The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-06-20

Comment on the Performance of the Fall
River Police-How Lizzie Failed to See
Mrs. Borden's Body-The Story of the
Note and the Visit to the Barn-Dis-
trict Attorney Knowlton Begins His
Remarks.
NEW BEDFORD. Mass, June 19-The
ancient court room presented this morn
ing spectacle never before witnessed in
the history of Bristol county jurispru-
dence. The picture presented was
most interesting in it's varied tones, and
the scene was not without it's vivacity
and animation. Before O'Clock the
walters began to gather outside the bars
of the rude gate at the portal of the
court house. The great majority were
ladies, and some brought their lunch con
to supplement the hastily dispatched
breakfast. The crowd grew perceptibly
as the minutes lennthened into hours,
and at $50 both entrances of the court
house were fairly hemmed in.
The crush at the main entrance was
| something tremendous. 1t was impossi-
BILE to wedge ones way through the
mass which extended out over the gutter
into the middle of the street. Chief
Douglas had large corps of officers
around the building, but it was only
with great difficulty that a passage was
secured to the rear door. Inside the
lower corridor was filled with impatient,
p etulant, perspiring femininity, the fav-
! ored fair who had secured so much of a
| pull as to get at least foothold in the
| building. Sheriff Wright was, however,
monarch of all he surveyed, and his fiat
ruled both court and bar. Nobody got
| up stairs except by his gracious diction,
and the privileges were very sparingly
extended after the regular seats were
| filed. Before 8 o'clock every one of
those had been taken, and camp chairs
were at premium.
| Miss Lizzie Borden came in at S55 and
sat in her old chair within the dock. A
magnificent bouquet of carnations was
| given her as she took her seat. The
court was very prompt.
Sharply on the stroke of Hon. Geo.
ID. Robinson arose, and straigtening him.
| self to his full height amid impre ssive
silence, beganahis argument,
MIR. Robinson Said:
I One Of the most dastardly
and diabolical of crimes that
was ever committed in Massachusetts
was perpetrated IN August, 1892, in the
City of Fall River. The enormity of the
i outrage startled everybody and set all
into the most diligent inquiry as to the
i perpetrator of such terrible acts. Our
society is SO constituted, gentlemen, that
every man feels that the right must be
done and the wrong punished, and the
wicked doer brought to his account as
promptly as due procedure of law will
| permit. Here, then, was crime with
all it's horrors, and well may those who
| stood first to look at the victims have
felt sickened and distressed at heart,
| Who could have done such an act? saws
everybody. In the quiet of her home, in
the broad daylight Of an August day, on
the street Of apopulous city, with houses
within astoness throw; nay y,salmost with
in touch, who could have done it? Ar
inspection of the victims disclosed that
Mrs. Borden had been slain BY the use Of
some sharp and terrible Instrument, in.
/ tiicting upon her head IS blows, 13 oil
them crushing through the skull, andIbe
low Ceolio . lying upon Ilo SOld WAS MT
Borden's dead and mutilated body, with
eleven strokes upon the head, four o1
them crushing the skull.
The terrors of those scenes no languay ye
can portray. The horror of that mo.
ment we can all fail to describe, and do
We are challenged at once at the outset
to find somebody that is equal to the
emergency, whose bearing is blackened
with depravity, whose whole life is an
issue of crime, whose past is a prophecy
of that present.
A man, a fanatic, a fiend, we say, not a
man in his senses and with his heart
right, but one of those abominable pro.
ductions that Deity creates or suffers-a
lunatic or devil. So do we measure uI
the degree of. character, or most of it,
that could possibly prompt human be.
ing to such acts. They were well direct
ed blows. They were not the result o1
laundering. They were timed steadily
and constantly for purpose, each one
finding its place where it was aimed, and
none going amiss on the one side or the
other. A. -
Surely We are prompted to say at the
outset the perpetrator of that act knew
how to handle the instrument,was expe
rienced in it's control, had directed it be-
AOAS3 Va outA0Ac AiHA0 epitl ~ IT po AOo tllS
careless, sudden, unframed doing o
somebody who had been unfamiliar with
such implements. wta
Now, Suspicion Began to Fall
here and there. Everybody about there
even, was called to account, so far az
could be. That is proper. That is righ
and necessary. Investigation proceeds
The police intervene. They form thei
theories, they proceed to act. They cor
ner this one and that one. They follow
out this and that clue with care
They are human only. And when ono.
a theory possesses our minds you know
how tenaciously it holds its,,place and
how slow the mind is to find lodgment il
4 something else.
Now no decent man complains of in
vestigation. No one says there ough
not to have been anything done. Every
thing ought to have been done. Nay
more, we say everything was not done
and that the proper pursuit was no
taken.
i say, then, at the outset, as you begil
| fo CONTAIN pIatn this crime and itS ,,oos;