CHIEF JUSTICE MASON.
CHIEF JUSTICE MASON.
CHIEF JUSTICE MASON.
Then the government does not want that dress, but another. They want the bedford cord. We will talk about it, then. Let us look at it. Suppose they had this bedford cord. Lizzie had it on this morning, you say. This is the present theory. The government said she had it on up to 12 o’clock, so that she did not change to the pink wrapper until that time. The witnesses all say and every single person who has testified that while she was there and about with them, including Mrs. Churchill, Bridget and Dr. Bowen, Mrs. Bowen and others, there was not a particular spot of blood on it. They say there was no blood on her hands, her face or hair. I am talking now of the dress principally. Now recollect that she had that on. Policemen were coming in all about there. She was lying on the lounge. They tell you that that dress was covered or had blood spots on it andnot a living person saw or suggested it. Suppose she did burn it up—the time that had elapsed for observation would be long enough. They had all had it to look at at that time. They had all seen her and every one says there was not a spot of blood on it. So you see you start with a dress that every one of the witnesses they produced says did not have blood upon it. Now, you have removed from that all idea that that dress was burned with a wrongful intent, because all the witnesses say it was perfectly clear of blood. Now, what more? That dress was in that closet. You, gentlemen, saw it over the front door, and there it remained. In that closet were eighteen or twenty dresses, and the government witnesses claimed that they did not see any such dress, notwithstanding that Miss Lizzie had eight blue dresses of different shades in that hall closet. They examined and did not see any that had a particle of blood upon them, and so the pretense of the government is that the dress was not in there, but Miss Emma says that when she came home on Thursday night she went to the closet room to put away her clothes and that on Saturday night she was there again and that dress was hanging on the second row of the nails that were driven into the edge of the shelf. She says she discovered that old dress hanging there that had been covered with paint ever since May, and by covered with paint I mean stained and daubed with it. She spoke to Lizzie about it, saying, “Why don’t you get rid of that thing. I can’t find a place to hang my dress on?” It had been in there, and on Saturday night they ransacked this place and found the dress which they supposed had blood upon it. They carried it to Dr. Dolan, who made the discovery, certain to their mind, that would convict this woman, and so they did not want anything else. They went through the form of looking over everything else, but had got the damning evidence here; but when Dr. Dolan conversed with a man who knew something, they were told it was not blood at all, and then they said: “Get another dress.”
Now, is it true? Was there grease or paint on it? We have brought you the painter here that painted that house a week earlier in May, and we have brought a dressmaker who made the dress, and the painter has told us that Lizzie did the superintending of the painting, and got up at 6 o’clock in the morning to see that the paint was of the proper color, and says that she tried it upon the side of the house. You have heard Mr. Grouard, who testified that that dress had got soiled, and said that it was not fit to wear. And then it was not worn of any account except on the days when shehad dirty work to do, and Emma knew about it, Mrs. Raymond knew about it, and it is the indisputable fact that it was besmeared with paint and it was not fit for anything else. Why, we are talking about a dress that did not cost but twelve-and-a-half or fifteen cents a yard and took eight or nine yards to make it, and did not cost altogether when it was commenced probably over two dollars, and was not good for anything after they got it done, because the material was so poor, wearing out and fading out. And then it got dirty, got paint on it, and what more did they want of it? As Emma said, “Put it out of the way. Why do you keep the old thing?” This morning, you remember, was after the police had searched everything in the house so completely that there was nothing more to be found unless they took the paper off the walls and the carpets off floors, and we will take their word for it. Unless that, there was nothing more to be seen and nothing more to be found, and they had all they wanted, and had got her clothes and her stockings, and even an unmade dress pattern, and wanted to see if that had not been made up into some sort of a mantle to wrap her up in. They had got the whole thing, and had looked over everything, and had taken all they could find and all they wanted, and notified them they had all got through. Then, in obedience to Emma’s injunction, Lizzie walks down into the kitchen with it that Sunday morning, the windows all open, no blinds shut, policemen in the yard looking right in at everything, that was going on, and deliberately and in the presence of Emma—Emma saying to her “Well, I think you had better do it”—put it into the fire and burned it up. Had not she time enough Thursday morning down to that