Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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lewis m. grist, proprietor, j 2^tt Jitbtjpirettf Jfamilir ftciiosjjajjer: Jfor t|je promotion of t|e |Jolifical, Social, ^gricaltnral aitb Commercial interests of t|e Soufji. jTERMS--$2.50 A YEAR, IN ADVANCE. VOL. 27. YOEKVILLE, S. C., THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1881. NO. 51. Selected faetojr. THE NINETY AND NINE. There are ninety and nine who live and die In want, and hunger, and cold, That one may revel in luxury And be lapped in its silken fold. The ninety and nine in hovels bare, The one in a mansion with riches rare. They toil in the fields, the ninety and nine, For the fruits of mother earth ; They dig and delve in the dusky mine, And bring hidden treasures forth. But the wealth released by their sturdy blows, To the hands of the one forever flows. From the sweat of their brows the desert blooms And the forest before them falls; Their labor has builded humble homes, And the cities with lofty halls. But the one owns cities and homes and lands, And the ninety and nine have empty hands. But the night so dreary, and dark, and long, At last shall the morning bring, And over the land the victor's song Of the ninety and nine shall ring, And echo afar from zone to zone, Rejoice, for labor shall have won its own. ante <|tm ^ssasstttauan. BOOTH'S BULLET. A Graphic Recital of the Unpublished History of Lincoln's Murder. A staff correspondent of the Philadelphia Press furnishes that paper with a graphic account of the morder of Abraham Lincoln, based upon interviews with living persons who were on intimate terras with the assassin at the time he committed the.deed. The story as related by the correspondent throws a new ! light upon many features of this occurrence, which proved so disastrous a blow to the South, and as containing many points not hitherto published, will be read with interest. After describing the Booth family burial lot in Greenwood Cemetery, Baltimore, the writer proceeds: THE FIRST ASSASSINATION. A visit to this spot which contains the earthremains of the departed members of this fortunate and yet unfortunate family, naturally gives rise to a long train of thought, and the miud goes back sixteen years and more and rests upon the thrilling events which then startled the world, and with which the name of John Wilkes Booth is inseparably welded. From here the City of Baltimore stretches out to the waters of the rive:: which joins the great Chesapeake Bay in carrying the commerce of a busy port out to the sea. It makes a broad panorama of busy life, and it was in the midst of this that John Wilkes Booth was born, about forty two years ago. 3 A look over the scene naturally recalls many of the strikiug points of his early life, and a glauce toward the water of the basin wherein the ships lie, revives the story of the crime for which he died. There upon one of the wharves John H. $urratt, who joined Booth in his desperate scheme to kidnap President Lincoln, now earns a livelihood as clerk for the Old Dominion line of steamships. He is tKo nnlu anpolmp nf tfiA nnnsnirat.nrs. I saw him but a short time siuce, busy with his duties. He is a rather tall, young-looking man for his years, and of slender, wiry build. He has not a particularly striking face, but looks like a stirring business man. He has a cold and firm expression of countenance, with strongly marked features. His face is rather thin, aud his restless blue eyes seem to be set far back under his heavy eyebrows. A rather prominent Roman nose does not add particularly to his appearance. His hair is quite red, and he wears a mustache and goatee which gives him something of a military look. He is spoken of as a quiet man who rather shuns society, and never alludes to the conspiracy with which his name and that of his family is so closely counected. His sister Annie, the poor girl who suffered so terribly as to make her old while she was yet young, | also lives in Baltimore. She ft the wife of Professor Tonry, its leading chemist. While busy with the thoughts which a visit to the grave of Booth would naturally invite, a gentleman evidently familiar with Baltimore and acquainted with the history of this family, approached. "This Booth Monument," said he, "formerly stood in the old TTfc ' 1 . J xl _ Jtsaitiraore cemetery wnere it maraed me | resting place of Junius Brutus Booth only. Toward the close of the war Edwin Booth and his mother, who is still living, bought this lot and removed the remains and the monument to this spot. Later the remains j of the children were brought from the old ! Booth homestead in Hartford county. As ; soon after the assassination and the death of John