Crime Library - Closing Robinson, Page 4

         Now it is said that out of these contradictions and verbal admissions a verdict of guilty ought to come. Nobody will recognize better than you on the question of verbal admissions that it is not possible for anybody under the pressure of the moment to recite them just as they were given. A slight gesture or expression will tell what you mean. When a person tries to repeat them before 12 men, he leaves out the expression of the voice and the gesture, and you do not get the whole meaning of the phrase. Besides, when the person is charged with crime and officers are making inquiries, you have to be extremely cautious when you look at his statements, because the vigilant officer is watching for evidence of the crime, and he tries to recollect it just as he wants it, even if he does not have any design to do wrong, his mind is colored. So you find this young woman confronted by Harrington and Doherty and Fleet and Mullaly and Wilson and Medley and Desmond, all of them investigating and interviewing her in her room, with those bodies lying there untombed in that house before the funeral. And they say that possibly she contradicted herself in some little things: and you noticed the humor there was about it when Philip Harrington said, "I advised her not to submit to another interview that 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 they say that if these things, gentlemen, separately stand, any of them, put them all together and they will stand. 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 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 downstreet 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? No. 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---Lizzie was not trying to lock the door---there is no evidence of that---Bridget said, "You needn't lock the door, I will be around here." Bridget knew what the habit of that house was, and so she said, "You needn't lock the door, I will be out around here." So Lizzie did not lock it. Lizzie called her attention later, after she got the work done,---and that, they say, was 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. I have told you what was the position of the assailant in both the murders, and that is agreed to by all the doctors in every respect: they all put the murderer of Mrs. Borden astride the body, and they all told you and you all know it from your knowledge and common sense, that a murder could not have been committed under those circumstances striking into a skull filled with blood, flying in Mr. Borden's case from the severed cartoid artery, flying all over the parlor door, flying upon the hinge of the kitchen door, and not flying on that table that stood close by because the assassin as he stood there at the head of Mr. Borden was striking right across in this way and not striking off there, because the head was not off there: the table stood on the right and did not happen to receive any of the spots, but the person of the assailant in both cases must have been thoroughly covered and spattered. So say all the doctors, every one of them. Dr. Dolan tells us that Mrs. Borden's height was five feet three inches, and Dr. Cheever says that the wounds on the top of the head, were, in his judgment, caused by the assailant standing up and striking her when she stood up, and he says that would come from an assailant of a greater height, who would have to strike down. Now there is no evidence as to what Lizzie Borden's height is, but you have seen her walk in and out, and you have a right to say how near she comes to five feet three inches. You can judge. So that you take those facts, and you find the position of the assailant, and you find the results, and you find that the person, upon everybody's statement and without going to experts,---you know as a fact that he must have thoroughly covered with blood.
        Now what was it done with? The government has a theory about it, or at least seems to have a theory, and then does not seem to have a theory. And if we can tell---we shall know perhaps, bye and bye, but now we do not---we are in ignorance---we should like to know, I wish we could before have found out what did this deed. You have had all the armory of the Borden house brought here. First, these two axes. I put them down, because they have the seal of the Commonwealth to their credit when they are declared innocent. (Laying down the two axes). Then I pick up this one (holding up hatchet with plain head) and they tell me that is innocent and had nothing to do with it. I put it down in good company (laying hatchet down with the two axes). I pick this one up (picking up claw hammer hatchet) and they tell me today that that is innocent, and I put that down immediately in the same good companionship, except I want to talk about it. Let us see. The claw-hammer hatchet is four and a half inches wide on the edge. Dr. Dolan says in his testimony that that could be an adequate instrument and a sufficient instrument to produce all the wounds. Now remember about that fitting of that piece of tin into the skull. You have got the medical examiner, appointed and commissioned in this Commonwealth, saying that that is the hatchet with that breadth of 4-1/2 inches, that would have done these deeds, including those wounds upon Mr. Borden's head. Then comes Dr. Draper, who says that the cutting edge of the instrument which caused the wounds was 3-1/2 inches, not 4-1/2. Dr. Cheever says that he puts the cutting edge at 3-1/2 inches; it might have been very considerably less; it could be done by one 3 inches wide, possibly by one 2-3/4. These