New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-05-06
THE MURDER OF DR.. BURDELL,
Trial of Mrs. cunningham and J.J. EckeL
SECOND DAYS PROCEEDINGS.
COURT OF OYER AND TERNisER-Befere Judge DAVIES

COURT OF OYER AND TERNlsER-Before Judge DAVIES.
TUESDAY, May S, 1851.
The room Of the Marine Court was filed early this
morning; people stood in al imaginable positions
and places and looked vistfully through the folding
doors Tie commands Of officers were frequently
necessary prevent them from running the new urn-
tsre Of the courtroom. The courtroom was kept
comparatively free only Jurors witnesses and report
ers being allowed TO enter At 1905 a. m. the court
wa opened, and the Clerk called the Jury
Mr.. Hall, District Attorney, then proceeded 10 say
May it please the Court and Gentlemen of the Jury
The duty assigned TO by the prosecution Of pre-
pairing, in the usual legal way your minds to receive
the evidence which the prosecution, under the rules OF
law will offer in support of the indictment upon which
this defendant at the bar was yesterday arraigned-
The prosecution propose 10 prove by the testimony
which il deems. in its chain of progression, though
formed Of small and TO some extent, delicate Inks,
perfect chain of mental conviction; We propose TO
prove that one of your late felow-ctzens, Dr. Har-
vey BuIdell, whose dying moments were with
the dying moments Of the hrst month oil
this wear for toward midnight the last day OF Janu-
AIRY he ceased TO be your ielow-citzen-out 10 you,
a. Jurors his memory survlves-we propose 10 prove
that hi. gentleman was murdered with malice aiore-
thought that he murdered III his own house sur
rounded by the sanctity of his own home; that the
deed premedlated; tnHt al tDe circumstances
show that that il was deed which shows upon Its
yery impres. the marks of dreadful hate, revenge
for some injury unatoned for in immortal conscious
ness that by the circumstances, some one IN inal
house which was his house, did the deed; that
there is total exclusion of every person IN the
world from the circumstance" OF the case; that
among the inmates Of that house was one VINO, more
than any other person in the world had the motive,
with malice afOrethOught, 10 premeditate and accom-
plisf that horrible deed that that person was woman
was this defendant and that clustering around all
these circumstances is the irresistible mental convection
that that deed was the deed of woman-a deed TO a
great extent unartIfcial-a deed planned and eontem
plated from different standpoint from which men OF
the world contemplate crime, perpetrated 10 great
extent with that ignorance of human nature which,
compared with men of the world, women at all times
in history have possessed and at all times IN our own
history claim. Ioa will perceive that there is an IN
slant distribution here of the personsthe dead and
the murderer and the circumstances clustering round
them both. You will cOnfine your attention TO TWO
nar of this whole case that part which relates TO the
and that part which relates 10 the circumstances
And who was the person citizen against whom no
reproach had been raiseda citizen who was said to
have enemies but far the prosecution have been
able 10 extend their Investigations, who had no enemy
whom YOU can call enemy, but this woman.
IL surely needs no words Of mine to recall 10 each OF
YOU the sensations and the convictions which hled
your breasts when in the morning at your breakfast
tables YOU read of this horrible deed II needs no
feeble words of mine TO bring before you the feelings
which you, fellow-czens. had regarding the effect
q Ia
discovered and venged in the language OF the law
by the speedy and retributive arm OF justice When
YOU stole to your homes at night, gancng up at the
little lights in the streets as II some feil ana DARK
shadow of death was upon your path; when, as you
closed your door end bedroom window, you looked to
see if, peradventure, the shaft of the inevitable
DESTROYER were there in the hand of some murderer the
hand of SOME unknown enemy Of yours No, gentle
mem recognize each Of you as citizen OF a
10 whom circumstances of this kind have
become familiar and household reflections
lie is dead, and the cold word of charity may say;
d" this memory lie forgotten" and she who was his
deadly enemy in life, lives, and, as yesterday upon
that stand as witnesses regarding your own purity,
yvur integrity and your unconsciousness of bias
or prejudice toward her. she challenged you III the
language of the law, to-day, as she sits there-a
yelled picture of sorrow as the world would say-she
you to-day jurors by her looks, demand
ing the sympathy which belongs, not to murderess,
but to woman and day by day, as you are to sit
here in the discharge OF solemn public duty, she
will continue to challenge your sympathy; and
eoquence and ingenuity will come to her AID,
u "a, St3- by li,at eioquence: " Re
-" member, gentlemen, you are trying woman We
appreciate fully the difficulties which the prosecution
labor under from the outset, but in the discharge of
our duty shall mince words before you, gentle
men. Crime has no SEX crime has no peculiar attrl-
butte of its owns no difference, when it sstlea in the
breast of the man, or in the other breast of the
woman. You are not here to judge the woman, but
the crime; you are not here to pronounce
alone upon the woman, but upon the person who |
is named in the indictment. Oh! it is no wonder !
that all these holy associations that cluster around the
name Of should force themselves into the jury
box when case Of this kind comes before the public
eye. When remember the mother of our prayers, |
when remember the sister Of our household adOra-
ton, when We remember the wife of life until |
death, when we remember the children who are to be
the future women of the world that sit upon our knee
and feel look upon young girlhood and grow
ing madenhoodwe say it ever be that this being,
upon which God Almighty has put his own seal of pur-
IT, should live to be the perpetrator OF crime the
midnight assassin to cherish hate and revenge and |
jealousy! And yet, when We open the book OF his |
tory, We are forced to come to the conviction that
crime knows no sex. While in earliest studies OF
Romish history we read of her who, having murdered
her husband, the servant Of imperial Rome drove her
chariot over the dead body Of her father and in the
time of imperial Rome, the name of Messalina has |
become a historical word and the Fulvia, when |
the head Of Cicero was brought TO her, she |
spat upon il, drew from her bosom, which |
had nourished children bodkin and drove it through
bis tongue until it quivered and the same dram. |
atst who speaks about the wife Of William Tell, |
will speak of her who toresw0re the very maidenho0d
purity of her name-Agnes, Queen Of Hungary, who |
bathed her feet in the blood of the Sxythree Knights
and said 1t seems if were wading in May dew
and the Evangelist who speaks OF her who was
as at the Cross and first at the grave, tells IN the
.ame Gospel of her who bore upon charger the |
head of her deadly enemy the forerunner ot him who
was the Savior of the world.
~ was woman once
thing 70 nourish children at my breasts.
And hear their angel " hispers IN my dreams
But now, with sorer travail deeds Of wrath
And chastity horrors take their birth from me-"
Remember the relationship which existed between |
The gentle and the loving Cordelia and the |
infamous Regan and Gonerl and the same |
bend who drew Rosalind, Cecilia and Beat |
rice, has handed down 10 immortality-for |