by Janet Lee
Female warders escort me through the grounds of the prison, but the entrance gate to the tunnel is always guarded by a male warder.
When the door of my cell opens, it is Warder Harper who steps inside and I am glad. Warder Harper is tall and softly spoken. I know her first name to be Alice, and though I call her Warder Harper to her face, in my mind she is Alice.
Alice waits while I place my bonnet upon my head and tie the ribbon under my chin. Then again, while I place the light cloak about my shoulders and tie its ribbon. Having no looking glass, I turn my face to her to enquire whether my bonnet is straight and she gives a slight nod. This is a ritual we have performed before and though Alice doesn’t often speak to me, as this is discouraged between warder and prisoner, I take comfort in her nod, and would like to think she wishes me well by ensuring my appearance is the best it may be.
She beckons me out of the cell and together we walk down the metal steps to the main entrance of the female cell block. We go to the female cell block warder’s office and Alice signs in the large book to say that she’s taking me to court, and then we walk through the main double doors.
A few of the female prisoners are in the exercise yard and they pause in their circular walk to call out good luck to me before they are quietened by the warders who guard them.
The female prisoners take an interest in my trials. Flora says they’ve never heard of someone being tried so many times for the same crime, and they say that I am treated unfairly because I am a woman. But what woman is not treated unfairly? The Queen perhaps? She can do what she likes and has all the money she wants, and it does her no good, for you never see her smile, even though she sits with the big crown on her head and all the diamonds around her neck.
It’s not diamonds they want to put around my neck.
Alice places a hand lightly on my arm as we walk out of the world of women. We go past the bathhouse and the men’s hospital wing. The hospital wing has larger windows as fresh air is considered beneficial to illness. Some of the men stare out at us from behind the bars.
We turn past the hospital building and see the male warder who is to open the tunnel gate for us and take us through to the court. It is Warder Crisp and I hear a small sigh come from Alice’s lips, for this man is none too pleasant.
He is large and heavy and has the bulbous red nose of one who likes his drink and a neck which bulges over the top of his collar and a belly that puts a strain on his uniform buttons.
He is one of those men who thinks he is still in his youth and considers himself a charmer. He is not.
As we approach, he gives a smirking grin and he says, I’m here to take charge of the virtues of my lovelies, and what lovelies we have.
Alice and I say nothing.
I’ve the keys to happiness right here, he says, then he waves a hand to the area near his belt, which might mean he is pointing to the keys that dangle there, or that he’s pointing to something else. I feel Alice’s hand tense.
He leans in towards Alice and says, If you give me a kiss I’ll open the gate for you. Alice takes a small step towards me and reaches her spare hand to the watch pinned to her uniform. She looks down and checks the time.
She says nothing.
I lower my eyes. Crisp continues talking at Alice, and it is as though he does not see me there. We stand for a moment. Him waiting for his kiss and Alice with her hand resting on my arm, waiting for the gate to open.
She checks the time upon her watch again, and he loses some of his bluster. He knows that Alice will have signed me out and there may be some explaining to do if he delays much longer. Then he grunts and mutters as he turns and unlocks the gate. Alice removes her hand from my arm and gestures me down the steps and we begin to hurry along the tunnel. I think she has quickened her pace to avoid the gaoler, who is fumbling at the steps to lock the heavy gate behind him, but perhaps it is because of the rats.
It’s not so very far in the dark underground to the courthouse and I am glad of it. This particular tunnel is only a short one, although I have used the longer tunnel which runs from under the Governor’s mansion. I have seen rats scurrying through each of these tunnels for they are exactly the types of places where rats like to live.
I don’t want the rats to jump on me. Evil creatures.
Today I see but one rat, who runs ahead of us through a large puddle, making a little wave in the water as he goes, then he runs up the wall. I cross to the other side of the tunnel, although it’s not so very wide as to be beneficial and I fear the rat might still be able to jump across and onto me. Alice crosses with me and we hurry, single file, through the section where the rat will be sitting high on the wall and ready to pounce.
We step through the puddles as best we can and lift our skirts to avoid the hems getting wet. I hear the guard behind us call something, but neither Alice nor I pay heed. There’s a lit candle halfway along the tunnel and a brighter one at the other end, which is the gate to the Darlinghurst Courthouse.
There are steps leading up to the courthouse gate, and an officer is waiting on the outer side. Alice and I pause for Crisp to catch up, which he does, red in the face and puffing. The officer looks at the fat gaoler with disdain, and holds this look while Crisp fumbles with his keys and opens the lock. Alice and I enter the courthouse and Crisp locks the gate again and disappears down the tunnel.
I hope the rat finds him.
There’s more signing of books and then I’m led to a courthouse cell where I sit until I’m called. Alice sits in the cell alongside me, as she is to protect my dignity while I’m in court, such dignity as I have, being charged with murder.