are our experts that they are talking about. We do not usually hang people upon the testimony of experts. It is not safe. You see that. Dr. Dolan says that that one fits the bill. Dr. Draper says that one 3-1/2 inches fits the bill. Dr. Cheever says that one 2-3/4 inches is sufficient. So, gentlemen, you are confronted with the actual fact in regard to this theory that a certain other hatchet, to which I will allude, of 3-1/2 inches, did the jobs, because the doctors themselves do not agree and they cannot agree and they do not know, and Dr. Dolan says that he maintained the theory, and he knows it now, held up to it then, that this was used because of that rectangular shape of the head the crushing blow upon Mr. Borden's head was caused. Now there you have it, one man saying that that is what did it or that is what could do it, another one saying that that could not do it, but that one 3-1/2 inches did do it, and then another one comes along and says it might have been a 3-1/2, but a 2-3/4 or 3 inch would do it, and would have accomplished it. And as you and I all know, when we strike a hatchet like that down into something and then pull it up---as we are standing over the object---you cut into a squash---did you ever try that on the floor?---strike down that way and draw it up---don't you know that you make a broader cut than just the blade of the hatchet? You can tell about that just as well as I. You have lived on a farm, some of you, and know those things. That is, if you strike it right down in and let it stay there, then I agree that you will get just the breadth of the edge of the hatchet: but if you stand up over it and strike in like that, and draw it out as a person would in striking rapidly those blows that have been described here, you would inevitably make a broader cut. Dr. Dolan is reasonable on the idea that you strike it right down in, perhaps, and there are blows on one of those heads that are as large as this or larger, while there are blows that are smaller than any of the hatchets that they bring here. So that you see there is nothing definite in this testimony that they have given here, and we find either that they come to this extremity---they say, "We experimented with a piece of tin on Mr. Borden's skull as we find it, and we say that it is 3-1/2 inches. But Dr. Cheever says it was not necessary for the hatchet to be that length; it could be done just as well with one 2-3/4 inches, and Dr. Dolan says it could have been done just as well with one 4-1/2.
        Well, then comes this little innocent looking fellow called the handleless hatchet, and that is the one on which you first think the government is going to stand. They have abandoned the claw hammer, so I will bring it down, somewhat disgraced by its former associations and suspicions, but just as innocent---all four of those---as is the defendant sitting here today: not guilty, all of them. They have been suspected; the police have had them; Dr. Dolan has sat on them. He found blood on them all, found human hair on one; sent off to the professor, and it turned out to be the hair of a cow. Blood on them all; and Professor Wood walks up and he says there is not a particle of blood on any one of them. Well, then they find this little fellow, and they find this down in the old cellar, thrown up in an old box that had old tools in it, and they find that covered all over with ashes, with the handle in the eye as it should have been, and assuming that it once had a handle that had disappeared from it, and of which it had been bereft, and it was lying there, of no account, and when the officers went down there and got those four that I have put aside as innocent, they did not take this handleless hatchet here. Now whether Mr. Mullaly or Mr. Fleet is right about it, there is no handle here now, and we will leave them to explore, and when they find it I hope they will carry it to the British Museum, because it ought not to stay in this country, and I hope they will be there to deliver a lecture upon it, to tell the astonished multitude which one of them found it and which one did not find it, and which one of them saw the other put it back into the box when he did not put it back into the box. That is their story, the way they stand. Now you have it, and they try to claim to you that this hatchet had something peculiar about it. Well, you will have it to look at. They say that it was all covered over with rust and all covered over with ashes, etc. I should expect everything to be covered with ashes. One of the policemen tells us it had been dropped in the ashes. Well, that is down cellar; it had been lying in the ash heap, and it was then. Mr. Borden, who never threw anything away,---who even carried home an old lock to save it and was going to put it up in his barn sometime, had probably put it away there to save it, and it happened to be in the ashes and was tossed there in the box and had fine dust upon it, and they say it had coarser dust upon it. Yes, I have no doubt that it had. I have no doubt there are farmers on the jury, and I have no doubt in your barns or your shops or cellar you will find some of these old things that you have thrown away. This is an Underhill hatchet---one of the kind that you and I remember well when we were young: there have been thousands of them in use all around in the New England towns. When you get your magnifying glass and examine it you will see the words upon the blade "Underhill Edge Tool Co." You can tell just as well as I, and you will not stop very long discussing these theories about dirt and dust and coarseness of ashes on that old hatchet down there