District Attorney Knowlton’s Argument.
Knowledge of the splendid presentation of the case of the defence by
Mr. Jennings reached the streets almost in advance of its conclusion,
and the effect was apparent at the opening of the afternoon session.
The court room was crowded to excess, and there were larger throngs at
the entrances on the square than had been noticed since the opening
of the hearing. Everybody expected an interesting answer from the
District Attorney, and the gathering assembled to listen to it included
the leading professional men of the city. Attorney General Pillsbury
arrived at noon, and was seated beside the District Attorney, as the
latter began to speak. Lizzie Borden was pale as she entered, but she
flushed a vivid crimson as the District Attorney arose to speak. He
said: “I can fully appreciate Your Honor’s feelings, now that the end
of this hearing is about to be reached. The crime of murder touches
the deepest sensibilities of feeling. There is the deepest feeling
of horror about it, and above all in the unnaturalness that brings
the thrill of horror to every mind. The man who is accustomed even to
conflicts of arms may not be expected to be free from horror at the
thought of the assassin. While it was not a pleasant summons that came
to me, the almost despairing cry that came to me to come over here, I
should not have been true to duty if I had not undertaken to ferret out
the criminal. It was so causeless a crime. The people interested in
it were so free from ordinary bickerings or strife that of all cases
that transcend the ideas of men, this case was that case. The murdered
man’s daughter was arrested. I perfectly understood the surprise and
indignation that started up. I am sorry that Your Honor was criticised.
Does not Your Honor believe my own soul is filled with anguish that I
must go on and believe the prisoner guilty, and yet the path of duty
is not always the path of pleasure. The straight and narrow path is
often full of anguish, and does not have the popular voice behind it.
What is it we have done? There are three stages, yes, four, which are
junctions of the law in a case like this. First, the stage of simple
inquiry. I am sworn on that book before Your Honor that an inquest
shall be held, which is necessarily private. That step has been taken.
There then comes another stage, when by the laws of inquiry it finally
sees the evidence points to any particular person and such an occasion
as this follows. That is the present state. To that tribunal it is Your
Honor’s duty to direct such cases as seem too grave for Your Honor
to decide. Then the evidence appears to indicate that the balance of
probabilities is in favor of finding the accursed guilty of the act.
The Commonwealth advances no statements as to probable guilt. Your
Honor’s duty is before you. Let us go back to the pictures. They are
before you. Such was the scene presented four weeks ago this morning.
What are they? One is a man retired from business, of simple and frugal
habits, and so far as we know without an enemy in the world. If there
was some friction between him and his wife’s relatives, that domestic
and honorable lady was absolutely without harsh feelings on the part of
the world, yet she was murdered, and there was a hand that dealt those
blows, and a brain that directed them. There was not a man, woman or
child in the world of whom we could not have said, they would have done
it. But it was done. The presumption that some enemy killed him and
then killed her, for I presume that Your Honor will prefer the evidence
of the chemist, Prof. Wood, rather than the story of a Medical Examiner
who has not examined the stomachs, is that Mrs. Borden was dead fully
an hour and a half before the murder of Mr. Borden. Who could have done
it? As an eminent attorney once said, there is no motive for murder.
There is reason for it, but no motive. I never in all my experience saw
a man so utterly low as to believe him guilty of such a deed. But it
was done. By what? Obviously by a hatchet. The blows were struck from
behind. It was the act of a physical, if not a moral coward. It was
the act of a person who, while willing to murder, was not willing to
let the murdered people see who was doing it. As you listened to the
description of the blows, you are convinced of the fact that no man
could have struck them. You are struck with the thought that it was an
irresolute, imperfect feminine hand that could strike, and yet not with
the strength of a man, and we do not know who did it. It was not the
result of spite as first thought, but the blows were fast, swift blows
of somebody who had a reason for doing it. The first obvious inquiry
is, who is benefited by that removal. God forbid I should impute that
motive, but what have we before us? I don’t know what was the cause of
it. I have discovered the fact that she has repudiated the relation of
mother and daughter. I knew once two boys who in growing to be men
discovered that their father had committed a crime and called him Mr.,
but I never heard of another case of that sort. We’ve got the terrible
fact. She has repudiated the name of mother. Has Your Honor, as I have,
ever learned that no more lasting hatred ever springs up than between
step-parents and their children? We have seen that he didn’t provide
the house with gas, that he hadn’t in the house what those daughters
very much wanted, a bath tub, and that they quarrelled about property.