time to burn it up without anybody knowing it, if it was covered with blood? Had not she time enough to get it out of the way, and if she had that purpose to cover up this crime, if she had committed it, would she have burned it in the presence of her sister and Miss Russell and said she was going to do it? That is not humanly probable. Now, you have got the whole thing about the dress. There is no concealment about it. And when Miss Russell, in her trepidation, and having been advised by somebody about it, came to her and said: “I think you have done the worst thing you could in burning that dress,” Lizzie spoke up in her prompt and honest way, saying, “O, why did you let me do it, then?” reproaching them for not advising her against it. And, truthful as they are, when they knew Miss Russell had been questioned about the matter, they said tell all you know about it. And Miss Russell walks to the man Hanscom and says she has cometo tell him because they said go and tell about it. Lizzie said: “Go and tell all about it.” It does not hurt people, sometimes, to tell the truth, to tell all about it. But, gentlemen, hang upon that one blue dress. They have it in the testimony now; they know all about it. Their own witnesses that they bring do not help them at all in this theory. But I ask them this: If Lizzie Borden killed her mother at9:45o’clock that morning and then was ready to come down stairs and greet her father and meet him, having on the blue dress, do you think that is probable, besmeared and bedaubed as she would have been with the blood of the first victim, standing astride and chopping her head into pieces by these numerous blows, blood flying all over the walls and furniture, on the bed and everywhere, and she wasn’t touched at all with blood? Then, of course, they are going to say: “O, but she changed her dress, and then, when she killed her father she either had that back again or put on another.” Did she have it back again? Then she had to put that on over her clothes again, and over her person, exposing herself to have her underclothing soiled in that way, a thing not probable in any way. And then, if she put on another dress, then there were two dresses to burn instead of one. The government only wants one; they have all the rest. Think of it. She walked right into that sea of blood, and stood there, slashing it over herself in the first murder; then went and took off that dress and laid it away until her father came in, and then dressed herself for the second slaughter. Then they say that she murdered these two people because Mrs. Reagan, I forbear almost to mention her name, came up here and told you that those sisters had a quarrel, and that Lizzie said to Emma, “You have given me away.” Gentlemen, if there is anybody given away in this case, it is Mrs. Hannah Reagan.
We have got right over among the reporters for the solid truth, now, and we have got John R. Caldwell and Thomas F. Hickey, and John J. Manning. They came from different papers and different cities, and these gentlemen tell you they went to Mrs. Reagan and she said there was not a word of truth in it, and while Mr. Caldwell was trying to find out the facts from Marshal Hilliard, that official, in the abundance of his politeness, told him to get out. My learned friend asked Hickey if it was not a “scoop” between theBoston Globeand theBoston Herald.
And they say that possibly she contradicted herself on some little things, and you noticed the humor there was about it when Philip Harrington said, “I advised her not to submit to another interviewthat day.” I thank him. But in walked the rest of the score, and they proceeded to interview, not asking Harrington’s leave, and Harrington himself went there that night again to try his search over with her. That is the way they dealt with her. Now, gentlemen, there is not one of them that, interpreted in the light of the common every-day transactions in the household, is entitled to your credit. And if not, then you cannot group them so as to make them strong or of any influence. She did not try to get Bridget out of the house. If she had undertaken to do these deeds, think you not that she would not have sent Bridget down street to buy something, to go for the marketing, to go to the store, one thing and another? Or send her on some errand, and then have had time undisturbed. You know that she would. But instead of that, everything goes on as usual, and Bridget was about the work. Lizzie happens to walk out to the door, and Bridget says to her, “You need not lock the door, I will be around here.” Bridget knew what the habit of that house was, and so she said, “You need not lock that door, I will be around here.” So Lizzie did not lock it. Lizzie called her attention later after she got the work done, and that they say, after Mrs. Borden was killed, she called her attention to locking the doors if she went out, because she herself might go out. And she spoke to her about the cheap sale at Sargent’s, and there is no doubt about that being true, because they could readily find out in Fall River whether there was any cheap sale at Sargent’s at that time. Now, these are the grounds on which the government will claim or has claimed, and I don’t know what other theories they have claimed, the guilt of the prisoner.
