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Lizzie Andrew Borden

 

Forum URL:

http://lizzieandrewborden.com/LBForum/index.php
Forum Title: LIZZIE BORDEN SOCIETY
Topic Area: Lizzie Andrew Borden
Topic Name: Sound file on Lizzie

1. "Sound file on Lizzie"
Posted by Harry on Apr-6th-02 at 9:12 PM

There is a 7 minute sound file in .ram format at this site:

http://www.wbur.org/special/strangemuseums/lizzy.asp

It covers an interview at both the B&B and the FR Historical Society. Also includes the famous Lizzie ditty and parts of "You Can't Chop Your Poppa Up In Massachusetts".

Immediately above Lizzie's picture on the right is the word "Listen".
Click that and it will open up where you have the choice of just playing or downloading the file. I used Real Player and it worked quite easily. I was not however successful in downloading the file.

(Message last edited Apr-6th-02  9:17 PM.)


2. "Re: Sound file on Lizzie"
Posted by bobcook848 on Apr-6th-02 at 10:14 PM
In response to Message #1.

Well Harry you have once again outdone yourself...that is by far the best if not the most entertaining site yet...thank you so much for internet research results...

BC


3. "Re: Sound file on Lizzie"
Posted by Stefani on Apr-17th-02 at 12:31 AM
In response to Message #2.

Does anyone remember reading a description of how Lizzie's voice sounded? All I hear in my head is Elizabeth Montgomery.


4. "Re: Sound file on Lizzie"
Posted by Harry on Apr-17th-02 at 7:12 AM
In response to Message #3.

That's a fascinating question Stef. I assume you mean the pitch, speed, etc. Her temper and words are usually described as cold and deliberate but not much else.

I looked at a few books. In Radin (page 186, paperback) Bence is described as identifying her by voice in his visit with the police to 92 Second St.

"Asked where and how he had identified Lizzie, Bence testified that he was taken to her home that night by Officers Harrington and Doherty. He waited outside the kitchen door while Harrington pretended he was checking up on a report that a man had been seen in the yard. The purpose was to get Lizzie talking so that he could listen to her voice. Bence testified that he had identified Lizzie Borden by her voice.

Jennings then asked: What was there peculiar about the voice?
A: It was tremulous."

I assume that at that time Bence heard her she was using her normal tone of voice. However on the same page, Frank Kilroy, a student, who happened to be in the store when Lizzie allegedly attempted to buy the prussic acid testified:

"Jennings then asked these questions:

Q: How did she speak?
A: Quite loud.
Q: Did you notice any tremulous tones?
A: No, sir."

Pulling out the old Funk & Wagnalls I checked "tremulous".
"1. Characterized or affected by trembling. 2. Showing timidity or fear."

You should think the descriptions would be the opposite. She would be more confident in the confines of her home and far less so when attempting to purchase the acid. Unless the purchase tone was used for a deliberate bluff.


(Message last edited Apr-17th-02  7:13 AM.)


5. "Re: Sound file on Lizzie"
Posted by Stefani on Apr-17th-02 at 9:11 AM
In response to Message #4.

I am a theatre person. I know that the meaning is not in the words or the order of the words or the arrangement of the sentences or the pauses or the punctuation, but the inflection and the body language.

To this end, I cannot abide by actors doing recordings of trial testimony. That amounts to just ONE interpretation of the way a sentence might have been spoken. And the millions of choices a person could make in a, say, 25,000 word document are staggering.

When I read Lizzie's transcript from the Inquest, as Terence pointed out in our article in the LBQ, what I am looking at is a fourth generation document. Here is what I mean:
1.  Lizzie spoke
2.  White heard it
3.  White wrote it down in shorthand
4.  White (or someone) took those shorthand notes and transcribed them into type.

And if you want to be really goofy about it, I, or you, become the fifth element in the chain as we are interpreting the sound of the words in our own heads.

Now here is the nasty part: Lizzie's Inquest testimony was lost with Bridget's. We do not have the first volume. What we have is a TRANSCRIPTION of the testimony as appeared in the New Bedford Evening Standard. Since the testimony appeared during the trial in 1893, the day after her testimony was excluded from the trial, we have to assume, and a note in Rebello supports, the idea that the prosecution gave the transcript to the paper to print.

So we have to now add another generation (an opportunity for error) by having the paper transcribe the transcription. We are then removed to the 6th generation. Now how can we ever assume that what we are reading is what was actually said, that the punctuation is accurate, that the transcript is complete?

I read the testimony and, depending on my mood and feelings of her guilt, I can read into it all sorts of things. Hesitations become guilty pauses, mispeaking becomes outright lies, denial becomes argumentitive, and facts stated become facts emphatically pushed forward.

See what I mean? So for me, to know the quality of her voice, to read about the way she talked and her manner of speaking would really help me be able to more accurately "read" the only words we have from her.

I realize I will never solve this dilemma. But I search on regardless.


*** if anyone out there is thinking the New Bedford Evening Standard still has a copy of the all illusive transcript, you can relax. One of our tasks was to try to locate the thing, and we contacted the paper and they did a search and assured us that there was nothing in the files related to this document. It had either been returned or discarded years ago.

(Message last edited Apr-17th-02  9:14 AM.)


6. "Re: Sound file on Lizzie"
Posted by Kat on Apr-17th-02 at 4:13 PM
In response to Message #5.

Now I'm trying to imagine Lizzie's voice in my head.

Did she have a FALL RIVER, MASS. accent?
I never contemplated that before.
Did (almost) cultured girls at the time and place have regional accents regardless of their upbringing?

I still SEE her in black and white, because of the photographs!


7. "Re: Sound file on Lizzie"
Posted by rays on Apr-18th-02 at 5:41 PM
In response to Message #4.

One book explains why this testimony was tossed out: the different descriptions of LAB's voice. Tremulous or firm? They didn't get their stories straight. Aside from the irrelevance of attempting to buy poison. That's true then or now: a hatchet job implies a man (or "a woman of the lower classes").



 

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