in the cellar. You will not stop long there. I will not trouble you to find out about who wrapped it up in a paper, Medley or Desmond. That is of no account. That is one of the little by-plays in this case, and it only illustrates the peculiarities of the officers. It was carried off to the police station and left there on the floor, called of no account, and they went through the preliminary examination on the four that I have laid aside, and found in them sufficient evidence to convict this defendant until Professor Wood appeared upon the scene, and when he told them there was nothing on them and no significance about them, then they had got to look for something else. Then they went and got this handleless hatchet, which Mr. Fleet says when he found it he threw back in the box because it played no part. You recollect that. He said it played no part. They did not think it was of enough account to take it away: and it lay around there in the police station until August 30th before they paid any attention to it, when they picked it up and gave it to Professor Wood. Now they start on the theory that that handleless hatchet did the business. Why, gentlemen, that hatchet has got to be sharp enough to cut the eyeball, which you will make up your mind whether it would or not. It has also got to be sharp enough to cut Mrs. Borden's natural hair off as cleanly as a razor would do it, or a shears. Do you believe it? Cut a mass of hair right off like shears? It might tear it, snarl it up, break it, but not the other thing. Now this hatchet was not referred to at the preliminary examination at all. It formed no part. Fleet said it took no part, and it was of no consequence. He threw it back into the box with the others. Bearing upon the rust, do not forget that the box in which they were put was an old salt box. Did you ever have an old salt box that you put old irons in, that you did not find them rusty? That is a good place to put irons if you want to get them rusty. The remains of the salt in that box as the axe was thrown into it, would just be sufficient to rust that axe. It may be argued that there are no ashes on it, but you will have the magnifying glass, and I want you to look to it and see that this is a very porous piece of wood, and if there had been any blood it would have got into that end. Their theory, I suppose, is that it was used, and after it was used, washed thoroughly, so as to get all the blood off, and then the handle broken off by the person that used it. That is a very violent assumption, but that is their theory. And their theory is that it was all gotten off. But this piece of wood was inside of the eye, and Professor Wood tells you that blood will flow into a very narrow place. And he boiled it with iodide of potassium, and says he cannot get the slightest trace of blood. Even that telltale fluid that preached of murder was not found on it at all, and that is an innocent hatchet. Last summer it was the claw hammer hatchet, and Dr. Dolan and the officers found the marks of blood on it's blade, and on the handle, and they found the rectangular wound in Mr. Borden's head to confirm its use. They found the human hair on that, and on that they bind this woman over to await the action of the grand jury. Dr. Dolan said the cutting edge of that hatchet was adequate for any injury that appeared, and he says so now. There was no blood, as I tell you, and as a last resort they come in here timidly and haltingly at the opening of this case, and say, "We bring you this handleless hatchet, but we do not tell you whether it is the hatchet or not." It is pretty significant. It made us all pause and wait when the District Attorney, Mr. Moody, said in speaking of the break in the handle and you know that they could not, any of them, tell how long it had been made---there is not a man of them; although Mr. Seaver was a carpenter, he would not tell within six or ten months when that handle had been broken off: he said it was a fresh break, but it was not so fresh as to be within six months past or eight months or ten, and Professor Wood could not tell, and Mr. Moody cannot tell: he cannot tell he says, whether the break had occurred within 24 hours or 48 hours or within a week, but perhaps a break which might been a month old. It might have been a month old. Then it was broken before the murder. Then it could not have murdered anybody in this way, surely. And we know that whoever handled the hatchet must have had the leverage of a handle on it at least from 12 to 14 inches long. But more than that, Mr. Moody in speaking of that very handleless hatchet, says, "The government does not insist that these homicides were committed by this handleless hatchet: it may have been the weapon: it may well have been the weapon," He is a cautious gentleman. You do not catch any well grown Essex man putting himself in a place where he cannot get out. He says, "I bring you this and I hold it up to you, and I say that it is one without a handle, but," he says, "the government does not insist that that did it." He has before told you that all four of them on the floor are innocent. There they stand. They have been cleaned up by the Commonwealth's brush, and they are perfectly clean, wholesome and pure. And then he walks up to you and says, "I show you that, but I do not tell you that we claim anything of it." But it shows you that the District Attorney and his associate, the chief in this case, do not believe it did. Because Dr. Wood is at their elbow and telling them that there is not a spot on it, and there is not a sort of an intimation that can be made about it that stands justified.
