The Four-Year-Old at the Heart of a Custody War

Chester Stewart, the 4-year-old boy lately sprung into public notice through the contention of his parents, remains with his mother. This was announced to a crowded courtroom yesterday afternoon shortly after 4 o'clock by Judge Humes, who had heard the case during the day.

The bright-faced little object of more than ordinary interest, with long curly hair, a winsome face and mischievous ways, attracted attention on every hand. Yesterday, unmindful of the desperate fight being waged over his custody, he played "peep" behind the back of his chair with the people in the courtroom and clung to his mother's hand as to a dozen knots. He was neatly dressed and looked for the world like a little man. He seems to have grown up in the West.

During the trial the case was bitterly fought. Each side introduced witnesses to prove the other unfit to care for any child. George Stewart, the husband, relied largely on the testimony of relatives to injure his wife, and sought every means to make her out a bad woman. Witnesses were called who testified to quarrels and to profane language.

Mrs. Stewart herself took the stand and was subjected to a critical examination. She answered questions without hesitation and at times showed much indignation at the character of the insinuations. She told how she had lost her position at the telephone office because of the scandalous charges, and that she was still employed at the Singer agency as instructress. She was asked: "Why don't you keep the boy with you, instead of having him at your father's?" "Do you think I could give instruction on the machines and attend to my duties at the telephone office, and take the child with me wherever I should go?"

Hampton Johns, a prospector said to be in some degree responsible for the attempt to wrest the child from the mother because of his relations to Mrs. Stewart, was put on the stand and cross-examined sharply. He was an intimate friend of Mrs. Stewart's and sometimes took her out to dinner, and when she conducted a small millinery store at 1017 Third street he frequently called upon her.

Judge Humes decided the case without listening to argument from Mrs. Stewart's attorney, saying that the court had no particular standard by which to gauge the conduct of husband or wife. It would not do, in the opinion of the court, to hold that because a father or a mother had been guilty of unbecoming conduct or had used bad language, either thereby became disqualified to continue as custodian of the child. If all who used bad language had their children taken from them, he said, then a great many people in this country would be deprived of their children. The question presented was to be decided from the standpoint of the child's good. It had been shown that the little boy, who was innocent of any blame, had received proper care, and he therefore saw no reason to change the decree already entered.