The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 6, 1895, Page 9

'"HE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1895. WHAT DURRANT FELT WHILE WAITING FOR THE FATAL VERDICT. W. H. THEODORE DURRANT, THE CONVICTED MURDERER OF BLANCHE LAMONT, IN HIS CELL AT THE COUNTY JAIL WRITING HIS COMMUNICATION TC “THE CALL.’ [Sketched from life by a * Cail” artist.) TS LETTER TO “THE CALL,” |1 came to realize my situation was too sudden for my organism; |1 felt paralyzed for a moment. My mind refused to think; I felt | stunned. I made a desperate effort to shake the feeling off, (hel feeling of lethargy, and as I fastened my eyes on my dear mother | I became conscious and I felt like myself again. I clasped her, 1 embraced her, I looked in her eyes, and felt a great relief come over | me. My strength and my courage returned only to be startied by the cheering and vociferous applause of the multi!ude-notahlyi that of clapping of the hands of the Lamonts and Nobles and the screeching of the crowd. DURRA! I cannot describe the peculiar feeling that kept -creeping over me as Judge Murphy’s charge to the jury drew closer and closer to the end; and as the last word of the charge was spoken I involun- tarily looked about as if to ask, “What next?” [ felt in a sort of a chaos for the moment, then at once I instinctively raised my eyes to the jury and looked at them. 1 looked as if 1 desired to know what they were going to do. I longed, I yearned for their expression; to hear them at once. I looked steadfastly into the = eves of each man. I watched their movements. [ tried hard to My thoughts swiftly went to my dear mother. I cared noth- sead in their faces which one of them was for or against me. Ing for myself: but I did .Yeel.for my dear, poor mother, who was Hope rose and fell as I cast my searching looks over them. 1 felt not even permitted to receive in respectful silence the fatal crush- relieved at one, and again 1 felt disturbed by the looks of another, ‘"% hlf’w to -her wounded heart. Yes, I declare to you, reader, and all at once as they filed out of their box into the jury-room || there is nothing that has touched my neart so deeply as the great felt a cloud press over my mind, and all became blank to me for love and affection of my dear mother, whose heart was pierced the moment. 1 looked around; I saw my friends and my enemies. | daily for months and weeks during this great ordeal ; and finally, I saw the great thirsty crowd of curiosity-seekers. 1 lovked when the end came and the blow 'descended and her heart broke askance. 1 wondered to myself that I shouid be socalm and pos- and the greatest act of the drama in real life became enacted, the sessed when all these people had centered their interest in me. people—'what shail I say? 1 hesitate; but as I see her bleeding They came to see me, to hear the evidence, to hear and see the end heart with no one to comfort her I say the fiends incarnate must | needs to deport themselves like demons and applaud before this | of the great trial; and I was the center of it all. For a moment sorrowiul scene. inwardly feit amused, then all at once a flash of my true position came to me and I became tranquil again, forcing all the exhausted Ah! for words, for language, for utterances to express my energy in my power to control my feelings and appear, to all out- | indignation at such acruel scene. There is nothing so mean, base, ward signs, at least, caln and indifferent. But it was tasking ail | vile, degraded, demoniacal, mammoniacal, devilish, satanic, impish my power to do so, and presently, when the same jurors filed back and hellish as to revile the true and honest grief and sorrow of a in - the jury-box, took their seats, ah, with what remarkable mother’s heart. rapidity I scanned their faces from one to the other, trying to read Innocent that I was, innocent that I claim to be and am, | re- the verdict in their eyes before the foreman would unfold that | posed with a child’s confidence at the outcome of the charge. tightly folded slip of paper and announce the verdict. 1 felt keenly | I gave my testimony—I gave the whole willingly—I gave the my predicament. [n less than a minute I should kiow my fate ; whole truth—whether it was for or against me. On the stand I all the theories, all presentiments, all opinions, all hope, all the substantiated many of the points the prosecution endeavored to consolations, all fear and doubt were to be at once decided. As i prove, which were used against me in its argument and twisted watched Foreman Dutton unfold the paper and commence reading ! and turned into all shapes, and it helped to convict me on circum= the verdict I felt as if half a dozen men were reading it at the same stantial evidence. time. [ felt as if some one was reading for the benefit of my ears, | But I had then, as | ‘have now, the utmost belief in the tri- another to catch my eyes, another to touch my heart, another to umph of the innocent, and although the law of the land has con- uncover that great and deep mystery of doubt which was veiled in victed me, if I must soon come to stand before God, my Maker, I my: mind. As he uttered the first word I instinctively felt ‘ do now, as I will ever hereaiter, till the last breath leave my body, for the worst. A peculiar tremor seized my body, but I controlled | and as the spark of life disappears in the unfathomable beyond, as myself and gasped to hear the verdict to the last. And as the fatal |1 stand upon the brink of eternity, in the presence of my God, cry words were uttered a cold chill passed through me. Instantly all | out in the anguish of my soul that I am Innocent, Innocent. doubt