C. Lockwood, freight clerk; James Smith, assistant engineer, Charles Manson, quartermaster; R. Lindhope, quartermaster; and Alex Havey, messman, all of Seattle.

But a short distance from the point upon which the Orpheus piled up on the rocks of Barclay Sound in 1875, the Valencia was wrecked on the night of January 22, 1906, with a loss of 133 lives. The Valencia, belonging to the Puget Sound-San Francisco fleet of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, was in command of Capt. O. M. Johnson, a man of experience and ability. Perhaps it was this very experience that caused the wreck and loss of life. Johnson, feeling certain that he was on the right course, steered his ship on the rocks of Cape Beal and paid for his error with his life.

When the vessel struck, the captain ordered the boats prepared, but before they could be properly manned, excited passengers took possession and lowered them into the sea. Women, refusing to enter the boats, removed their skirts, soaked them with kerosene and set them on fire. They became flaming signal torches.

An almost perpendicular wall of rock bordered the shore. Two men in an heroic attempt to get a line on these rocks, made a landing only to be swept back by the waves and drowned. Joseph Cigalos, a Greek member of the crew, with a line about his body and an open knife in his teeth made a similar attempt. He became entangled in the line, was forced to cut his way out of its meshes and return to the vessel. A life raft was put over the side and Cigalos was one of the few survivors picked up from it later by the Topeka. The Seattle Chamber of Commerce gave him a medal for his heroic efforts.

Great waves dashed over the wreck carrying passengers to their graves. Among those thus lost was Mrs. Frank Bunker and children. Bunker, assistant superintendent of the Seattle schools, then decided to make a last desperate effort to reach land. He and other men reached the shore and set out for the telegraph station at Cape Beale. From there news of the disaster was sent to the outside world. The steamers City of Topeka and Queen arrived but under the orders of Pharo, an agent of the steamship company, the Topeka proceeded to Victoria so as to avoid delay in her schedule. The Queen was joined by several powerful tugs, but neither they nor the larger vessel accomplished anything toward rescueing the people on the doomed Valencia. From midnight on the 22nd until noon on the 24th the staunchly built craft received the repeated blows of hundreds of tons of water. It was a pounding no vessel could withstand and the Valencia broke up and sank.

In Seattle, Bunker began asking questions. He demanded answers. He wanted to know why the Pacific Coast Steampship Company had permitted the wrecked vessel to put to sea with life belts filled with non-bouyant tule-rushes; why the Queen and the tugs left an hour before the Valencia broke up; why the plugs for the holes in the bottoms of the life boats did not fit; why the oar-lock pins were too large, and other questions that made things very uncomfortable for the owners. Their reply was that the boat had passed the inspection of the Government inspectors, and they, in turn, laid the blame on the dead captain.

CHAPTER XLVII.

THE THOMPSON TRIAL

TRIAL OF CHESTER THOMPSON FOR THE EMORY MURDER-FATHER'S TRIBUTE TO DEAD MAN-ENDLESS ARRAY OF WITNESSES-VANCE'S CAUSTIC ARGUMENTTHOMPSON'S SCATHING REPLY-HIS WONDERFUL WORD PICTURES-HIS DEMAND FOR A VERDICT--"FOR GOD'S SAKE MAKE A VERDICT AND MAKE IT NOW!" HE CRIES JURY ACQUITS-CHESTER NOW IN MEDICAL LAKE ASYLUM.

The fifty-nine days beginning with December 6, 1906, and ending with February 2, 1907, will always be memorable in Tacoma as having been the period of the most remarkable legal battle and criminal trial that the Pacific Northwest has ever known, or is ever likely to know. This was the trial of Chester Thompson, then a boy twenty-one years of age, for the murder of former Judge George Meade Emory of Seattle, transferred to the Pierce County courts on a change of venue from King County. Out of it, bringing to a supreme climax its many unusual, startling features, and fairly overwhelming the throngs that jammed the court room day after day, was evolved an address to the jury that has become a classic in legal history-the wonderful plea of Will H. Thompson in behalf of his son.

Tacoma was only casually interested when the news came on July 7, 1906, that Judge Emory had been shot down in his own home by young Thompson. There was no mystery in the case. The facts seem to be plain, as told in the newspapers. The boy was wildly infatuated with Miss Charlotte Whittlesey, niece of Judge Emory, and when the latter refused to call the girl to the telephone to talk to Chester, the latter armed himself with a revolver and went to the Emory home. Asking "Where's Charlotte?" he ran into the house and Judge Emory followed. Shots rang out and Emory fell from wounds that proved fatal two days later. It seemed the most wanton of killings, and as Seattle had been stirred by a singular number of similar homicides, the youth was rushed through a mob to jail only with difficulty, and there was a powerful sentiment against him.

Rumors of strange conduct on his part coming up immediately, a great newspaper took up the cry that this "murderer must not escape on the grounds of insanity." It was at a time when insanity was being made the defense for Harry Thaw in New York, and in this state for young Sidney Sloane, who killed his father in Spokane; for George Mitchell, who killed Joshua Creffield in Seattle, and for Esther Mitchell, who, in turn, killed her brother. There was sympathy for Will H. Thompson, the father, who was widely known as an attorney, author and orator; for the mother, who lay dying in the home, ignorant of her son's

predicament, and for two brothers, Maurice and Oscar Thompson, but little or none for the accused youth in the King County jail.

