The Lizzie Borden Society archive

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1. "Pearson's Proverbs"
Posted by adminlizzieborden on Jan-8th-02 at 9:58 PM

By kat on Thursday, 11/29/2001 - 08:05 am [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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Writing on 19th century muder, Pearson, in Murders That Baffled the Experts(rpt.,1967),
says, on pg.21:
"Many guilty men have testified on their own behalf--but for an innocent person, accused of murder NOT to go on the witness stand, is, I believe, rare."

pg.42:
"People often forget, in considering a murder that has been attended with bloodshed, that bloodstains on a person's garments are not always signs of guilt. They may be proofs of innocence. The murderer who has taken extreme care may be the one person who has avoided all, or almost all, stains."

pg.70:
"We are often shown in the moving picture theatres how easy it is to railroad an innocent man to the gallows. We are seldom shown how hard it is- as a matter of sober fact- to send even a guilty man to execution. We are not often shown The Real Truth-that an innocent man 9 times out of 10 can show that he is innocent. And the other time he can throw enough doubt on his guilt so that no jury will convict."

pg.78:
"When Richard Mansfield played Richard III...both hands were dyed crimson as if visibly dipped in the blood of his pitiful victims. That is melodrama...nothing like that happens outside the theatre. The murderer walks through streets smiling and affable, his hands as white as yours or mine."
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--Upon reading Murders That Baffled the Experts (by Pearson), the basic (biased?) logic of criminality that he espouses shines through. He can't seperate these truths he seems to find self-evident, from his several otherwise balanced treatments of mysterious murder cases that so fascinated him. It's hard to tell if the Borden Case influenced his theories on crime forever after, or whether he came into crime reportage with these ideas already intact.

 
By raystephanson on Thursday, 11/29/2001 - 06:17 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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The only book available by Edmund L Pearson is the reprint of his "Studies in Murder". He read accounts from books and newspapers, and recycled the facts. Page 32 in that book explains why Lizzie could not be assumed guilty.

 
By kat on Thursday, 11/29/2001 - 10:12 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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Pg.31:
Harrington "warned" Lizzie "that it would be well for her to make no further statements for that day. Owing to the atrocity of the crime, he suggested she might well be confused. She answered, however, with what he called 'a stiff courtesy,' and said:
'No, I can tell you all I know now, just as well as at any other time.'"
Porter (quoted by Pearson) says it was later reported to the City Marshal, which "aroused suspicions 'in the minds of the police that the daughter knew more of the circumstances of the tragedy than she cared to tell.'"
Pearson-"The police were to pay dearly for such suspicions, but it seems hard to understand, in view of what has been related, to say nothing of what was yet to be discovered, how they could have avoided them. And yet it was a monstrous thing to suspect. As time went on, it took the form not of a mere accusation (begin pg.32) of complicity, or guilty knowledge of the crime, but of the part of principal and sole actor in it. And to suggest that a woman of good family, of blameless life and hitherto unimpeachable character, could possibly commit two such murders, is to suggest something so rare as to be almost unknown to criminology. It is beside the question to cite the many homicides of which women have been proven guilty. Nearly always, when the victim has been an adult person, they have been murders by poison or by shooting. When, in modern times, the attack has taken a more brutal form, the murderess has usually been a woman of base antecedents, one from the criminal class, and acting in concert with a man. There is that about the act of battering in the skulls of an elderly man and woman which suggests the male butcher, not the more subtle though equally malicious methods of the murderess. The police of Fall River and the law officers of the county were not so inexperienced as to ignore this, and they could only have taken the step they did under the pressure of strong evidence. There was no lack of other and powerful influences working against it."

-Ray, you happened to point to the ONLY page I had marked lightly with a pencil with an arrow pointing to "the male butcher." Otherwise, with a pretty full qoute, people can follow up on your comment.

-We know of the Knowlton/Pearson correspondance that E.L.P. had with Knowlton's son. It shows the remarkable dedication to culling all sources and his "recycled facts" were written by a total professional, and with his Librarian background he knew where to look for curious supplemental information, as all good librarians do...He eventually quit his job at the New York Public Library to concentrate full time on this new Life's Work..Author Extrordinare of True Crime.

