The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer

VIRTUE VINDICATED
Mrs. Spence Wins the Damage Suit
The Jury Pronounces Her Not Guilty
of All the Imputations Mrs. Hobensack - A Delicious
Revenge from Her Erstwhile Lord
and Master The Closing Scenes Performed

The Hobensack-Spence $25,000 damage suit
was concluded Saturday in the Common Pleas
Court at St. Clairsville. The testimony of
witnesses was continued Saturday, considerable
time being occupied by the reading of
a letter claimed by the plaintiff to have been
written by Mrs. Hobensack to Mr. Spence, in
which she referred to having been guilty of
some crime with him. This letter was withheld
from the newspapers as unfit for publication.

Several witnesses were examined as to the
handwriting, and it was given to experts to
compare with letters of Mrs. Hobensack's.
They decided that it was not written by her.
This letter, too obscene for publication, had
Mrs. Hobensack's initials to it, but she
when put upon the stand testified that she
never signed her initials to letters, only the
name "Stell" when writing to particular
friends.

The testimony of most of the other witnesses
had no especial bearing on the case.
Some of the former witnesses were recalled,
among them Jason Hobensack, who was
pretty badly used up on cross examination
on some talk and boasts about "getting things
down fine."

THE DEFENDANT'S WIFE.
Mrs. Spence was considered a very important
witness by Mr. Danford, as she would
naturally be the first to be suspicious of her
husband if he was doing anything wrong.
She testified that she never saw anything out
of place between Mr. Spence and Mrs. Hobensack.

All the testimony was in and the arguments
began about 11 o'clock Saturday.
The court room rapidly filled to hear the
final remarks and the resume of the testimony
by the opposing lawyers. W. P. Hays,
of Steubenville, began the argument for the
plaintiffs, dwelling at length on the depositions
and testimony of the owners and attaches
of the houses of ill-fame. He spoke
in the most glowing terms of Mrs. Reed's
assistant, Annie Smith, saying he "would
rather be the nigger than Deacon Spence."
He dwelt on the testimony of Robert Jenkins,
and the evidence concerning the
Aarons house; denouncing the views of experts
on hand writing, and stated in loud
and emphatic terms that Mrs. Hobensack
wrote the letter. He became very violent at
times, and tore his necktie from his neck.
He spoke very bitterly about Mrs. Hobensack,
and asked: "Who the devil is Spence?"
He denounced him as the wrecker of Dr.
Hobensack's happiness, and a bulldozer of
witnesses. Closing his remarks about 12
o'clock, he hastily bade the judge and one or
two others good bye and left for the train.

JUDGE CHAMBERS SPEAKS.
Judge Robert E. Chambers, of St. Clairsville,
at one o'clock began the argument for
the defense, laying down the law from the
books, that "adultery must be proven and
the circumstances must be such as to lead the
guarded discretion of a reasonable and just
man to the conclusion that the charge is
true." He reviewed the married life of Dr.
and Mrs. Hobensack; how it began pleasantly,
continuing so for eighteen months,
then growing inharmonious through the
conduct of Dr. Hobensack; told of the separation-how
his home was broken up, and
how he sought to heal his wounded and
broken heart with $25,000; how he went to
Mr. Shilling's at four o'clock in the morning
to get his wife to come back to him, and
how, finally, she did make a conditional
reconciliation, the conditions being that the
Doctor should quit drinking, sell out and
move away from Martin's Ferry, which conditions
he never carried out. He showed in
very eloquent remarks how utterly impossible
and against human reason and experience
for a man to believe that a man debauched
his wife, dishonored his home and
dragged his name down to shame, then to go
to that man, the author of all his misery,
time after time, and implore him to bring
about a reconciliation. There was not such
a case in all the history of jurisprudence,
ancient or modern, and Dr. Hobensack did
not then, and does not now, believe his own
charge.

A LITTLE IRONY.
The Judge drew a glowing picture of the
part Lawyer Black, of Cincinnati, had taken
in the case, and paid an ironical tribute to
this attorney's ability. He said Black was
in Duncan's office, and helped in the dirty
work of this case; that he went with Dr. Hobensack
to show Mrs. Hobensack's photograph
to the inmates of the houses of ill-fame
in the alleys of Allegheny and Wheeling-
"to Annie Smith and her gallant protector,
Robert Junkins." He referred to W. P.
Hays' eulogy of the assistant to Mrs. Reed
Annie Smith. "Annie sweet Annie." What
kind remarks he made about her. Then he
commented on the fact that none of the witnesses
from Martin's Ferry, summoned by
either side of the case, showed anything out
of place between Mr. Spence and Mrs. Hobensack;
this was sworn to only by the witnesses
from the assignation houses and sweet
Annie's protector, Robert Junkins, of whose
testimony he could only think in the language
of Emelia's reply to Iago:

"You told a lie!"
An odious, damned lie!
Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie!"

Judge Chambers spoke of the letter introduced
by the plaintiff as "a damnable fraud,"
and compared the spelling in this letter with
some of Mrs. Hobensack's, the spelling being
correct in her letters but wrong in this forged
one.

Hon. Lorenzo Danford followed in an
hour's speech, rehearsing the testimony and
the character of the witnesses introduced by
the plaintiff, and made a most logical and
convincing presentation of the facts in the
case. He told in graphic terms how Dr.
Hobensack, with

THE LIGHTED TORCH OF HATRED AND MALICE

had flashed it into the alleys and byways of
Wheeling and Pittsburgh, the abodes of
pimps and prostitutes; how all the witnesses
testified that everything between Mr. Spence
and Mrs. Hobensack was in broad daylight
done openly and honestly, just as relatives
and friends generally do; how Hobensack
blamed his wife's leaving him on some one
else until a few months past. He showed
how Mrs. Reed's and Annie Smith's testimony
were completely at variance with each
other. He spoke at some length on the letter,
on Robert Junkins' testimony, etc. The letter
seemed to be the link necessary to the
chain of circumstances. He believed the letter
was fraudulent. Truth always prevails,
and lies do not hold together.

With a final appeal to the jury the
argument for the defense closed, and Mr.
Duncan took up the case for the plaintiff
followed by Mr. Rees-both of whom went
over the testimony, the former paying more
attention to the law in the case. Both made
good speeches. The case was given to the
jury, which was a very intelligent looking
set of men, who in about two hours returned
a verdict of not guilty. This probably ends
this case, which leaves Mr. Spence and Mrs.
Hobensack guiltless before the world. Other
cases growing out of this are likely to follow,
one by Mrs. Hobensack for a divorce being
already set for trial about the middle of next
month.