Do you suppose that was a sufficient motive? I grant that that is not
an adequate motive for killing her. There is no adequate motive for
killing her. But I have found the only person in the world with whom
she was not in accord. Let us look around and it cannot be imagined how
anybody could have got in or out. I listened to the eloquent remarks of
my brother and failed to hear him tell how anybody could have got in
there, remained an hour and a half, killed the two people and then have
gone out without being observed. Doors locked and windows closed. Here
was a house with the front door locked, the windows closed, the cellar
door locked and the screen door closed, with somebody on guard in the
kitchen. Nay, Mr. Borden locked the barn every night, and you can’t go
from one part of the house to the other without keys. That makes us
begin to think. Of course, this is negative evidence. Of course it is
neither sufficient, reliable or conclusive, but all evidence is made
up of circumstances of more or less weight. Yet from this house, on a
main street, near the centre of the city, passed by hundreds of people
daily, no man could depart without being seen. And that isn’t the most
difficult part of it. I can’t devise any way by which anybody could
have avoided those locks. Tell me not about the barn which Mr. Borden
always locked himself; the front door was locked when Mr. Borden came
in; there was not a hiding place when they came in; they could not
get upstairs to the front of the house by the back way; they must be
seen passing through the house; and I haven’t dwelt on the chances of
anybody escaping the notice of these five people and the refusal of the
human mind to accept such a possibility. I can conceive of a villain. I
can’t conceive of the villain who did this; and I can’t also conceive
of a villain who is a fool. All the movements of this family must
have been known, and so the mind, not the mind which is actuated by
sympathy and which I understand but cannot follow, because I am sworn
to my duty, but the impartial mind looks toward the house. There has
been no idle and unjust suspicion. It was natural that suspicion should
be directed towards the inmates of that house. Morse is out of the way
and then comes the servant girl, perhaps the next one thought of. The
discharge of my duties have found in my eyes no difference between
one class and another. When I came to Fall River I knew no difference
between honest and reputable Lizzie Borden and honest and reputable
Bridget Sullivan, and so Bridget Sullivan was brought here to what my
learned friend calls a star chamber inquiry, and was questioned as
closely and minutely as any other member of the family. The innocent
do not need fear questioning. In all my twenty-five years experience
will my learned brother say that he ever heard or knew me to treat
a female witness discourteously. She sitting in one chair and the
inquirer in another, presumably as innocent as anybody; and yet fault
is found that she is suspected when she answers questions in two ways.
I’m going to assume that Your Honor believes Bridget Sullivan has told
the exact truth. What took place, Bridget Sullivan? Mr. Morse went
off that morning and left Lizzie in the kitchen alone. The only time
when Mrs. Borden could have been killed. Mrs. Borden told her to wash
windows and she goes out to do it. Lizzie didn’t go up the back way
because she couldn’t get up that way. In the lower part of the house
there was no person left and Lizzie and her mother were upstairs. Then
Lizzie comes to the screen door. Maggie says, don’t lock the screen
door. Mr. Borden was then alive. Mrs. Churchill saw Mr. Borden go off
and then saw Bridget washing windows. Then the hatchet was driven
into the brain of Abby Borden. Many a man has been convicted because
he alone could have committed a crime. Maggie finishes her work, and
then, until Mr. Borden comes in, Lizzie and Mrs. Borden are alone
upstairs, and this is not all; Mr. Borden comes to the front door. I
don’t care to comment on Lizzie’s laughter at Bridget’s exclamation,
but Lizzie was where, if Mrs. Borden fell to the floor, she could not
have been twenty feet away from her, and where, if the old lady made
any noise, she could have heard it. Then Lizzie comes down stairs and
commences to iron. Bridget leaves her alone with her father. Less
than fifteen minutes later the death of Mr. Borden takes place. She
could have but one alibi, she could not be down stairs; she could not