We sit for but a moment and then my name is called and we walk up the narrow steps to the special box which is allocated for the prisoner. ‘Defendant’ the name says on the front of the box, but Alice sits in the box alongside me and she is not on trial, and so I think the name is wrong. There are special boxes for each of the different people who come to court and each of these has a name written upon it: one box each for police, witnesses, jurors and prospective jurors, and another large box for the press.
The public sit up behind me in the court on a terrace area where there is seating, much as in a theatre, which is right, I suppose, for we are playing our part in the theatre of the court. My case has caused much excitement in Sydney, and if what Flora overhears is true, there are more discussions in the papers on a daily basis. When I go to my various trials, the courtroom is always full with those who have come to see the entertainment.
I am always the first to go into one of the special boxes. They like the defendant secure before the others arrive.
When Mr Lusk comes in, he looks in my direction and nods, but does not come over to speak with me. I would like to ask him why I’m being tried again, what new evidence they have found, but he gives me no opportunity, for he turns and speaks with the other lawyer and I see them bow their heads together. They are so close that their curly wigs touch.
During the first trial Mr Lusk seemed in some discomfort in the courtroom, but now he has had the opportunity to become familiar and so he prances quite confidently and argues my case and says M’Lord just as well as the rest of the lawyers who speak in the court.
The doors open and the public and the pressmen come in.
I see the pressmen jostle for their seats and I can hear the public behind me as they scramble.
Some call out to me, but there will be nothing new to be heard, and so I try not to listen. Give us a smile Louisa, burn in hell Louisa Collins, murdering bitch, whore, slut. There will not be a kind word among them.
The bailiff will make no effort to quieten them until we all have to rise for the judge.
I keep my bonnet on as it gives me some protection from their words, and the opportunity to peer about me. The men who write their papers all perch on a long bench to the side of the court. A bunch of old cro
ws upon a sheep-fence rail.
They are no better than the tom cats who call for the females at night, making up any sort of a song to attract attention. There is one in particular who never seems to write anything down. He has the look of a drunk about him, that one.
The others sit ready with their pencils held above their paper, and they stare at me, bold as you like. I try to hold myself tight and firm, like a do-gooder woman, but perhaps I should cry as it might be tears they want to see.
When a time has passed, I remove my bonnet and this starts a new round of insults and whistles, then I remove my cape, and place both beside me on my seat, smoothing the cape as I put it down.
Then I put my hands upon the small table in front of me and wait until the judge enters.
As I do these things, I turn slightly in my seat and I sneak a look at those in the gallery. I see those who wish me well and those who wish me ill, and it is the ones who wish me ill who take the greatest delight in the proceedings. Some of them take their place on the stand and damn me. I should like to damn them back.
We are told to rise and then when the judge comes in, he sits upon his throne. He has a canopy over his head, and on the wall behind him there is a carving of a lion and another animal pulling a shield between them. It doesn’t matter which judge or which trial, for they all look the same. The judge wears the biggest wig of all. This one looks as though he has just finished having breakfast with the Queen and a tiny piece of bread was left between his teeth, for he rolls his tongue around while he listens as though he is trying to work this piece out of the gap.
He is well pleased with himself.
I have been in my trial courts many times and I know the judge and lawyers do not want to hear a word I might say. They just keep talking among themselves and bringing in their witnesses and my children and doing their show for the new jury. I told my story at the inquest and it was written down but I was only halfway through and I did not finish. Now at the trials they do not ask me to speak. They just read out my statement each time.
The second inquest tried to find out how my first husband Charles Andrews and my baby John Collins had died. The men of the inquest court, they did not leave my husband and tiny baby to rest in their graves, the same graves they had lain in for some time previous. No, they dug up the bodies and pulled them apart. And then they took great delight in telling the court all about how the bodies were.
When the doctor spoke of my baby, he talked as though it was not a baby he looked at at all. He might have found some leftover stew in a pot, with the fat curdled on the bones and nothing remaining but a small amount of gristle in the gravy, and maggots. There are always those in leftovers.
There was much made of what was found in the baby’s coffin, for it had been sitting in water, I believe. They spoke of the muck, what was there, how what was found was put in a jar, and I did not know there could be so much discussion of what might be held within a small body.
They should’ve shown some decency and left him be.
They took his little body from the ground and cut him open, pulling out his insides and whatnot. John was not ever more than a small baby anyway, and he never did thrive, so I imagine there was not much left of him to be pulled apart, for the worms would have taken their share.
What shall become of the things from his body? Do they stay sitting in a jar somewhere on a shelf, like bottled peaches?
And all of their pulling apart of my child did them no good, for the jury at the inquest said that my baby John had died of natural causes.
If they had asked me, I would have told them that.