 
By raystephanson on Sunday, 12/02/2001 - 06:44 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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What is the "Best Evidence" in this case?
Doesn't the suppression of EH Porter's book say there was something in it that they didn't want the public to see? Newspapers have a limited life and distribution. Who remembers the news from 6 months ago?

 
By kat on Sunday, 12/02/2001 - 10:39 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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The BEST Evidence in this case, is explained by Judge Davis, excerpted in Trial of Lizzie Borden, by E.L. Pearson, pg.70:

"The question was not alone, 'What are the chances that any murder should be committed by a stranger in the middle of the forenoon, with more or less windows open, in a city, in a dwelling house, on a frequented street, with workmen on adjoining lots and a servant girl outside washing windows?' Nor, 'What are the chances that such a murder should be committed unknown to a person in possession of the house at the time?' Nor, 'What are the chances that TWO homicides should be committed an hour or more apart, on different floors of such a dwelling house, by a stranger, with another person in possession, without knowledge or alarm?' Nor, 'What are the chances in SUCH a house, of all others, more guarded by locks and bolts than was the general custom?' Nor, 'What are the chances that, with one victim an hour before felled to the floor by a thumping fall, the second homicide should be committed when the only person in possession had gone to the barn on a trivial errand, and returned in time to hear a groan in the yard of a man who must have been stunned by the first blow upon his head? Nor, 'What are the chances that the person in possession in the middle of a hot forenoon should go to ironing a few pocket handkerchiefs and leave them unfinished at the very moment of the second murder to go to the barn, under a broiling sun, to get a piece of metal for a screen, or lead for a sinker for a fishing line without hooks, for use upon a contemplated excursion, when she might have bought the sinker for a cent when she purchased the hooks?'

"These were not the material questions alone to be considered. The popular mind and the Court seems to have considered that if EACH (any?) ONE of these facts was POSSIBLY consistent with innocence, or possible by another, there could be no conviction. But the material question was whether a jury could find that all the circumstances with others to be alluded to hereafter, which such others as may suggest themselves, could concur and happen at the same time, and whether the probabilty of the happening of the coincidences did or did not 'exceed all limits of an arithetical or a moral nature...' "

"It is a rule of law that the possession of property stolen and unaccounted for is sufficient for conviction...But the same law...applies to capital crimes. Here was a person who had in possession the bodies of two victims robbed ofthe precious jewels of their lives. Does anybody think that if this evidence had been applied to a case of robbery, or of mere property, the law administered, or the verdict, would have been the same?"

-or if the "person in possession" had BEEN A MAN?
(Judge Blaisdell)

 
By raystephanson on Monday, 12/03/2001 - 09:25 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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I do not have the time to comment on "kat" msg.

There is a book "Best Evidence" by David Lifton, about his investigations into the evening of 11/22/1963. JFK's body was wrapped in a sheet and put into a bronze casket. The body arrived in Wash.DC in a body bag and a plastic casket. Also, there was a report of "surgery on the head".

"Best Evidence" is what the jury believes from considering conflicting evidence that is not 1000% accurate. Like in the Borden case: Lizzie is Not Guilty, and that's that. No matter what people said then, or now. AR Brown's book is very knowledgable about the long suppressed facts. I believe it provides the "best evidence"; and that many here will not agree. Some because of commercial interests in the legend, others because they have made up their mind and can't be bothered by any facts they overlooked.

 
By kat on Monday, 12/03/2001 - 10:48 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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I only quoted a judge. I don't think you meant me personally...

 
By kat on Monday, 12/03/2001 - 11:19 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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In Murders That Baffled the Experts, Pearson reviews a case of the muder of Miss Page, 1904. Again, his theory of crime glows in the dark, as truths of human nature.(and seem reminiscent of the Borden case...)

