The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1893-06-21
WEDNESDAY. JUNE 81. 1898.
This paper is Democratic IN principles and
independent in ats uieacs ont all local questions
The Borden Verdict.

The verdict in the Borden case was
just what was to be expected. 1t was,
besides, just what it ought to be.
There was something in this case be-
yond the mere ordinary ''beneit of
doubt which called for such a YER
dict. Lizzie Borden ought to have been
acquitted not merely because she was
not proven guilty, but still more be-
cause she was made the victim of il
legal and tyrannical methods by the
State, because if the methods used
against her had won sanction from
judges or jurors they might have
passed into precedents subversive of
the common law liberty which is our
best personal heritage. No good citi-
zen should feel any sentiment but one
of satisfaction at the verdict regis
tered. 1t is a verdict in the interest
of every man, woman and child in the
community.
But does this verdict clear the name
and fame of Lizzie Borden from the
terrible suspicion of having commit
ted these awful butcheries? We fear
it does not. We fear that the evil
dence, between what was omitted and
what was excluded, almost sufices to
convince every one who read it fully
and impartially that she did the deeds
of which she was accused, or at least
it sets up an overwhelming prepon-
derance of probability in the direction
of her guilt. The speech of Mr..
Knowlton was a most terrible weav-
ing of the facts and the arguments
against the woman. 1t did not
amount to absolute demonstration
for the elements of positive proof
were not furnished by the evidence,
but it was deadlily impressive; there
was NO such thing as answering it's
propositions or evading its deductions.
Mr.. Knowlton's speech in itself could
not take the place of evidence with
the jury, but so far as the public are
concerned we should think it would
be pretty nearly final.
In this case, we are placed in a
dilemma between two alleged impos-
sibilities. the one mainly physical, the
other mainly psychologist. The prose-
cution holds it impossible from the
actual material circumstances of the
case that anybody but Lizzie Borden
should have done the killing in the
old Fall River house last August.
They tried but were not allowed to
introduce some quasi-psychologic cor
roboration in the proof of Lizzie Bor-
den's mental state, the presence of
motive and her embarrassment and
her contradictions in trying to ac-
count for the various facts of the MUIR
der. Out of all their material, they
fabricated a terrible case of probable
ity.
The defense set up the alleged
psychologist impossibility of a re-
spectacle young woman of Miss
Berden's general character and ante
cedepts committing such a hideous
and unnatural butchery. This as
their main case. They bolstered it up,
it is true, with many physical items
OF corroboration,-the absence of
blood upon the accused, and the
great physical strength displayed. in
the commission of the crimes; still,
&ha ar~,o,orf frop, tbo o~CvohoIoOio
point of view is the only substantial
thing they had to oppose to the
State. With it they set up a tre-
mendous sense of improbability, and
laid the burden of overcoming it up
on the State.
As between the two sides of the
dilemma, we prefer to think-on gem
eral principles-that the error is in
the alleged psychological impossible
ity rather than the alleged physical
one. There is enough in the history
of crime to show that women are
sometimes capable Of the same ex-
cesses of brutality. the same refine
ments of cruelty, the same delibera-
ton, the same ingenuity in destroying
human life as the most deprayed men.
Neither is the previous record of an
accused woman an unanswerable
argument. for in the cases of women
even more than men is it true that
the temptation to crime may work
almost superhuman changes in the
mental and moral structure, or if one
prefers to SO regard it, the feminine
mental and moral superficies furnishes
q better veil for latent instincts OF
crime and cruelty.
In a few days now, the Borden
mystery will lapse into a converse
tional back number. But nothing,
we believe, will ever clear Lizzie Bor-
don of the EXTREMIST suspicion save
and except the discovery by God
knows what accident. OF the highly
problematical somebody else who
may have committed the crime.
~DlSB0R0UGIl CASE ENDED.
Specidz to TIE jersey City Ne,ps
ur----~-x -. a. 4oa1 prt,o Tf-b1ro.~j, III