Then the public began to get the measure of Will H. Thompson. At a meeting of lawyers to honor Judge Emory's memory, he had the courage to go and pay sorrowful tribute. His words stirred his hearers to tears as he closed, saying:

"If there were one and but one lingering ray of light in my darkened and silenced home I would give it to illumine the hearts of the widowed wife and the orphaned children of this man who has passed from us, though I and mine should sit in darkness while ever life should last."

It began to be realized that this father's fight for his son's life would not be an ordinary one.

Setting forth prejudice in his own community, Attorney Thompson had the case transferred to the Pierce County courts. On December 6th the trial began before Judge W. H. Snell, with more than one hundred witnesses subpoenaed. One week was consumed in selecting a jury, which, when sworn on December 13th, consisted of the following Pierce County residents: George Grieb, F. T. Spottswood, J. H. Benston, John M. Cronan, W. S. Peacock, John L. Reese, Harry Graham, Walter Scott, William Watson, F. B. Hoyt, W. A. Porter and Charles Vogel. Hoyt was chosen foreman.

The array of legal talent was an imposing one. King County was represented by Kenneth Mackintosh, prosecuting attorney, later judge, and his deputy, John F. Miller, afterward mayor of Seattle. Assisting the prosecution were Walter M. Harvey, then deputy prosecutor of Pierce County, and Thomas Vance of Olympia, who entered the case without compensation because of his long friendship for the Emory family. Will H. Thompson, long considered one of the ablest lawyers of Washington and for several years western attorney for the Great Northern Railway, headed the defense, assisted by W. H. Morris and S. M. Shipley, lawyers, and the latter a legal expert on questions of insanity. The defense admitted from the start that insanity would be the defense. Attorney Thompson even offered to furnish the prosecution with the names of his witnesses many weeks before the trial began.

In the court room were a dozen or more distinguished alienists called by both sides to study the case and the defendant, who, throughout the eight weeks of the trial, sat with his eyes on the carpet, seeming oblivious to all that went on.

The prosecution's opening statement reciting the cold facts of the homicide disposed of, the defense brought forth the first of the surprises of the keen legal battle. Attorney Thompson made his statement of his case at once, without waiting for the prosecution's direct evidence. It was a simple, intensely personal outline of all that had taken place in his family for years before the murder; how Chester, who had been unusually bright as a child, withdrew from others and would not play with them; how, after ranking high in his high school classes, he found himself utterly unable to do work at the university; how he began to say that his life was ruined because of some work that had been done on his teeth; how he refused to eat with other members of the family or scarcely to speak to them; how he began to walk abroad at night until dawn; and to talk out of his window seemingly to no one; how his infatuation for the Whittlesey girl changed to a sort of

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idolatry and he began to say that unknown persecutors were keeping him from her; an endless array of earmarks of abnormality, dovetailed into sorrowful glimpses of a home where the mother was dying and where defeat seemed to have come at every turn for the father. It was a recital that deeply impressed and quickened sympathies. Consequently, when the prosecution put on its witnesses to tell the details of the actual homicide, the jurors and the court room crowds saw the tragedy in a softened and melancholy light of all that the father had pictured. The shock of the state's case was gone.

Then came a seemingly endless string of defense witnesses, day after day, week after week, who made an open book of the boy's life and who, piece by piece, detail by detail, substantiated all that the father had said, showing beyond doubt that the youth was mentally abnormal, and of a gentle, unoffending nature, but leaving in doubt whether he was possessed of delusions so powerful that he did not know right from wrong. The father himself was three days on the witness stand, sometimes leaving it to argue as attorney over the admissibility of points in his own testimony objected to by the state. Neighbors, family servants, street car men, schoolmates, occasional acquaintances, merchants with whom Chester had traded, teachers, everyone, it seemed, with whom he had come in contact, testified to peculiarities-some trivial, some tending to show the ideas of persecution common in paranoidal forms of insanity.

Many medical experts were called, mostly to answer staggeringly long hypothetical questions, by which they said Chester Thompson was insane or wasn't insane, according to what was included or omitted in the questions. The jurors evidently grew very tired of this and admitted afterward that what the physicians said played no part in their verdict.

Testimony was completed on January 27th, and Attorney Vance made a caustic argument for the state, flaying the defense theory and assailing the truth of its witnesses. Attorney Thompson's failure to place his son in an asylum, if he believed what he had testified to, was particularly attacked.

Then "Old Man Thompson," as they called him at the courthouse, got into action. Everything else in the trial shriveled into insignificance beside the wonderful argument he began on the morning of January 31st. Words of singular emotional power leaped from his lips, and stirring figures of speech piled one on another in amazing pictures of the gloom and sorrow of his home and the mental martyrdom of his son. There were no dry eyes. Some who heard grew hysterical and cries of "don't" or "stop" punctuated dramatic pauses in his fiery appeal. Men who thought they did not know how to weep wept. Jurors and judge wept. Newspapermen scratched away on their copy paper with tears blotting out what they wrote.

Thompson had been a Confederate soldier. He had fought with Gordon all around Richmond in the terrible days closing the great Civil war. In the jury box sat one or two ex-Union soldiers, and these his assisting counsel had asked him to challenge. He had refused. Near the opening of his argument he told the jury these facts. But he said he had no fear of injustice from any man who had been brave enough to face the hell of the Richmond trenches, and in a few words he then pictured an impetuous federal charge that had run down Gordon's men, himself among them—a charge so fierce that it left the Confederate line in the dust, demolished. His climax thrilled every one in the packed court room. Tears trickled from the eyes of the Union veterans.