"Newspapers took up the case with vigor, and, aside from one contributor to the cause of justice, played for the most part a thoroughly mischievous role throughout the long history of the case. This is not to say that the more reputable papers did not record events honestly. But the yellow press screamed itself hoarse: 1st abusing the police for not making an instant arrest; 2nd abusing them for making an arrest and bringing the offender to trial..."
(pg81)

"I have known persons who were quite willing to convict him (the accused) of crime in THIS death (of his wife), for which there is no evidence at all, but were firm in their belief in his innocence of the murder for which the legal proof is complete." (81)

"...he was an 'innocent clear-eyed boy', undergoing grievous persecution by the police. Just what being 'clear-eyed' had to do with it, and why it is any more pleasant to be murdered by some one who is 'clear-eyed' than by another whose eyes are cloudy, is always a mystery to me." "...But this was a case of circumstantial evidence, and the usual ill-formed distrust of it began to be experienced." (83)

"The public hysteria took it's usual course. The prisoner was held guiltless (even though convicted), a fair cherub, while the family of the murdered girl became targets for slander and abuse." (85)

 
By kat on Thursday, 12/06/2001 - 05:41 am [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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Same source.

Chapter on Pat Mahon:

Pearson talked to (the late) Edgar Wallace (writer of detective fiction) and "his remarks confirmed impressions I had formed in reading about other (murderous) men of this type: Mahon was a complete EGOTIST; his world began and ended in himself. He could act without compassion or pity, as some folk lack the musical sense or the mathematical faculty. He allowed nothing to stand in the way of his own advantages or pleasures:...HE Really Pitied Himself!" (92)

On Henry Wainwright:

"Like many murderers, he was a vainglorious, egotistical person, clever rather than really able, and had come to feel contempt for the intelligence of everyone because he had fooled a few. If a murderer is really skillfull, of course, we never hear of him nor suspect him at all. But he is usually a cruel egotist, and it follows he is also, a good part of the time, a big fool." (114)

-Somehow I can't keep from envisioning Pearson speaking thusly of Lizzie, with each muderer he profiled, knowing he thought her guilty...

 
By kat on Thursday, 12/06/2001 - 05:51 am [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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BTW: The great Edgar Wallace once said:

"Suicide Is Confession.'

 
By raystephanson on Monday, 12/10/2001 - 04:15 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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Note that Pearson's talk about the Mabel Page murder quote newspapers that are long forgotten; but the book lives longer. His is a tertiary source, taken from secondary sources.

Isn't this off-topic and irrelevant to solving the Borden Murders? Doesn't AR Brown's solution best answer the questions?

 
By kat on Monday, 12/10/2001 - 10:24 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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This topic is PEARSON, and my opinion is that the Borden crimes so enthralled him, and obsessed him, that he looked at all crime in the light of THIS ONE: Therefore it is "on topic". I see "Borden's" in every quote I give...
Learning about this author's psychology of crime themes gives us more insight into the character of the criminal, and the effects that crime has on those innocently involved.

 
By raystephanson on Monday, 12/17/2001 - 09:22 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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to "kat" - after reading Pearson, and his personal comments / confessions, I do not think highly of him as a person. Would anyone care for him if he didn't write about this famous case?

 
By kat on Monday, 12/17/2001 - 11:25 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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What did he do , as a person, that offended you?

In More Studies In Murder, Borden chapter, p.121-2 :

"It occured to me, a few years ago, that one day I might write a book which should have nothing in it about Miss Lizzie Borden.
,,,If pushed into a corner on this subject, it is possible to urge two kinds of defense(that he continues to write about her). One is that Miss Lizzie, of all the curious gallery of folk whose adventures I have investigated, seems to have the widest attraction.
...Moreover, one or two unrestrained admirers have assured me that except for my account of the case of Miss Borden, I would have done well never to set finger to typewriter key. To quote their flattery, verbatim, they said: 'That chapter of yours about that girl--what's her name?--Mary Borden--is the only thing you ever wrote that's worth a damn!'"

At the time (1936), Pearson had already had published Studies In Murder, 1924
Murder At Smutty Nose, 1926
Five Murders, 1928
Instigation of the Devil, 1930
and edited the Autobiography of a Criminal: The Life of Heny Tufts, 1930.