passed away and | became conscious of a new feeling, a i WILLIAM HENRY THEODORE DURRANT. terrible foreboding of the ill omen. The change of my thoughts asi Cell 29, County Jail, Nov. 5, 1895. r 5o heinous that it DURRANT TURNS AUTHOR. The Convicted urderer of Blanche | the world. # | | Lamont Tells of His Feel= - ings in Court. William Henry Theodore Durrant has | demeanor throughout the t turned author. He burns the oil in his cell at the County out great heaps of manuscript, some pages of which Tie CALL presents this morning, rather as a literary curiosity than any- thing else. Naturally, whatever Durrant writes in his lonely cell is of absorbing interest to the world, for he has been the central figure in one of the greatest criminal trials of the century. these days, and t> tcll the truth, is able to command something more ihan a fair price for the product of his pen. g “You see,” he said yesterday, “that is one of the advantages of being a noterious man. frc 3 ors who desire to print my writings and a dealer in London has written to me offer- ing £25 for my autograph aicne. All this will bring money to my parentsat the time when they need it most.” He has orders from various newspapers and publications for manuscript. The great New York dailies have made him generous—even fabulous—offers for his writings. The public is keen to know as much as it can learn of this abnormal man, who still smiles and preserves a calm and seemingly unaffected cxterior, though | Henry Theodore Durrant. He writes a great deal | 1 have had many offers from edit- | j convicted of a murde | | probably true. | cation to THE CALL is a unique document | perpetration sent a thrill of horror roun In his communication to Tue Carr, Dur- rant gives an inkling of that seeming | | mystery of bis calm and imperturbable | , and even | t moments when the dread ver- he struggled to maintain his reak dowa and shov efore his encmies. And this is No matter how abnormal acreature Durrant may be, it is hardly probable that his seeming indiffer-| ence is natural, his coolness unaffected. | Indeed, a man may be studied from many | in his, writings, To the practiced | these present many opportunities for | dy of character that are not presented | v other way. 3 T'o the student of chirography the hand- | writing of Durrant will present excellent chances for the study of the man’s charac- | teristics. | Of course the writer of the pages still | protests his innocénce; though a‘jury of his peers has adjudged him guilty. He also pays his respects to the crowd that cheered when Foreman Warren Dutton announced | the dread verdict of guilty. | Taken as a whole, Durrant’s communi- | calmne; feeling in its way, and will repay careful study by those who care to pry into the mysteries and mainsprings of that phase of human | nature as presented in the case of William THEODORE DURRANT’'S LIFE. Compiled From His Own Evidence Given on the Witness Stand. From Durrant’s testimony and state- ments made by him during the trial the following varticulars of his life are col- | lected: Iam 24 years of age and have resided in n Francisco sixteen years. My father and mother were married at Toronto, Canada, on the 30th of June, 1870. They were both natives of Canada. In Decem- ber of 1879 my parents removed from To- ronto to San Francisco. I haveone sister living, FEullah Maud Durrant. She is 21 years of age and is now in Berlin study- ing the pisnoforte at the conservatory. She left for Europe on the 14th of February last. ‘With the exception of a few trips I have made I have always lived with my parents. At one time, ten years azo, I lived at Santa Rosa with my sister, whose residence there was necessitated by the state of her health, which was very poor.~ When we first came to San Francisco we lived in Hayes Valley, on Fell street, be- tween Buchanan and Laguna. We lived there only a year or two and then removed to Hayes street, opposite the Jesuit Col- lege, between Van Ness avenueand Frank- lin street. : ‘While my sister and I were away at Santa Rosa my mother and father lived in rooms on Fifth street. near .lassia. A #o= we came home our family again went housekeeping at 305 Fell street. Seven years ago we removed to my mother and father’s present residence, 1025 Fair Oaks street. My education began at a private school when I was5 years of age. I have been going to school continually since then, though at vacation time, for the past cight or nine years, I have been employed at the Golden Rule Bazaar, and have at different times done odd jobs in electricity for vari- ous persons. I worked for John Coop once; he is president of the Belvedere Land Association. 1 wired the house of Joseph Perkins and aiso did work for Mr. Bunker. When I gradoated from the grammar school I went to the Cogswell Polytechnic School and then to the Cooper Medical College. About five years ago, when Emmanuel Church was first built, I became a member of its congregation, and from that time till my arrest [ was a reguiar attendant at all its services and social gatherings. Prior to the building of Emmanuel Church I at- tended Grace Methodist Episq and Sabbath-school. Be!grec:g:{,evtix‘:‘:? was quite small, I went to the Trinity Presbyterian Sunday-school. When my father and mother first came here from Toronto they brought church letters and presented them to the Metro- politan Temple congregation, which was at that time presided over by the Rev. Mr. Kalloch. Until I was arrested for this crime my life was very vleasant, and there was nothing in it at all out of the ordinary FAC-SIMILE OF THE FIRST AND LAST PAGES OF DUR- RANT’S COMMUNICATION TO “THE CALL.”