        He has boiled it with the most searching of chemical fluids, that will bring even the smallest of corpuscles of blood to the surface, so he can find them, and it is as pure as the other four. It has been in such good company, it has got the endorsement of the district attorney, it has been said to you, "You may go too, we do not claim anything about you." I put it in good company. There they all are.
        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 a while 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---possibly some officer will find some other hatchet and want to bring it in.
        Well, we are thankful, gentlemen, that this woman was not tried 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 a thing they do not know anything about and do not claim to know anything about, and put it out of her 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 to be, and falsely so too, 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.
         Now, do they want to take the next step and pursue the quest for some other hatchets, or, failing in this, to find her guilty? Isn't it best to let the defendant live until all the theories are born and exploded, as they have already been? Gentlemen, you walk upon the edge of a precipice. You think you feel the hand of the Commonwealth guiding you, but it is not the hand of the Commonwealth. It is a fraud, it is a theory, born in an emergency at a time of disaster. It is a theory that was sought to be set up here to work a conviction, to which men have testified, I do not say dishonestly, but mistakenly. Walk with that theory and you will find it leads you into the dark, and abandons you when you find almost what you assume to be a resting place. Oh, save us from such calamities as that! Murder is bad enough, but murder at the hands of theorizing experts or practicing officers is terrible ten-fold more.
         When they were looking around for that hatchet last summer and couldn't find any more, the late Gen. Butler said,---and you know he had pretty keen insight and vigorous expression---he said, "Why don't they get Dr. Dolan to hold an autopsy on Lizzie Borden and find the hatchet?" That does seem to have been lacking. Other abandoned theories they have had. They had the stringy spot on this door post, of blood; and they would convict somebody of it on the theory that the person stood inside the door of the dining room and as he threw the handle of the hatchet over it struck there. Dr. Dolan said it was blood. Well, Prof. Wood examined it, and he said it was tobacco juice. There it is. It does play a very important part. They wouldn't even let these girls wipe that off for fear they couldn't convict Miss Lizzie. But they say nothing about it now, and I believe Dr. Dolan thinks it is not blood.
         Her shoes, and dress, she had blood on them. Now they find there is nothing of the kind. And they thought that Tuesday's sickness and Wednesday morning's sickness was caused by some irritant poison. But Dr. Wood said, "No, everything is right; no blood, no poison, nothing whatever." He has practically said to these men, "Hold on, you are going too fast, you cannot go this way." I have not time to elaborate, gentlemen, further upon that point.
         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 afterwards 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 outdoors, they said, and later in her room. They said that the defendant was really shut up in that house with the two victims and that everybody else was actually and absolutely shut out.
         Well, now let us see about that. If it was so it would be very strong evidence against the defendant, but if it is not so it has gone to the winds.
         Now I think you and I will agree about this evidence. The cellar door was undoubtedly locked. 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.
         Now how it was afterwards---because there is one officer says it was bolted afterwards---is of no consequence except as bearing upon the escape of the assassin by the front door. You get the point. It does not make any difference whether it was bolted afterwards or not so far as anybody's coming in is concerned, but it does make a difference as to whether he went out the front door, because if he did he couldn't have bolted the door behind him when he went out; and it doesn't appear anybody else did, and that is all the significance it has.
         The side screen door, gentlemen, was unfastened from about nine o'clock to 10.45 or eleven. 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 round 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 out doors, 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 says 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 steps on the outside.
         And then Lizzie was about the house as usual. She was in the house and about the house. What was she doing? 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 those things are not all proved. No; but I am taking you into the house just as I would go into your house, for instance, and say, What are your wives doing now? Well, doing the ordinary work around the house, getting the dinner. Well, where do they go? Undoubtedly they are going down cellar 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 was just the same there. She was ironing, and 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 the 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 were upstairs, suppose she were down stairs 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 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 places in that house as all these common 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 secret himself, to stay there, and when he is in there he comes confronting right onto Mrs. Borden. Now what is going to be done? He is there for murder; not to murder her, but to murder Mr. Borden. And he is confronted and surprised with her. 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. A man that had in his mind the 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 that house, and when he went in there and had murdered Mrs. Borden in that front chamber, Lizzie could pass up and down stairs and 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 find it afterwards; 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 into the front door. The bolt slid back in the morning, the latch lock on, 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 enough to see all these things.