be anywhere except where she could not see any person come from the
house. It is now more difficult in the cool of September than it was
at the inquest, to imagine the improbability of the story told by Miss
Lizzie. Where he was she can’t tell; where he came from she didn’t
know; where was she between the hours of nine and ten, when her mother
was killed; whatever else I may not say of Lizzie Borden, I will say
that for one to even suggest that from the time she found her father
dead she was not in full control of all her faculties, is to confess
that they do not know the facts. She has not shed a tear, and it is
idle for any one to say she has been confused or dazed. I asked her
where she was when her father came back, and we get this story: ‘I
was down in the kitchen.’ That’s the kind of thumbscrew I apply, and
it was a most vital thing. Almost a moment after: ‘Where were you
when the bell rung?’ ‘I think I was upstairs in my room.’ ‘Were you
upstairs when you heard the bell?’ No thinking now, no daze: ‘I think
I was on the steps coming down.’ Isn’t it singular, isn’t it a vital
thing that upon this most important subject she should not tell the
same story upon two pages of the testimony. I prefer to take the story
of one who gives the same answer twice, for I am not affected by the
heat and the turmoil which surrounds this case, and for which I have no
hard feelings towards anybody. Then I asked her: ‘What were you doing
while your father was out?’ and she said she was waiting for the irons
to heat. Unsatisfactory explanations. Isn’t it singular that I can’t
get a satisfactory explanation from her as to how she spent the hour
and fifteen minutes while her father was out and her mother was being
killed upstairs. Finally, however, she says after urging twice, she saw
him take off his slippers, when the photographs show he did not take
off his boots, and after speaking to her father she tells him that she
thinks her mother has gone out; and then she tells us that she went to
the barn. And when we asked her ‘where was your mother?’ She answers,
‘she is not my mother, but my stepmother,’ and her bosom friend, Miss
Russell, is compelled to testify that Lizzie told her she went out to
get a piece of something to fix her window. Then she tells Dr. Bowen it
was to get a piece of iron; then she tells the story of the fish line
and the sinker. I say to her, ‘Where did you spend twenty minutes or
half an hour on that hot morning?’ She says she went to fix a curtain
at the west end of the barn and ate pears there. Let me say I never saw
an alibi labor as this one does; you can see by reading that testimony
how she was away from home during the questioning. She was going to
that barn on the hottest of days to get something unnecessary. I don’t
say this is enough to convict her, but with Maggie’s story that she
had been where she could have committed the crime, there is something
to challenge our credulity. Relation of mother and daughter. There was
so little in common between the daughter and the mother that it was to
Bridget the mother gave notice of her intended movement, and not to the
daughter. We have it from Lizzie that her mother received a note from
sick friends. Who sent it? Where did it come from? It did not come in
the screen door, because Bridget was in the kitchen. Mr. Borden knew
nothing about it. Lizzie says she told him. Some laughter was heard
when a witness said a reporter was found sitting on the steps when the
first officer arrived. I am not one who joined in that laughter, for
the reporter in this case represents the anxious and agonized public,
who wish to know any fact in this matter and every point of evidence,
true or false. If there was any person in the world who wrote that note
would he not in the interest of humanity come forward. There never was
a note sent. It was a part of the whole cunning scheme, and if there
had been, and the writer of it had been in the remotest corner of the
world, he would certainly have come forward. It’s an easy thing to
say, but it is one of those things that, when a matter becomes public
property, cannot be concealed. Nobody, Your Honor, has said this family
was poisoned with prussic acid. All that the Commonwealth says is that
this was the first proposition. I intended to say at the outset that
the crime was done as a matter of deliberate preparation. Those young
men recognized her not by her voice, but recognized her and her voice.