News of the Day
LOUISA COLLINS was again placed upon her trial at the Central Criminal Court yesterday for the alleged murder of her husband, Michael Peter Collins, at Botany, on the 8th of July last. The Bench was occupied by his Honor the Chief Justice. The case was conducted on behalf of the Crown by Mr. Heydon. The defence of the accused was again undertaken by Mr. Lusk, at the request of his Honor. A number of witnesses were examined during the day; but the case for the Crown had not concluded when the Court adjourned at half-past 5 o’clock. The jury were locked up for the night.
The Sydney Morning Herald6
Central Criminal Court
The Alleged Murder at Botany
The trial of Louisa Collins, for the alleged murder of her husband, Michael Peter Collins, at Botany, on the 8th of July last, was continued …
Dr. Martin was again called, and gave further evidence with regard to the postmortem examination. He deposed that if arsenic was present in Andrew’s body at the time of his death the water in the coffin when the body was exhumed would have tended to dissolve it; he quoted cases in which no trace of arsenic had been found in the body after death, although it was known that the deceased had died from arsenical poisoning …
A number of witnesses who were called at the previous trials gave evidence, some of them to the effect that they had visited Collins’s during his illness, and had seen the accused waiting upon him and giving him certain liquids to drink …
The statement of the accused made at the inquest was read to the jury …
John Walker, a carter, deposed that he worked with Collins at the woolwashing establishment; on the last day on which Collins was at work he was taken sick, and witness had to do his work for him; they were at Rookwood, and were engaged in carting skins; Collins was taken suddenly ill, and had to go into the bush, and witness loaded the skins for him …
Mr. Lusk, in addressing the jury on behalf of the accused, said they had now for three days been listening to the evidence in this very important case. They had listened to a very large amount of testimony as to fact and as to opinion, and it was now his duty to assist them as far as he could … in coming to a conclusion upon a most difficult and important case – a case in which was involved the life of a human being and the wellbeing of society …
Because it had been shown that the accused could have administered the poison, that was no reason for finding her guilty of murder …
The police visited the house and gave the accused every warning, so that if she was guilty and knew there was arsenic in the tumbler of milk, what would have been easier than for her to have disposed of the contents of the glass? …
Mr. Heydon addressed the jury at some length on behalf of the Crown … He submitted that the whole of the evidence pointed to only one conclusion, and that was that the accused was guilty of the murder of her husband …
The Court adjourned at 10 minutes to 8 o’clock.
The Sydney Morning Herald7
5.
Darlinghurst Gaol, Sydney
7 December 1888
It is late and the court is only just finishing.
Today has been the same stories from the other trials and talk of how both my husbands died. There is nothing new among the stories except that they are made bigger with each telling. One witness remembers more gossip each time she takes the stand, and flutters and preens with the excitement of it.
I am on trial for murdering Michael, but the lawyers have been talking of Charles and how they dug up his body and what they found when they did.
Someone said he knew a case where there was no arsenic in a body when it was dug up, but it was known the man was killed by arsenic. So what does it matter that they find arsenic with their tests or if they find none at all; they suppose I killed Charles all the same. But this trial is for murdering Michael, so I do not know why they are even talking of Charles on any account. They are just wanting to tell the jury I done it to a husband before, most likely.
Some of the witnesses have given evidence time and time again, at both inquests and each of the trials. The doctor, the one who gives the evidence about the bodies, he did not seem to take kindly to being called for another trial.
I suppose it is not convenient for that sort of doctor to have to sto
p his work and come to court again and read his words from his notebook. He would not like to keep his dead bodies waiting.
Alice and I walk back through the tunnel this evening and Warder Crisp is again our escort. He is waiting in the tunnel when the officer brings Alice and me down, direct from the court. Because the hour is late, the tunnel is very dark, and I can’t see the rats. While Crisp locks the gate, Alice and I hurry along, but as we near the steps at the other end Crisp pushes himself between us and he speaks very badly to Alice; there is no escaping his nasty tongue.
We see a light. The Female Governor stands behind the gate at the top of the stairs and I think she has heard Crisp’s words for she is scowling. Crisp fumbles finding the key to the gate. By her lamp, I see he has gone red in the face, but it may be from his exertions.
The Female Governor barks at Warder Crisp that he may walk behind and follow us to the female cells, given the lateness of the hour. We women walk quickly. I hear Crisp’s wheezing as he tries to keep up with us.
When we reach the big doors at the entrance of the female cell block the Female Governor turns and dismisses Crisp. She opens the doors with her own keys and we enter. Alice signs me in at the office and the Female Governor tells me there is dinner waiting for me in the exercise yard as I have missed the evening meal. Alice and I head to the long tables, and I eat from the bowl that has been left for me. The food is now cold, but it is there and put before me and so I eat.
Alice sits on the chair and she wrings her hands in her lap. I look at her and she looks back at me. We do not speak.
Then Alice walks me to my cell and locks me in. I use the slop bucket, and speak to Flora, who has woken and asks how the day has gone as though I have been on an outing to the seaside. I begin to tell her when there is a key in the door of the cell, and the door is opened by Alice and behind her is the chaplain, Canon Rich.