         We say that nobody saw him go in, and nobody saw Mr. Borden go out down the street, and you hear nothing about him until he gets away down to that savings bank, and nobody saw anything of him except those people in the bank and Shortsleeves and Mather up at the store. Why, even Mrs. Kelley (sic) saw him right there upon the steps so that she could lay her hands on him. Mr. Borden didn't see her. You cannot see everybody, you do not see everybody, and they bring in here Lucy Collet, who stood on the piazza on Third street, or on the side steps, to show that no person could have gone by there, but Frank Wixon got up on the Borden fence and walked along the stringer right in plain sight, and she never saw him. How much do you think she saw? Then there was Derosier and Denny and McGowan, and neither of them saw anything. There was Thos. Bowles over there in Mrs. Churchill's yard who said he could not see anything because there was a barn and well house and lattice work, and he saw nothing unusual or anything that would show that anybody went there. There were other people about there, as you saw on that morning, and you also heard the testimony or Mrs. and Miss Chagnon that they heard somebody the night before.
         There was the testimony of Mr. Kirby and Mr. Gifford that they heard somebody and it was not a dog eating bones in a barrel because the barrel was in the barn. There was somebody about there that alarmed them, and Dr. Handy described to you a man on the sidewalk he saw there just before the murder and somebody he did not know, although he knew everybody about there. And Mrs. Manly (sic) and Mrs. Hart came along there at ten minutes before ten, and you find a man on the outside looking out for things. This was not done by one man alone; there was somebody else in it, and there was a man standing there at the gate post whom they did not notice as they passed by, but as they stooped to look at some lilies in a wagon they saw that this man was watching them and seeing what they did, watching their movements, standing there. Nobody knew him. They did not know him. Mrs. Manly and Mrs. Hart were acquainted with everybody about there. Now, he was the man that stood outside, and the other man was inside at that same time, and they were looking out for each other. That is a very common thing to do.
         You can see then how everything in this idea of exclusive opportunity falls to the ground, because there was no exclusive opportunity. There is nothing to show that Bridget was in position so she could control the inside of the house, for she was not. There is nothing to show that the defendant was there, because she says she went up and down stairs, and they must admit that she was in the dining room and they prove it, with the door shut and with opportunity for anybody to pass through there. If anybody, all these things are plain, and if there was a little noise heard, or if it was not heard, there were noises in that street there all the time, as you saw,---and with the window open on an August day, so that a person would not notice, and that was probably what Miss Lizzie heard when she thought her mother had come in. It was perhaps the noise of the fall up stairs. It sounded like something in the house, and yet as Mrs. Borden did not appear she knew nothing about it. The man could have carried away any weapon. They have been searching in that ash cellar of the Borden house to find a weapon. Lizzie sent them down stairs, and if Lizzie perpetrated these murders with the handleless hatchet, think of her actually sending Bridget down to that box with the officers to the place where the hatchets were with which she had committed the crimes. It is too preposterous an assumption. Why, we know very well that men commit these crimes and take away the instruments with them sometimes, and sometimes they fling them aside and leave them on the ground, but oftener, if they use an article found on the premises they would leave it, because it cannot be connected with them, but if they bring an article to a house with which to commit the act, they take it away because it is a clue to their arrest.
         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 the 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 criticize the theory that I have advanced to you, because you are going to sit down in the jury room and criticize 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 just as well as another, and one will harmonize 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.
         (Noon Recess)
         Afternoon Session.
         The Court came in at 2.15, and Mr. Robinson resumed his argument as follows:
         As I said, any theory that we may present or suggestion we may have is open to criticism and inquiry. You are to bring your judgment to bear upon them, and if they are found in your opinion such that you think they would meet with difficulty, you are to consider that difficulty. We are not bound to furnish you any theory of it. I said at the outset, that is not our duty, that is, we are not to find who did the act or how it was done, but I am only showing you in connection with the discussion of the reasonable opportunity that, as you have seen, the house is all open to anybody who sought to go in there, and that it is very easy for any person who entered for that person to have passed by without being noticed by the other occupant of the house, in whatever place she might be. The government has not proved at all that Miss Lizzie went up stairs and remained up stairs all the time from the time her father went out until she came down on his return; that is not proved at all; that is not in the case, consequently you are not to assume that, and I believe it will not be argued, so that if you are to test the government's theory as applied to this criticism and these considerations which the defendant is entitled to claim fairly, as the Court will tell you,---but we do not take upon ourselves the task of finding somebody who did it. If we knew ourselves who was the murderer we would not be bound to bring him in, although we certainly would. You see then the distinction. The question simply is as to the defendant, did you do it? Failing in that, the crime is to be further investigated, new searches to be made, new clues to be followed up, new theories to be adopted and presented and some other person to be put upon trial. If nothing of that kind is done, and if the murderer goes unpunished, that is not to affect this defendant manifestly.
