The Fall River Tragedy - A History of the Borden Murders

Edwin H. Porter

Description

Originally published in 1893, “The Fall River Tragedy” is a detailed account of the case of Lizzie Andrew Borden (1860–1927), an American woman who was tried but found not guilty for the brutal murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. There were no other suspects in the case and after her acquittal no one was ever charged for the murders. She remained in Fall River until her death aged 66. The murders garnered a great deal of media attention at the time and remain in popular culture today, providing the inspiration for a number of films, plays, books, and folk songs. This volume presents all the details of the case, as well as the famously contradictory inquest testimony of Lizzie Borden herself. Contents include: “Discovery of the Murders”, “Police Searching the Premises”, “The Borden Family”, “The Search of the House”, “Hiram C. Harrington’s Story”, “The Funeral“, “A Reward Offered”, “A Sermon on the Murders”, etc. Read & Co. History is proudly republishing this classic work now in a brand new edition complete with the essay 'Spontaneous and Imitative Crime' by Euphemia Vale Blake.

Sujets

• Killer Women

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 24 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528792165
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

THE FALL RIVER TRAGEDY
A HISTORY OF THE BORDEN MURDERS
By
EDWIN H. PORTER
WITH THE ESSAY Spontaneous and Imitative Crim e BY EUPHEMIA VALE BLAKE

First published in 1893



Copyright © 2020 Read & Co. History
This edition is published by Read & Co. History, an imprint of Read & Co.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd. For more information visit www.readandcobooks.co.uk


Contents
SPONTANEOUSAND IMI TATIVE CRIME
By E . Vale Blake
PREFACE
CHAPTER I
DISCOVERY OF THE MURDERS
CHAPTER II
POLICE SEARCHING THE PREMISES
CHAPTER III
THE B ORDEN FAMILY
CHAPTER IV
HIRAM C HARRIN GTON’S STORY
CHAPTER V
THE SEARCH OF THE HOUSE
CHAPTER VI
THE FUNERAL
CHAPTER VII
A RE WARD OFFERED
CHAPTER VIII
A SERMON ON THE MURDERS
CHAPTER IX
THEOR IES ADVANCED
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
MISS LIZZIE BOR DEN ARRESTED
CHAPTER XII
LIZZIE BORDEN PLEADS “NOT GUILTY”
CHAPTER XIII
THE PRELIMINARY HEARI NG ADJOURNED
CHAPTER XIV
DR DOLAN CR OSS-EXAMINED
CHAPTER XV
SECOND DAY OF THE TRIAL
CHAPTER XVI
THIRD AND FOURTH DAYS OF THE TRIAL
CHAPTER XVII
FIFTH DAY OF THE TRIAL
C HAPTER XVIII
SIXTH DAY OF THE TRIAL
CHAPTER XIX
DISTRICT ATTORNEY KNOWLTO N’S ARGUMENT
CHAPTER XX
LIZZIE A BOR DEN INDICTED
CHAPTER XXI
THE TRICKEY-MC HENRY AFFAIR
CHAPTER XXII
BEGINNING OF THE SUPERIOR COURT TRIAL
C HAPTER XXIII
THIRD DAY OF THE TRIAL
CHAPTER XXIV
FOURTH DAY OF THE TRIAL
CHAPTER XXV
FIFTH DAY OF THE TRIAL
CHAPTER XXVI
SEVENTH DAY OF THE TRIAL
C HAPTER XXVII
EIGHTH AND NINTH DAYS OF THE TRIAL
CH APTER XXVIII
TENTH DAY OF THE TRIAL
CHAPTER XXIX
ELEVENTH DAY OF THE TRIAL
CHAPTER XXX
TWELFTH DAY OF THE TRIAL
CHAPTER XXXI
DISTRICT ATTORNEY KNO WLTON’S PLEA
C HAPTER XXXII
JUDGE DEWEY’S CHARGE TO THE JURY