Wilkes as the tamily could get permis- j sion from the Government to remove the body, > his remains were brought here and buried j with the other children, and his name carved I . - upon the marble." visitors to booth's grave. "Did his friends ever view his bodv after death ?" "Oh, yes, and quite a number of people have locks of his hair cut from the head after the body was brought to Baltimore. There was a great fuss made about the burial of the body here at the time it was brought over, but as this cemetery is free to any one who may purchase a lot here except colored \ people, his burial could not be prevented., The remains of Richard Booth, whose grave you see to the right, were also brought from j Baltimore Cemetery. The elder Booth, that | is Junius Brutus, moved into Hartford coun- j ty, a short distance below Baltimore in the early part of the present century, and nearly ! all of the family were born there. The whole.j of them have had a queer and eventful his- I tory. The elder Booth, when at home, was in almost cou3tant trouble with his neighbors. He was a most vindictive opponent of slavery, and was often accused of assisting runaway slaves and with advising the negroes to seek their freedom. He named the son who killed Lincoln, and who, by the way, was the ouly member of the family who sympathized with the Southern cause, after John Wilkes, the great English agitator. Indeed the whole family, from Richard down, might be called j man-worshipper3. The tragic characters of, Shakespeare v.-ere their idols. Their study, their habits of thought, and their ambitions sprung from dead heroes, and it is not at all surprising, considering the passions engender- ! ed by the war, that this young man took upon himself to enact the character of Brutus,; whom he had been taught to revere." The Superintendent of the cemetery, Rev. Mr. Heffner, coming up at this moment, I inquired : "Do many people visit Booth's grave?" "Not many. Now and then some actors or theatrical people come." "Do manv ask for the grave of John Wilkes Booth?" "Now and then people ask to see it out of mere curiosity. Edwin Booth conies sometimes?whenever he plays in this city I suppose. He was here with his wife once, as nice, a little lady as you would want to see. I I see she died recently. I like Mr. Booth very much, and do you know that if you did j not know he was an actor you would take' him to be a clergyman. He was here with his mother when they first bought the lot and it was the first time I bad ever seen him. I have known a good many actors, but old as I am I have never yet witnessed a theatrical performance. I am quite well acquainted with John E. Owens, who lives just out the road here." I plied the old clergyman-superintendent with questions about Booth, but he had exhausted his information in the few lines given. I then turned from the grave and soon left Green mount behind, and was again in the heart of the busy city. The visit to Booth's grave excited in me a great and renewed interest in the history of the great crime which fell like a pall upon the people of the North as they were preparing to celebrate in joyous festivities the coming of peace, and determined me to go over the old ground and rewrite the atory. I have done so, and in a plain way now tell what I saw and heard. JOHN T. FORD'S RECOLLECTION8. Not far from the graveyard where the Booth family are buried, lives John T. Ford, me veierau meairicai wnuager wuu iui tuauj years had close relations with all the Booths who were actors. Under his management Junius Brutus, Edwin and John Wilkes Booth played some of their most successful engagements. It was Ford that attended to the removal of the remains of John Wilkes from Washington to where they now lie, notwithstanding that the crime be committed in Mr. Ford's theatre caused that gentleman great trouble and a vast amount of money. I met him the other day at his opera house in Baltimore and the assassination of Mr. Lincoln became the subject of conversation as in contrast with the assassination of General Garfield, and the difference in the character of the two men who committed these two gerat crimes. "I was not in Washington when Mr. Lincoln was killed," said Mr. Ford. "I had lived in Richmond some years before the war, and had friends and relatives there. Fearing that they might be suffering for the necessities of life, immediately after the surrender I started for that city. Colonel Forney also went down at the same time. I arrived the morning of the day the President was killed, and on the next morning started home. When on the way, I first learned of the crime. When I reached home I was ar rested and kept in prison tor thirty-nine days." "When do you think Booth first conceived