Is there any different point of view in Lizzie Borden from any other
person who is accused of crime. We find here the suggestion of a motive
which speaks volumes. The druggist told her plainly she couldn’t have
it. Then how could this thing be done? Not by the pistol, not by the
knife, not by arsenical poisoning. There was but one way of removing
that woman, and that was to attack her from behind. That is a dreadful
thing. It makes one’s heart bleed to think of it. But it is done. I’d
rather resign my office than deal with it, but I will not flee from
duty. I haven’t alluded to and I think I will not comment upon the
demeanor of the defendant. It is certainly singular. While everybody
is dazed there is but one person who, throughout the whole business,
has not been seen to express emotion. This somewhat removes from our
minds the horror of the thing which we naturally come to. Atrocious and
wicked crime is laid to the door of some women. The great poet makes
murderesses, and I am somewhat relieved that these facts do not point
to a woman who expressed any feminine feeling. When Fleet came there
she was annoyed that any one should want to search her room for the
murderer of her father and step-mother. I know there are things that
have not been explained. It has been a source of immense disappointment
that we have not been able to find the apron with which she must have
covered her dress, and which must contain blood, just as surely as
did the shoes. It is a source of regret that we have not been able to
find the packet, but she had fifteen minutes in which to conceal it.
This was not a crime of a moment. It was conceived in the head of a
cunning, cool woman, and well has she concealed these things. If Your
Honor yielded to the applause which spontaneously greeted the close of
the remarks of my earnest, passionate brother, if Your Honor could but
yield to the loyalty of his feelings, we would all be proud of it, and
would be pleased to hear him say: ‘We will let this woman go.’ But that
would be but temporary satisfaction. We are constrained to find that
she has been dealing in poisonous things; that her story is absurd, and
that hers and hers alone has been the opportunity for the commission of
the crime. Yielding to clamor is not to be compared to that only and
greatest satisfaction that of a duty well done.”
[Illustration: OFFICER MICHAEL MULLALY.]
There was a deathly silence in the crowded court room as the District
Attorney concluded, and every eye was upon Judge Blaisdell. The
features of the kindly old magistrate were saddened, and he was visibly
affected as he commenced his remarks. He said: “The long examination
is now concluded, and there remains but for the magistrate to perform
what he believes to be his duty. It would be a pleasure for him, and he
would doubtless receive much sympathy if he could say ‘Lizzie, I judge
you probably not guilty. You may go home.’ But upon the character of
the evidence presented through the witnesses who have been so closely
and thoroughly examined, there is but one thing to be done. Suppose
for a single moment a man was standing there. He was found close by
that guest chamber which, to Mrs. Borden, was a chamber of death.
Suppose a man had been found in the vicinity of Mr. Borden; was the
first to find the body, and the only account he could give of himself
was the unreasonable one that he was out in the barn looking for
sinkers; then he was out in the yard; then he was out for something
else; would there be any question in the minds of men what should be
done with such a man?” There was a brief, painful pause, and the eyes
of the Judge were wet with tears. Then he resumed: “So there is only
one thing to do, painful as it may be—the judgment of the Court is
that you are probably guilty, and you are ordered committed to await
the action of the Superior Court.” The glance of every person in the
room was on Lizzie as the finding of the Court was announced. She sat
like a statue of stone, totally unmoved, and without the slightest
evidence of emotion or interest in the proceedings. Her aged pastor
beside her placed his hands over his ears. He knew what was coming,
and could not hear the words. The white faces of all in the court room
rendered the seance particularly impressive. Then the prisoner stood
up, still with that same impassive countenance, and far-away look.
She listened quietly while the clerk read the sentence of the Court,
ordering her confinement in Taunton Jail until the session of the grand
jury on the first Monday in November. At the conclusion of the words,
she seated herself quietly, and after a few minutes left the court room
escorted by the sorrowing old clergyman. After this there were a few
formalities. The recognizances of Bridget Sullivan and John V. Morse
were renewed, Marshal Hilliard and Officer Seaver becoming bondsmen
for the domestic and ex-Congressman Davis for Mr. Morse. Col. Adams
announced that the attorneys had agreed that the piece of blood-stained
plaster should remain in the possession of the Clerk, and with that,
the case came temporarily to an end.
[Illustration: ELI BENCE.]
[Illustration: THE GRAND JURY.]