There was the beginning of a huge interest in the works of "true-crime", including William Roughheads efforts, and the Famous Trial series, here and in England. Pearson was fortunate in that his interests lay in a new genre that was becoming poular and lucrative, allowing him to quit his job at the New York Public Libray to write, interview, attend trials and research full time.

If it wasn't for Edmund Pearson, the Borden Mystery might have disolved in the publics interests quickly, and been overtaken by the sensation of the next big crime. By keeping it in the public eye, with different "slants" each book, he brings us foreward into the PRESENT DAY, where here we sit discussing it!

And yes, since he WAS in on the advent of true-crime & trial reportage, like Whittington-Egan and Roughhead, he would still have been popular. We're just LUCKY he chose our LIZZIE!

 
By harry on Tuesday, 12/18/2001 - 01:42 am [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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One thing that bothers me about Pearson is his complete omission of the Mullaly/Fleet/hatchet handle incident in his "The Trial of Lizzie Borden".

In that incident Mullaly claims to have seen the handle to the handleless hatchet in the same box as the hatchet head and that Fleet seen it also. Fleet
had already testified that there was no handle to be found. Fleet was recalled and still denied seeing it. This is covered quite extensively in "Forty Whacks" by Kent.

Whether Mullaly or Fleet is correct is not the point. It is to me the fact that Pearson fails to even mention it at all. The newspapers of the day considered it quite newsworthy and damaging to the Commonwealth's case.

 
By kat on Tuesday, 12/18/2001 - 05:01 am [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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I was reviewing an error I had made naming Whittingham-Egan as conteporary to Pearson & Roughhead-he was in the early 70's-I had meant Miss F. Tennyson Jesse as a crime writer in the 20's and 30's.

I verified this by going to the Knowlton-Pearson correspondence, LBQ, July 1999.
Oddly I found on page 11, in a letter from Pearson to Knowlton's son, dated Aug.28th, 1924 (letter #71):

"My egregious publishers have already let "Studies" get temporarily out of stock, and it maybe that there will, some day, be another addition. I may be allowed to correct, emend, and alter it.

If possible, will you note and some day let me know of any corrections, additions, or changes which you think ought to be made, especially, of course, in the Borden case?

These occur to me: (1) a better resume of Lizzie's inquest testimony, which I now know can be found in the New Bedford Standard of June 13, 1893, where the whole thing was printed; (2) a clearer statement about the handle-less hatchet, - as it stands it seems to intimate, to some readers, that the killing was done with a hatchet which had no handle at the time; (3) possibly a little more about the dresses, although this is a long and wearying topic"....

"(Editor's note: I find this interesting. The last three letters point to Pearson not having had access to the complete Lizzie Borden inquest testimony prior to writing his first, and arguably most inportant, piece about the Borden Murders...")"

In a later letter Pearson laments that he is not allowed to make "extensive alterations of the (printing) plates."

-I realize you allude to the TRIAL book, but this shows that hatchet was on his list. However, many obstacles could have prevented him from bearing down on the hatchet/weapon argument in that book. One might even be space limitations, and the fact that it was not clear in the actual trial WHAT the problems were between the police, prosecution, and hatchet combined with the State's contention that the weapon was basically irrelevant, and not even named in the indictment.
(What other tack could they take when they have a plethora of possible weapons but none with blood or hair or any direct evidence, other than that they were found on the premises? They could not tie any weapon to any assailant).
-possibly he left this out as embarrassing to Knowlton: as an unasked favor.
-one book would be 1900 pages to include everything in that trial.

 
By raystephanson on Tuesday, 12/18/2001 - 02:34 pm [Edit] [Reply] [Msg Link]  
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My reading of Pearson shows him to be a proud, arrogant snob (not that there's anything wrong with that). More importantly, he DID edit the transcript of the Trial so one-sidedly that it amounted to a hoax (said E Radin).

Leaving facts out to make Lizzie appear guilty is his right, but I do not think much of this pandering to ignorance. Just as Radin left out Lizzie's claim that "neither Bridget or anyone who worked for Father was guilty". You are free to disagree.

 

(Message last edited Jan-13th-02  7:05 AM.)

See Pearson-Radin Controversy, by Gerald Gross-THREAD
in "Privy."