Who did it, and what did it? You see last year they had the theory about these other things, and if they could have tried the case at that time they would have sought to convict this woman on those first four. They now do not dare to say that they would ask to convict her even upon these. They say it may have been. Is the government, trying a case of may-have-beens? Will the judges tell you, as they charge you, that you can convict this defendant upon a theory that it may have been. I think not. Never. And, if they cannot tell you that that is the implement that committed the crimes, where is it. Fall River seems to be prolific of hatchets. Perhaps if we wait awhile there will be another one born. Possibly the district attorney, or the officers over there—not the district attorney, for I don’t think he has anything to do with it, to do justice to him, or possibly some officer, will find some other hatchet and want to bring it in. Well, we are thankful, gentlemen, that this woman was nottried last August or September, because then, if she had gone to trial on the things that are now declared to be innocent, and they had convicted her with the cow’s hair and the appearances of blood, she possibly would now have been beyond their recall, although they had actually put her to death wrongfully. So much for the theory of experts. And now we are asked at this time to take up another one that they do not vouch for and that they did not dare to stand on, and we are asked to submit this defendant to that incriminating evidence which they say they are not sure about or may have been, and they want to convict her now on things they do not know anything about and do not claim to know anything about, and put it out of their power, six months hence, to tell them if she knows anything about somebody else committing these murders. They have had her for ten months in close control. It has been irksome and wearisome and wearing. Bad as the government would represent her home to be, and falsely so; bad as they would picture it, it is a paradise compared with a jail, and they have transferred her, such is the process of the law, from her home into the custody of the State. And they thought that Tuesday’s sickness and Wednesday morning’s sickness was caused by some irritant poison. But Mr. Wood said: “No, everything is all right; no blood, no poison, nothing whatever.” He has practically said to these men: “Hold on, you are going too far; you cannot go this way.” Now failing in that, as I argue to you, they have unmistakably, they proceed upon the theory, who did it? Now we are not obliged to resort to that, as I told you at the outset. The question is, is this defendant a guilty person, and that is all. But they say, and they said they would prove to you, that there is exclusive opportunity. Well, gentlemen, I meet it right squarely. I say that if they can lock into that house Bridget and Lizzie alone and without having any other way for any other person to get in, and no other person does get in, and two persons are found dead, I am ready to say that Mr. Borden did not kill his wife in that way and then afterward kill himself. I am sure about that. But the exclusive opportunity is nothing but an anticipation that was not realized, as I think we have shown you.
They said nobody else could have done it. Emma was gone. Morse was gone. There is no doubt about that. Bridget was out doors, they said, and later in her room. They said that the defendant was really shut up in the house with the two victims and that everybody else was actually and absolutely shut out. Now I think you and I will agree about the evidence. The cellar door was undoubtedlylocked; I mean the one outside. I have no doubt of that. The front door in the usual course, so says the evidence, was bolted up by Lizzie Wednesday night and unbolted by her Thursday morning. Now they assume she bolted it Wednesday night, but they are not going to assume, I suppose, that in the usual course she unbolted it Thursday morning, but I do, because that is the evidence, leaving only the spring lock on when she unbolted it. They say you do not know that. Well, I say, you do not know it, and you have got the burden of proof, not I. It was fastened by the bolt when Bridget let Mr. Borden in, that is true—the bolt and the key.
The side screen door, gentlemen, was unfastened from about 9 o’clock to10:45or 11. That is when Bridget was washing windows and about the house and around the premises in the way she said she was. Now, if that door wasn’t locked, gentlemen, Lizzie wasn’t locked in and everybody else wasn’t locked out. Was it so, the screen door unfastened? You know Bridget said to Lizzie, “You needn’t lock the door, I am going to be around here.” There is no doubt about it. Bridget says she didn’t lock it. Then there was a perfect entrance to that house by that rear screen door, wasn’t there? And when the person got in all he had to do was to avoid meeting Bridget and Lizzie. Bridget was outdoors, she wasn’t in the way, and therefore there was but one person in the house so far as appears, one person below, against whom the intruder could run. Now, look at it. Bridget was outside talking with the Kelly girl, over there on the south side, away off at the corner. She said plainly and decidedly there was nothing to hinder anybody going right in. Mr. Borden had gone down street and there was nobody there on the outside but Bridget, and she was everywhere on the outside. She washed the parlor windows. You know how those are. She couldn’t see the side door when she was there. She went to the barn seven or eight times for water, she says: it may have been more. She was at the dining room windows on the north side of the house; and she said that when she was there she couldn’t even see into the dining room, because the windows are so high that unless a person stood up close to the window they couldn’t see in.
