Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1913-04-24
CONDEMNED BY
PUBLIC OPINION
Woman Once Accused of Crime
Is Stunned by Her
Neighbors.
LIZZIE B0RDEN'S LONELY LIFE

LIZZIE BORDEN'S LONELY LIFE
Twenty Years Ago She Was Charged
With the Murder of Her Parents,
and Although Acquitted She Seems
Compelled to Live Alone, Except
for the companlonshipo Of Her serv.
ants.
~ ALL RIVER, MASS. = Twenty
u years ago Lizzie Borden, accused
of the murder of her father and
her stepmother, stood up in the
court room at New Bedford and heard
a jury of her peers pronounce the YER
dict of acquittal-heard them declare
to all the world that she was mot
guilty" of two of the most brutal and
atrocious murders that ever shocked
the country.
Today that same Lizzie Borden
lives a recluse, as damned by public
opinion and as ostracized by former
friends and enemies alike as II that
same jury had pronounced the one
word Guilty"
Lizzie Borden still lives in Fall
River, but as far as Fall River Is
concerned, Lizzie Borden is an out
cast, an Ishmael, social pariah. Her
name is uttered with contempt. and
ever her friends and relatives who
comforted her during the months of
her imprisonment and througout the
ordeal of her trial have long since
ceased their visits. Today her nearest
neighbors pass her by without a nod
or sign of recognition, writes Ger
trude Stevenson in the Boston Her
aid.
Twelve jurymen found Lizzie Bor-
den guiltless. Nevertheless, she has
been punished and prosecuted as no
other innocent woman in history. She
has lived to know the tragedy of a
verdict of acQuittal. She has come
to realize that Andrew ]. Jennings,
her counsel and friend, was true
prophet when, in addressing Judge
Blaisdell at her preliminary trial he
declared:
Don't. your honor, don't put the
stigma OF guilt upon this woman,
reared as she has been and with a
past character beyond reproach. Don't
let 1t go out in the world as the de-
cision of Just Judge that she ID
probably guilty"
Murder still unaven9ed.
After 20 years, when the deaths OF
Andrew ]. Borden and his wife are
still unavenged-when the double
tragedy still heads the list OF New
England's unsolved murder mysteries
with Lizzie Borden banished from
society, stunned by all who we're once
near and dear to her, the words of
Andrew J. Jennings may well be re-
membered as an example of mAsterly
and farsighted prophecy.
After 20 gears, Lizzie Borden lives
as shut of from the world as II she
were behind prison bars--condemned
to solitude by barriers stronger than
any prison wall could be-less tangi-
BILE but hundred times more effec-
tive than any bars of iron-the silent.
memorable censure Of her fellow men
and women.
This woman, who for two decades
has maintained the silence Of a
Sphinx, who has never asked for
mercy, never pleaded to be under
stood, never by any word or sign ex-
pressed indignation at the treatment
accorded her by the people Of Fall
River, lives in the great silent home
she purchased with her share of her
murdered fathers half million. know
ing no human companionship save
that which she can hire-no friend
ships except those of occasional
strangers who turn cold shoulder
upon her advances when they find
that she is the Lizzie Borden once
tried for murder-no affection save
that Of the dumb beasts with which
she has surrounded herself now that
human attachments are denied her.
When Lizzie Borden was acquitted
It was commonly believed that she
would soon shake the dust OF Fall
River from her feet. and that under
an assumed name she would try 10
live down the accusation that had
been made against her-that in new
places and among new people she
would attempt to find new interests
and new pleasures.
Bought House In Home City.
But Lizzie Borden apparently never
contemplated such procedure. AS
soon as the affairs OF her fathers
estate we're adjusted. she proceeded
TO purchase a handsome mansion in
the exclusive "hill section" of Fall
River-the very neighborhood she
had long and futilely tried to induce
her father TO enter.
To all intents and purposes the
woman planned to live among her
friends and acquaintance. just as she
had always lived. continuing to at.
tend the same fashionable Congrega-
tional church. entertaining and being
entertained. only now she had the adj
ded advantage Of several hundred
thousands Of dollars in her own right.
She had her horses and carriages. the
beautiful clothes she had always
longed for and which the thrift Of her
father and his second wife had pre-
viously denied her. Apparently, aside
from the shadow Of the tragic deaths
of her father and stepmother over
her life, everything that heart or
mind could desire was Lizzie Bor-
dap'a