The Evening Standard—Saturday, Sept. 3, 1892 Page 6

THAT DRESS PATTERN.

Was It Possible For Defence to Have
Duplicated the Goods?

Fall River, Sept. 3, 1892 – The day after the Borden murder City Marshal Hilliard put two New Bedford officers at work in that city with orders to trace Lizzie Borden’s actions during the two weeks previous. They found that she had purchased a dress pattern of cheap material in a dry goods store in that city, and it was to this pattern that reference was made at the trial. Some importance was attached to the matter at the time of the discovery of the purchase. The police failed to find the dress pattern or any dress of it in their search at the Borden house. They made demand on the members of the family to produce the piece of goods or the made-up dress. If they could not do this the police wanted to know what had become of it. The family refused to move in the matter and the police at New Bedford searched the store to get a sample of the goods bought by Lizzie.

The last day of the trial the defence surrendered the piece of dress goods which Lizzie had purchased and it was still intact. The question has arisen in the minds of some people who believe as the prosecution does whether or not it was possible for the friends of the prisoner to have duplicated the dress pattern and surrendered the last purchased instead of the first, and that the first one might have been made-up and used by Lizzie Borden at the time of the murder and afterwards destroyed or put out of the way.