Now, see the significance of that. The government will be going to claim that she stood there and she could have seen way across into the sitting room. But she could not. She was washing the windows with a pole and brush, she wasn’t up on the steps on the outside. And then Lizzie was about the house as usual. She was in the house and about the house. Doing just the same as any decent woman does,attending to her work. Ironing handkerchiefs, going up and down stairs, going down to the cellar, to the closet. You say these things are not all proved? No, but I am taking you into the house just as I would go into the house, for instance, and say, what are your wives doing now? Well, doing the ordinary work around the house, getting dinner. Well, where do they go? Undoubtedly they are going down stairs for potatoes, going out into the kitchen, to the sink room, here and there. You can see the whole thing. It is photographed in your mind. It is just the same there. She was ironing, she was in the dining room. Bridget says she don’t know but she had the dining room door shut to keep the heat out, and she would have occasion to go down cellar for reasons stated. Might she have gone into the parlor for anything? There was a clock there. There are various things you might think about. Now, suppose the assassin came there, and I have shown you he could without question, the house was all open on the north side, and suppose he came there and passed through. Suppose Lizzie was upstairs, suppose she were downstairs in the cellar. He passed through. Where could he go? Plenty of places. He could go upstairs into the spare room, right up the front stairs, and go in there; he could go into that hall closet where you opened it and looked in, and where two men can go in and stand; he could go into the sitting room closet; he could go into the pantry there in the kitchen; you saw that. He could go into various places. He could go into just such places in that house as all these thieves run into if they can find a door open. So it was easy enough for a man to do that. It was easy enough for him to go up into that bed chamber and secrete himself. Now, what is going to be done? He is there for the murder; not to murder Mrs. Borden, but to murder Mr. Borden. And he is confronted and surprised by the former. And he knows—possibly he is somebody that she knew—you do not know, she cannot tell us—somebody that would be recognized and identified, and he must strike her down; and his purpose to kill Mr. Borden would not stop at the intervention of another person, and Lizzie and Bridget and Mrs. Borden, any or all of them, would be slaughtered if they came in that fellow’s way.
Now, at that time in the morning, with the opportunity to go in there and go up into all the house, and when he went in there and had murdered Mrs. Borden in that front chamber, Lizzie could pass up and down stairs, and could go to her room, and know nothing about it, see nothing about it, because of course he did not have the door open and disclose himself. She could pass up and down stairs.There is no trouble about that, closed door or open door. And when he had done his work, and Mr. Borden had come in, as he could hear him, he made ready then to come down at the first opportunity, and when he came down he would very naturally leave the door open, and so they found it afterward, the door, I mean, to the spare chamber. He could come down, and he was right at the scene ready. Bridget was outdoors, Lizzie outdoors, on all the evidence, which you certainly believe. And then he could do his work quickly and securely, and pass out the same door, if you please, that he came in at, the side door. Now, that is not all. It is well enough to see that a person could come in at the front door. The bolt slid back in the morning, the latch locked, a man can open that door, they all say, by giving it a pressure and trying to come in. And when he gets in what does he do? He doesn’t want to be surprised. He locks the door himself, he takes care of himself, and then when Mr. Borden comes it is slid back by Bridget and left in that way. It is easy to see all these things. You can see then how everything in this idea of exclusive opportunity falls to the ground, because there was no exclusive opportunity.