SPONTANEOUS AND IMITATIVE CRIME
By E. Vale Blake
IT is not to be expected that law-makers or the administrators of legal justice should discriminate between spontaneous and imitative crime; but to the patient thinker, the medical scientist, and the practical philanthropist it is evident that the grades and distinctions of actual criminality are almost as various as the individual criminals. Even the word crime is very indefinite, and by no means always indicates the true character of an act usually so designated. Acts innocent in themselves—such, for instance, as buying goods in a foreign market and bringing them for use to this—may be made a legal crime by statute law, while other acts which are monstrous violations of natural human rights may be and are ignored by the code, and are perpetrated with impunity in the highest grades of civilized society. So, also, really criminal acts may be committed, and yet crime be absent, for the essence of crime in the individual (excluding for the present the rights of society) lies in the intention, and this element, through physiological and moral reasons, may be void. Indeed, could we apply a mental and moral vivisection to the cases of individual criminals, we should probably find unexpected variations as to the causes and influences tending to its development; but practically we may summarize the whole mass of law-breakers under either one or the other division which the title of our article indicates: and, if by some subtile alchemy we could perceive the main dividing line separating the criminal classes into those who act from the spontaneous impulses of their nature and those who are led into crime mainly by the influence of their peculiar νόμος, or social environment, we should be in a fair way to learn how crime might be diminished, and the so-called "dangerous classes" prevented from spreading it s infection.
By spontaneous criminals we mean those who act from well-defined motives, from avarice, revenge, the gratification of pride, vanity, or the gross er passions—also those who from congenital defects of organization have strong natural tendencies toward the commission of crime—sporadic criminals against whom it is scarcely possible for society to protect itself, unless, like the ancient Spartans, it is prepared to undertake the entire education of the future citizen, morally, intellectually, and physically, including the ante-natal period. Some recent investigations and social experiments have proved that, numerous as these are, they are a small minority as compared with those of the imitative and therefore cu rable class.
Alibert, the ingenious author of the "Système Sensible," regarded the instinct of imitation as the primordial law of nature, which has ruled, taught, and bound together the successive generations of the human race in a more potent manner than any other single faculty: and our every-day observation and experience tend to confirm the sagacity of this remark; and in the matter of crime it is certainly one of the permanent sources of its development and increase. There is one patent fact recognized by the average mind of the community, that the record and publication of any extraordinary crime is very certain to be followed by one or more examples of the same description. This certainly hints at some psychical influence worthy of examination, though it is generally dismissed with an expression as to its being a "singular fatality"—such as appears to follow certain kinds of accidents by flood or field, by land or sea.
The forms and phases of imitation are extremely varied—being sometimes the outcome of the conscious will, but not infrequently it is the result of an automatic sympathy with which the will has nothing to do. In many cases imitation is simply the active form of nervous sympathy and approaches the condition of mania. This instinct or faculty, like all other human attributes, may be well or ill applied, but the essential fact remains ever true that the instinct itself is irrepressible, and will exercise itself in some form: and, often as it is misused, the world could not afford to dispense with it. The race would make small progress if every man had to begin de novo, instead of imitating the previous acquirements of bis ancestors. We may even admit, with the French philosopher, that without the perpetual use of the imitative faculty there could be no distinctive nationalities; for, is it not by successive generations imitating their parents that national customs, usages, and languages are formed, and communities consolidated so as to afford each other mutual support? And the important fact should not be lost sight of that the faculty of imitation is one of the earliest developed, and has acquired strength and vigor long before the reflective faculties or the judgment is prepared to sit in council upon these immature tendencies; particularly should this be remembered in connection with all efforts in behalf of the weaker members of our human brotherhood—whether the young, as such, or the incipient criminal, in which this faculty often plays so considerable a part; addin g complications to the history and the frequent mysteries of crime. What is that which we call " esprit de corps, " the "spirit of the age," and other similar intangible somethings, which we know exist, but which it is difficult to embody in anything more material than a phrase? What these expressions indicate simply is, that certain numbers, greater or smaller, are prepared to imitate each other, whether it be in a crusade to the Holy Sepulchre, a Flagellant procession, or a modern strike of Crispins o r engineers.
Imitative crimes are often motiveless in the ordinary meaning of the word, while numerically they really exceed all others; and it is somewhat curious that this feature of criminality has been so slightly noticed by statisticians and others concerned in the eradication of crime. Other causes of crime are certainly more obvious, for they lie upon the surface—ignorance, poverty, intemperance, the desire to live beyond one's legitimate means, unrestrained passions of all kinds: these are of course the leaders and pioneers of the great criminal army; but the rank and file are mainly made up of imitators, who do as they see others do with whom they associate. Take as an illustration the "great strike" of the railway employees some two years since, in the States of Pennsylvania and New York and elsewhere, and separate if you can the number of individuals who acted from conviction and deliberate intention—with what we might call a reason—however misguided, and the number who burned, hacked, and hewed simply because others were devastating and destroying. Could all of the mere imitators have been eliminated from those mobs it would scarcely have required military force to have dealt with the remainder, the few active, intelligent leaders of that violent mode of argument.
It will probably be admitted, in most cases of mob violence, that the mass of intimidators are ignorant, unreasoning followers, who, if they think at all, only reflect to the extent of supposing that the presence of numbers will suffice to conceal their individual share of the