         I have said that such things as that are easy in all our houses, and that is the danger of a verdict here against this defendant, simply for the reason that you do not see how anybody else could do it. That is very dangerous ground.You go away from your home in the morning; you go back and you find your wife or daughter dead in the house; the house apparently all locked. You do not know who has been in there. You return just after the murder was committed. You in taking care of the bodies get blood upon your clothing; suspicious circumstances fasten upon you, and somebody tells that you and your wife had some little disagreement at the breakfast table that morning or some neighbor says he heard you say that you hated her, if you please, or, not so much as that, called her some unpleasant name, and at once they begin to suspect you, and everything is turned against you, whereas you are entirely innocent. You can see how that can happen, so I want you to reflect on the extraordinary dangers of drawing conclusions in so important a case as this that affects so seriously this defendant, and the importance of requiring the Commonwealth to prove it, and of saying, "Whatever our suspicions, it is better even that this defendant should go free than that we should take any chance about it.", because, every man, woman and child in this Commonwealth is entitled to a full confidence in the regular administration of justice according to law and according to well settled practice.
         It is only a short time ago, probably you are familiar with it, that a murder was committed in a house in Philadelphia in a block. A woman was killed. The doors were found all fastened on the inside and on the outside. Nobody could discover how any person could come into that house; there was nobody there. The woman had not killed herself. It was not found out for some time how it was done, when it was discovered that the murderer had crept up on the outside, climbing up on a block that was remote and yet touched, and had gone along on the roof and down into a window and committed the murder, retiring in the same way. Now, had there been some other person in that house, a servant, perhaps, or a friend, somebody who would be timid when charged with crime, somebody who would make contradictory expressions, as all of us here would be likely to when though innocent are suspected,---how easy it would have been to put that charge upon that person, and how almost impossible for that person to bring any proof that he or she did not do it. That illustrates.
         Again the fact that it is done in the daylight is nothing, as I have told you before. Instances will occur all the time of that kind.
         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 inadvertantly (sic) passed by,---little things, but I want to speak of them before I pass on.
         Miss Lizzie was ironing down stairs, 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 were carried up stairs and put away separately by themselves, a dozen or more. You see that 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 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 or 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", Barlow 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 that you can depend upon under those 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.
         And there was another matter. In speaking of the 3-1/2 inch hatchet, a piece of tin was fitted in and a hatchet also fitted into the skull in order to show that it would fit. You see at once that if you take a hatchet such as Mr. Adams produced here, one that was not ground down on the edge, it was too thick, as the doctors said; it did not go in, but the Underhill hatchet would go in. You might as well say they were at fault because you could not put one of these large axes in there. Nobody claims you could. It was a new hatchet that was brought and never had been ground, and it proved to be thick upon the edge.
         Then you will remember, what was very significant, there was no blood upon Miss Lizzie's hair. Now, it does not seem possible that she could have gone through that without getting blood upon her hair, and you know very well, as the doctors told you, as Doctor Cheever did, if you get blood in the hair it is almost impossible to get it out except by special treatment. You will bear in mind if she endeavored to get it out her hair would be wet, and these ladies noticed her when they bathed her face, and surely if her hair had been wet they would have known it, and you would have heard of it.