Now, it is not for us to maintain a theory. It is for the government to prove theirs. You may adopt a theory just as well as I. You may find other theories, as I have no doubt you will as you look at this evidence. You will see other ways in which persons could enter that house by which the exclusive opportunity theory is overturned. It is not a matter for you to sit down in the jury room and criticise the theory that I have advanced to you, because you are going to sit down in the jury room and criticise the theory that the government advances, and you will see that it is vulnerable, and when you see that a person can take one of those theories as well as another, you will hear from the court that you cannot convict upon such evidence, because all the essential facts must be in harmony with this charge against the prisoner, and must not be in harmony with any other theory or any other reasonable explanation. Now, there are two or three things which in the hurry of speaking this morning—perhaps you thought I had not hurried, but speaking rapidly, they were inadvertently passed by—little things, but I want to speak of them before I pass on. Miss Lizzie was ironing downstairs, and there cannot be any question about that. Bridget says so and you recollect the testimony of Miss Russell and Mrs. Holmes, that that morning when they were clearing up they found the handkerchiefs that she had ironed in part, and the sprinkled ones werecarried upstairs and put away separately by themselves, a dozen or more. You see that it is genuine; it is not a fiction. It is really one of those little things that help to establish the truth. I must also in this connection speak of Mr. Medley’s testimony, because the commonwealth relied upon Mr. Medley to make the examination, as he said, of the dust in the barn, to show you that Miss Lizzie could not have walked on the upper floor. Now, if you could be sure of that there would be some test in it. If you did not see a track through freshly fallen snow you would say no person had passed there. It would be a little more doubtful about walking on a floor, but when you find a detective looking after this thing, you begin to suspect that he may be in error, and when you find as you do by the testimony, a half a dozen or more people up there in that barn walking around before Mr. Medley got there at all, as it was proved upon the testimony there had been when he got there, and when he met Mr. Fleet and where he met him, between the gateway and the back steps, and then went directly into the house, Sawyer being at the door, you see how unreliable his testimony is. Well, then, you have the testimony of Mr. Clarkson and you have that of Mr. Manning and Mr. Stevens and the two boys that called themselves “Me and Brown,” Barlowe and Brown. Now, those boys, like all boys, just the same as you and I when we were boys, wanted to go upstairs, to look at things about there and stay as long as they could, and it appears they went there and were out in that barn before Mr. Medley came there. He went into the house and talked with Miss Lizzie and was some minutes in the house before he went to the barn. So when he got there there had been people all about there, and those people give their testimony in such a way as to carry the conviction of truth in their statement, so that you find them up there and walking around in the very place where Mr. Medley went to look, and it shows you that Mr. Medley must have been in error. His detection was not so sure as he thought. He was mistaken about it, consequently while he may have honestly meant what he said, I do not call that in question for the time being, but I want to say that that is not anything which you can depend upon under these circumstances, and when you find him confronted with three or four other witnesses, John Donnelly and the boys and Clarkson, there can be no question that Mr. Medley is mistaken, so that we have in addition to the positive proof that Miss Lizzie went to the barn, to which I called your attention this morning, the affirmation of these other witnesses that they were there, and Mr. Medley finds nobody to support him.
