[Illustration: NEW BEDFORD COURT HOUSE (OUTSIDE).]
[Illustration: NEW BEDFORD COURT HOUSE (INSIDE).]
On the evening of the Wednesday the prisoner made a call, not in itself unusual or peculiar, upon a friend of hers, Miss Alice Russell, and we shall commend to your careful attention what occurred during that interview. It will appear that the prisoner had been intending to spend a vacation with a party of her friends at Marion, and had made some arrangements about going to Marion, and the talk between the two friends started upon that topic. The prisoner said: “I have made up my mind, Alice, to take your advice and go to Marion, and I have written there to them that I shall go, but I cannot help feeling depressed; I cannot help feeling that something is going to happen to me; I cannot shake it off. Last night,” she said, “we were all sick; Mr. and Mrs. Borden were quite sick and vomited; I did not vomit, and we are afraid that we have been poisoned; the girl did not eat the baker’s bread and we did, and we think it may have been the baker’s bread.” “No.” said Miss Russell. “If it had been that some other people would have been sick in the same way.” “Well, it might have been the milk; our milk is left outside upon the steps.” “What time is your milk left?” “At 4 o’clock in the morning.” “It is light then, and no one would dare to come in and touch it at that time.” “Well,” said the prisoner, “probably that is so. But father has been having so much trouble with those with whom he has dealings that I am afraid some of them will do something to him. I expect nothing but that the building will be burned down over our heads. The barn has been broken into twice.” “That,” said Miss Russell “was merely boys after pigeons.” “Well, the house has been broken into in broad daylight when Maggie and Emma and I were the only ones in the house. I saw a man the other night when I went home lurking about the buildings, and as I came he jumped and ran away. Father had trouble with a man the other day about a store. There were angry words, and he turned him out of the house.” And so the talk went. That, I beg you to keep in your minds, was with Miss Russell—Alice M. Russell. There comes now the most difficult duty which I have in this opening. I am consoled, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen, by the fact that you will be aided beyond any explanation that I give you by a view of these premises that I am about to explain. I hope I shall be able, even without the view, to make myself entirely intelligible to you, because no one can understand this testimony that is to come and rightly reason upon it without an exact knowledge of the interior and exterior of that house. In the first place, I may say that the house occupied by this family was a common type of house in this community and in this State, a house with the end to the street and the front door upon the end. It was a rectangular house. It was situated upon Second street in Fall River, which is one of the most frequented streets outside of the main thoroughfares in the city, and is within, as all probably know, a very short distance of the City Hall. It may fairly be called a thoroughfare as well for foot passengers as for carriages. It is a street used partly for residences and partly for business purposes. Second Street runs substantially north and south. It is a street which ascends toward the south. The higher part is south, the lower part is north, and upon the east side of Second Street this house is situated. At the south of the house is the residence of Dr. Kelly, and also very near the house. To the north of the house, and also near it, is the residence occupied by Mrs. Churchill, and diagonally in the rear of the house is the residence occupied by Dr. Chagnon. The house is separated from the sidewalk by a wooden fence, a picket fence, with two gates and in the rear of the yard, in which is situated a barn, there is a high board fence, on the top and the bottom of which there was at the time, and is, I believe, now, a line of barbed wire. There are three exterior doors, three entrances to these premises, and only three, excepting of course, the windows. There is the front door leading directly from the sidewalk up a pair of steps into the hall. There is a side door upon the north side, facing Mrs. Churchill’s house, leading into a small entryway which leads into the kitchen. There is a third door exactly in the rear of the house, which leads down to the cellar. There is what might be called a porch, and a door leading into it, as you will see.