         Now, assume for the time being, in order to illustrate the argument of the Commonwealth, that Miss Lizzie committed these acts. What did she have to do? I have spoken to you about the change of dress or the substitution of another dress and disposing at one time or another of both of them, and keeping all these blood-stained garments out of the way where the officers had searched everything except behind the paper and below the carpets. From that time on until Saturday night she did not go out of the house. She had nobody with her that would have resorted to any expedient of carrying anything out of the house. The consequence is then that whatever she had on remained in that house; whatever article she had was there, continued there until that Sunday morning. Now, if she did that first act upon Mrs. Borden's body, what did she have to do afterwards? All that, you remember, occurred, it is assumed, that she committed that first murder from 9.45 to 10.15, and then what would she have to do? Of course she would completely change her clothing. There was that waterproof exposed, and nothing found missing there. She had nothing over her, and you assume that, and then you have to assume that the wrapper was put out of the way and destroyed. To get out of one alternative you get into another. She must have gone to the cellar where there was running water and she must have washed her face and wet her hair, as I said before, with that difficulty attending it, so that she could be all right when her father came. Undoubtedly she was all right when her father came, and nothing suspicious about her. She had on at that time that blue dress they talk about, which must have been all soiled with blood at that time, and yet they keep it on her, according to their statement, until twelve o'clock. You can see that that is not probable. It is not within the realm of probability that she would allow that to remain on her. If she took it off and put it away and put on another in place of it, Bridget would have noticed the change. She had on an old blue dress up to 9 or 10 o'clock; then she appeared in something else, and then she got back again into the blue dress, because she was in the blue dress when Mrs. Churchill came. So you must have her come down in the morning with the blue dress or get back into the blue dress again; she must get rid of the blue dress temporarily, and get into it again by the time the second murder is committed, and then get into something else, then get out of it again. You are putting upon her a good many things to do in a very short space of time; within twelve or at the most fifteen minutes after Mr. Borden came into the house he was killed.
         Now, what did she have to do before she called Bridget? Well, the officers from the police station arrived at 11.15, and everything was accomplished. She would have to get that bloody dress off the second time, or else a second time get on another. I think she had on a blue dress. The Government says, "You burned up the dress we want," but the Government says, "You had on the blue dress when you gave the alarm," and the blue dress is as clean and as free from bloodstains as the blue sky. What are you going to do about that? How is this to be accounted for on their theory?
         Then having that blue dress on and having killed him, she must change it for another. Surely she got it spotted, and yet they say she had it on, remained with it on, and no blood upon it, but free and pure, and they want that one, and yet it is impossible upon any theory to conceive of its being used in one or the other or both and remove and restore---she could not restore and clean it. It was a cheap cotton dress, as has been explained to you, that no human ingenuity could clean up in that space of time and have it dry so it could be worn. Had it been a blue dress, a spot of water would have been as significant as a drop of blood. She did not have one dress over the other. The dressmaker would have perceived it on account of its tightness, and in the next place she did not have two on because such women as Mrs. Churchill and Mrs. Holmes and Miss Russell, being round her as she was lying on the lounge, fanning her and doing everything to comfort her, and the doctor attending her, with the blue dress two or three inches longer than any other dress she had, would have noticed the fact. It would have shown her shoes and stockings, but there was not a drop on them. 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 limitations we walk in commonest things, and see how close we come to precipices of danger when we find any part in the wrong. Then she would have to clean herself and secrete everything. Why, upon the theory of the government---no, it is not 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, and yet she didn't get 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 help us nothing about that with all the vigilence (sic) 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, on 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 down 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 back again and get up there and call Bridget---all in that short space of time. I said it was morally and physically impossible. Have I said too much? When you think of the time and conditions and the necessities of that woman, to meet the call that was made upon her, and to be in the condition which everybody says she was found.
         And then she had to go to that door and stand there crying. And you cannot put that on. Some men can sneeze when they want to, but they cannot cry. That is something that is involuntary. You cannot look distressed, you cannot be pale and faint. You cannot so manifest your agony, as you stand at the door, that your neighbor is not willing to wait until she can throw up the window where she is but goes to the next one that is open and cries out to her, "What is the matter?" Think of that picture, think of that occurrence, and then tell me if, in any ten or twelve minutes that ever passed since the first dot of time, any woman could have gone through these things and come up and been at that point under those circumstances and in those conditions? That is the task the Government sets you in order to find belief in their statement.
         It is enough, as I have said, if the Government fails to prove the charge. Then your duty is to find her not guilty; although you might think it yourselves---and I by no means say or believe that you are led to that conclusion---although you might think that if something more were found out the crime would be fastened upon her; but you have reached the point where at the present trial there is not evidence enough to convict her, not a showing by the Government upon which it would be safe to convict her, not evidence enough upon which any one could look back with satisfaction and say he counted that enough to take her life. That is what confronts you.