Why, do you not all think with me of what a blessed Providence it was that interfered with that girl, so that as she walked about that house, passing from the sitting room into the dining room and hall, she did not step on some of the blood and have it on her shoes? Anybody else, according to the theory of the government, could have stepped on that blood and have bloody shoes, but if Lizzie had walked there just the same as any other person innocently, and there had been so much as a pin head stain upon one of her shoes, it would have led her to the severest penalty on their theory. See within what close limitation we walk in commonest things and see how close we come to precipitate of danger when we find any part in the wrong. Why, upon the theory of the government—no, it isn’t the theory of the government, for I really do not know what it is, but the handleless hatchet down there in the box, the theory being for the time, if it is a theory and is indulged, that she ran down and put that through a course of washing, scraping with ashes,etc., and threw it up in the box after breaking the handle off, as claimed, and then got rid of the handle; they say that they found it there, and put it right up into the box to which she directed Bridget to go with the officers and find the hatchets and axes. Why gentlemen, she is not a lunatic or an idiot. She is a great colossal contriver of wrong and murder, shrewd, discriminating, far-seeing, with premeditated malice aforethought, and planned all this thing. Well, she did not plan so foolishly as that. She would not send officers to find the very thing and in the very place where she had put it. She burned no clothing that day. She put none away. They tell us nothing about that with all the vigilance of their searches, and you know that the officers say that when they went there first, and looked in that box down cellar, they took out the two smaller hatchets that were on top. Now, whatever the theory, or any theory of the government in regard to that hatchet, you have got to assume she was down there and washed it up and got it all clean beyond what science can do, and got the blood out of it, and then broke off the handle, and went herself and took out the other two hatchets so as to get this old one underneath, and then she had it all covered with ashes, too. And when they found it that Thursday afternoon it was all dry and covered with dust like the other. They undertake to tell you it was coarser dust. Just see into what a labyrinth of impossibilities and improbabilities they try to lead this woman. Then she had to run upstairs, run up to her own room and make a change, run down cellar and take care of herself, and take care of the hatchets, upon their theory, run backagain and get up there and call Bridget—all in that short space of time. I said it was morally and physically impossible. You may find her not guilty, if that be your judgment, for two reasons. One because you know that it has not been proven. And the court will tell you that if, when you reach that point in your decision, you are not satisfied and convinced as reasonable men, beyond a reasonable doubt, no matter what your suspicions may be and what you may think about it otherwise, you have but one duty to perform and one that is safe to you to render in this case.
You may have heretofore thought things looked dark for her. You may have said, “If they can come into the court and show all the things I have seen in the newspapers, gossip and rumor and report, I might feel that I ought to, but now that I find the government’s case only the thing that it is, insufficient, weak, contradictory, critical, lame, why, I have nothing else to do in my conscience but to say to Massachusetts, we have this woman in charge, you have not proved it against her, we still keep charge of her, and we say to you, you have not proven this against her and she is not guilty.” But there is another ground. If, when you see through this evidence, you are satisfied again, convinced—which is more—you are convinced affirmatively that the woman is innocent, that you are entitled to say, “Not guilty,” and you are bound so to speak. It is rare that the defendant goes so far as to prove her innocence. It is not a task that is set before her. But I dare to speak to you upon that branch in this case with full confidence. Look at it for a period. Take the facts as they are, and I would not misrepresent or belittle any of them. I have not knowingly omitted any of them, for a purpose of benefit to the defendant. Take them as they are. What is there to prove to you absolutely, as sensible men, the innocence of this defendant? You go and search some other man’s house and let me alone. Search somebody else, I think he had some trouble with my father: that would be the policy of such a defendant. What was her conduct? Uniformly, openly frank every time, shutting all the doors against any person that might be put under this foul suspicion. Why, you say, shutting them against herself. Yes, it was the impulse, the outcome of an honest woman. Were she a villain and a rascal, she would have done as villains and rascals do. There was her uncle, John Morse, suspected as you heard, followed up, inquired about, and she is asked and she said, no, he did not do it. He went away from the house this morning at nine o’clock. Some one said Bridget did it. Now therewere but two persons around that house as we now find out, so far as we can locate anybody, and the busy finger was pointed at Bridget Sullivan—Bridget Sullivan, only an Irish girl, working in the family, working for her weekly pay, been faithful to them, been there two years and nine months, lived happily and peacefully with them and they have had no trouble, and Lizzie spoke out right determinedly, as you know, and promptly: Why, Bridget did not do it. Then somebody said: Why, the Portuguese on the farm. No, says Lizzie, he is not a Portuguese; he is a Swede, and my father has not any men that ever worked for him that would do that to him. Not Alfred Johnson that worked for them, not Mr. Eddy, another farmer that worked for them, no assistant—I cannot believe it of any of them.
How do you account for that except in one way? She was virtually, if she was a criminal, virtually putting everybody away from suspicion and leaving herself to stand as the only one to whom all would turn their eyes. Suppose she had been wicked and designing and Bridget as innocent as Bridget is to-day. Suppose Lizzie had undertaken to tell something that would involve Bridget, would it not have been easy? And it might have been. Then if she had led the way in treachery and repeated crime Lizzie might have led Bridget right into the toils in which she herself became involved to the relief of Bridget by her statement that Bridget is not to be suspected. It is not every human being who can stand that strain. It is not every man that has strength of purpose and purity of mind.
