Authors' Eye
continued
No two accounts are alike; yet impossibly all purport to publish verbatim courtroom proceedings.4 When Judge Lemuel Shaw delivered what most characterized then-and-now as at best a lopsided charge to the jury, he was vilified in the press and on the street corners. In response to this faultfinding public and prior to publication of the most popular transcripts—the Dilnot, Bemis and Stone versions—Judge Shaw altered the record twice, a record already questionable in terms of accuracy. So did the prosecuting team of John Clifford and George Bemis. The Massachusetts Historical Society shared with us the galley proofs Bemis corrected prior to actual publication. Within the now three-inch thick bound book in its rubbed tawny leather and BEMIS in gold lettering on a black band spine, in George Bemis’s careful hand, are hundreds of alterations penciled in above and below lines and squeezed into margins.5
We include in this book one draft that was not so second-guessed: the New York Daily Globe pamphlet. Every afternoon of the twelve-day trial, the Globe and other newspapers rushed to print that day’s court proceedings in their late editions.6 Editors fighting daily deadlines had no time to polish copy; they also had fewer agendas than the prosecution and, it seems, the judge. Once the trial ended, newspapers collected their daily reportage to produce hugely popular pamphlets.
In addition to the varied courtroom transcripts, we read and reread the day-by-day reports in the penny presses and traditional papers, the musty volumes of the 1800s, letters from the busy fingers and minds of Boston’s Victorians, court records in the Massachusetts Legal Archives, period maps, and the Internet of today. We give to you the result of our industry...from a fairer, less skewed place, in line at least with facts rather than suppositions.
In a sense this book tries John Webster all over again; you, our reader, now sit in the jurors’ box. For the first time—finally!—the vanished man and his accused killer will be given a fair shake. We do share with you our conclusions and our rationale; perhaps you will concur. One way or another, it now is time to transfer to you, our reader, the option to find for innocence or guilt.
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- 4
- In our copy of Dr. James W. Stone’s transcript, corrected by him in pencil and published between blue-brown marbleized cardboard covers, defense testimony is summarized rather than quoted. Stone was a witness for the prosecution; the judge had granted prosecution’s request that all physicians be allowed to attend the full trial.
- 5
- The J.A. French transcript advertised as a 91-page illustrated stenographic report reflects this practice of changes to the text. It was touted as “carefully revised and corrected.”
- 6
- The N.Y. press benefited from the wire installed that year from Boston. Morse’s magnetic telegraph transmitted courtroom events almost instantly. This also was the year 4 N.Y. papers formed the Associated Press and covered the case by pooling resources.