         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. And when I say a reasonable doubt, it is not to be cast away to the winds as of no consequence, a mere fleeting name, but is the well-founded, sensible, reasonable doubt of a reasoning man who says, "I cannot go to the length of a verdict of guilty on this evidence." You may have heretofore thought things looked dark for her. You may have said, "If they can come into 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 when 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 clearly, you are satisfied again, convinced---which is more---you are convinced affirmatively that the woman is innocent, then 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. 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? In the first place you will take a few things into account. You will consider also the life, the standing and the associations of a defendant. It is not impossible that a good person may go wrong,---one heretofore good may go wrong and a good reputation be blasted by a wrongful act, but our human experience teaches us that if a daughter grows up in one of our homes to be 32 years old, educated in our schools, walking in our streets, associating with the best people and devoted to the service of God and man, binding up the wounds of the unfortunate, teaching the ignorant and down-trodden, spending her life for others, it is not within human experience to find her suddenly come out into the rankest and baldest murderess. That would be a condition of things so contrary to all that our human life has taught us that our hearts and feelings revolt at the conception. I agree with you right there that that is not final or convincing, but it is certainly very weighty in the consideration. When a person is under suspicion of having committed a crime and he is really guilty and knows it himself, he is always happy to avail himself of an opportunity to let somebody else be suspected. 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 there were 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 right out 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 man 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 were a criminal,---virtually putting every body 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 today. 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 enough to step forward and say, I will not listen to these baseless aspersions against the people that have been with us and lived with us and toiled with us and served us well, and who are of us. Then I say that although the Commonwealth undertakes to lay it before you that her conduct opens her to suspicion, I say to you, knowing the woman as you have seen her here, knowing of her as you have heard her testified about, that her whole demeanor and conduct places her far ahead in the realm of innocence.
         What has she done? We are very apt to say, people who hurriedly judge, that if we find a man in the custody of the officers he must be guilty. See him, we say, how guilty he looks. In the same spirit it is said, See her, how she cries because the punctures of conscience are lacerating the heart. How she shrinks under the ordeal! How would your wife or mine act if taken by an officer, investigated and crowded and pushed and then bound over to lie in the jail of this county for ten months, being scanned by everybody that can put eyes on her. How would she stand the strain of being here two weeks or more in this crowded room to be watched by hordes of people as she goes to and from the carriage or waits to go into it. Think of standing the strain of that. Why, men of the Jury, you would quail under it. You can look the best people out of countenance sometimes, and it is not considered civil to look at a man too long, and yet you know beyond all that when you put a prisoner in the dock, you put her under a strain that human nature is hardly equal to. It will not do to judge her and say that she has manifested no emotion, that she has contained her feelings because she has nerves and womanly character enough to say, Here, though long been abused, though fouly (sic) suspected, though I know I am innocent as I was when I was born, I recognize that under the law I must stand this ordeal and I will bear it though the best I can, and when it is over and I walk again the soil of my entire liberty, then it will be time for me to have the woman's nature again and exercise her right to weep. Whatever I do now will be misrepresented and misunderstood and I will endeavor to behave myself in a proper way. The time will come, gentlemen, I trust when you shall utter the verdict that will give her your judgment that she is innocent, that she then in her own retirement may let loose the feelings which the necessities of the situation have commanded her to curb. You know well as the little song runs that
         "The eyes that cannot weep,
         Are the saddest eyes of all,"
         And then when the flood is allowed to run, the heart breaks out again with refrain:
         "Oh, ye tears, I am thankful that you flow."
         Did the officers want to search that house and not succeed? Did she ever stand in the way, or her sister like-wise? 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 had been that woman shut up in that house, the premises crowded by the police. She was virtually then under arrest. She could almost feel the pressure of the 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 how it 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 concocted this great and monstrous wrong and then have had that superb quietness of spirit and that confident feeling that wrong has 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 there these long weary days and moved in and out before you, have you seen anything that shows the lack of humanly feeling and womanly bearing?
         A word more. There must me 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 attonement (sic) 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 the length of saying that she is guilty, and you have done it on 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 mind 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 towards 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 of law 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 whom 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 commend 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 that 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.