Did she ever stand in the way, or her sister likewise? Go, search everything, we will come and help you open everything. We will join you; find out all you can. Do all you want to here. Never a sign of reluctance. Never an intimation of objection is the unanimous testimony of everybody that went there. They say she was cool. Thank the Lord there was enough left of her so that she could be cool under the visitations of gentlemen who flocked there by the score. Her clothes, her dress, her unmade dress, her shoes, her stockings, everything, her absolute freedom from the marks of the crime, her readiness to do anything that was wanted, and then that scene of Saturday night which transcends all in exhibition of innocence. There has been that woman shut up in that house, the premises crowded by the police. She was virtually under arrest. She could almost feel the pressure of a hand upon her arm, and in that house on that Saturday night were the mayor and city marshal of Fall River, and in the parlor they called her, her sister and uncle together, and then they began that advising them—now notice howit was done, for this is an essential part of their case, they advised them that the family had better remain in the house.
Miss Lizzie says, why? Well, the mayor says, Mr. Morse, perhaps, can tell you. It was something that occurred down street last night, and then comes the question that from there Morse went down street and had some trouble. Now, that seemed to indicate that Mr. Morse was probably under suspicion, and Lizzie spoke at once as they spoke of putting officers around the house and said, “Why, is there anybody in this house suspected?” and the mayor says, “I regret to say, Miss Borden, that you are suspected.” Then she says, “I am ready to go now, or at any time.”
Gentlemen, murderers do not talk that way. Criminals are not so situated as to have committed this great and monstrous wrong and then have had that superb quietness of spirit and that confident feeling that wrong had been done her in the charge that is made, and the assurance within herself that, God knowing it, she is free and pure. Gentlemen, as you look upon her you will pass your judgment that she is not insane. To find her guilty you must believe she is a fiend. Does she look it? As she sat here these long, weary days and moved in and out before you have you seen anything that shows the lack of human feeling and womanly bearing. A word more. There must be no mistake, gentlemen. That would be irreparable. There can be but one mistake which nobody can ever right, and for which there can never be any atonement to her. If you make a mistake as against the commonwealth that is something which the future may correct, but if you go wrong as to this woman now, and go to the length of saying that she is guilty, and you have done it upon insufficient grounds and the improper findings, the case and the woman have gone beyond your control, and, so far as you can know, beyond the power of man. To condemn her as guilty of the diabolical crimes that have been described to you, when there remains any reasonable doubt in the minds of any one of you of the true verdict, would be so deplorable an evil that the tongue can never speak its wickedness. We say, the crier utters it, God save the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the prayer is heard in the prosperity of the old bay state, but little it amounts to if we hear some one pray to God for his guidance of the old commonwealth that when we have a prisoner in charge we forget that we can do a good deal toward saving the commonwealth and all her people. It will be little worth preserving if the innocent are to be executed and one calamity and wrong step fast upon the heels of another, and that, too, under the forms oflaw made as well to shield the innocent as to punish the guilty.
Do I plead for her sister? No. Do I plead for Lizzie Andrew Borden herself? Yes. I ask you to consider her, to put her into the scale as a woman among us all, to say as you have her in charge to the commonwealth which you represent, it is not just to hold her a minute longer, and pleading for her I plead for you and myself and all of us that the verdict you shall register in this most important case shall not only command your approval now, unqualified and beyond reasonable doubt, but shall stand sanctioned and commended by the people everywhere in the world, who are listening by the telegraphic wire to know what is the outcome as to her.
She is not without sympathy in this world. She is not having people by day and by night thinking it is not to be found out in Massachusetts that so great a wrong against her can be committed as to condemn her upon the evidence that has been offered. Gentlemen, with great weariness on your part, but with abundant patience and intelligence and care, you have listened to what I have had to offer. So far as you are concerned, it is the last word of the defendant to you. Take it: take care of her as you have, and give us promptly your verdict not guilty, that she may go home and be Lizzie Andrew Borden of Fall River in that blood-stained and wrecked home where she has passed her life so many years.