the idea of killing the President ?" "It is morally certain that he never had such a thought until late in the day upon which he commited the assault. The facts in the case are that he never knew the President was to attend the theatre until nearly noon of that day. He was always a late riser. He came down to breakfast about ten o'clock on that morning and his fiance6, who also boarded at the National Hotel with her parents, met him. They had a short conversation, and after breakfast he walked up to the Surratt mansion, on Sixth street, it is supposed, from the direction in which he was first seen coming by the attaches of the theatre that morning. He was walking down Tenth street from toward H. He was faultlessly dressed in a full suit of dark clothes, and a tall silk hat. He wore a pair of kid gloves of a subdued color, and a light overcoat slung over his arm and carried a cane. My brother Harry who was standing in front of the theatre with some other gentlemen first saw him, and turning to his companions said : THE ADONIS OF THE STAGE. " 'Here comes the handsomest man in the United States.' "He came directly to the theatre, went to the box office, got his mail, went out and sat down on the front steps of the theatre to read it. One of his letters was a very long one, so lengthy as to attract my brother's attention. When he had finished reading it he arose, and approaching Harry, said : " 'What's on to night?' " 'Our American Cousin, and we are going to have a big night,' replied Harry. 'The President and General Grant are going to occupy the President's box and General Lee is going to have the adjoining oue,' said he, by way of chafing Booth. " 'I hope they are not going to do like the Romans?parade their prisoner before the public to humiliate him ?' bitterly responded j Booth. "Harry replied that he was jesting about1 Lee, but that Mr. Lincoln and General Grant! would certainly attend the evening perfor- j mance; that a note had been sent from the ! White House engaging the box. As Harry j said this Booth was thoughtful a moment, and then turned and walked down the street toward Pennsylvania avenue. He met Mr. John F. Coyle, then one of the editors of the National Intelligencer, and Booth's very warm friend. He shook hands with him and said : " 'John what would be the resultifsorae one would put Lincoln and the Cabinet out of the way ?" "Coyle laughed and said : "'We don't have any Brutuses in these days.' "Booth turned and walked down the street, and after that time, which certainly must have been nearly noon, the arrangements for the | assassination were hurriedly made. I do not believe that any reasjning man longer doubts that there was no thought of killing Mr. Lincoln until the day upon which the crime was committed. Until Booth came to the theatre that morning he had no knowledge that the Presideut iutended visiting the theatre in the evening. That afternoon he wrote a letter justifying the assassination. This letter he gave to John Matthews, who now is J V-... V__I. tr? ...?? 4.U? ?l??. cligageu in ew jl ui rv. iic noa mcu piojing at my theatre. The letter was intended to be published in the National Intelligencer, and it was well on toward night when he gave it to Matthpws. He was riding down Pennsylvania aveuue toward the National Hotel when he met Matthews and handed him the letter. Matthews destroyed the paper immediately after the shooting, and no one ever saw it but he." BOOTH AS AN ACTOR. "Was Booth a great actor?" "Yes, sir. Doubtless he would have made the greatest actor of his time bad he lived. Besides being the handsomest man I ever saw, he was an athlete. He put intoall his impersonations the vitality of perfect manhood. He added a fine physical organization to his marvelous mental powers. His Macbeth and Richard were different from any other I ever witnessed. In the scene in Macheth, where he enters the den of the witches, Booth would not content himself with the usual steps to reach the stage, but had a ledge of rocks some ten or twelve feet high erected in their stead, down which he sprang upon the stage. His Richard was full of marvelous possibilities, and his fighting scene was simply terrific. I have paid him 8700 a week, and he could easily earn 820,000 a year, and he was only 26 years old when he died. He was very fine in the Apostate, and his Raphael in the "Marble Heart" was simply matchless. He was an ideal Raphael. When we were playing in Boston, he doubtless made the greatest success of any actor of his day. People waited* in crowds, after the performance, to catch a glimpse of hirp as he left the theatre." "Was he acting at all the winter he was in Washington ?" "No, eir; not at all. He had given out that he had made a great deal of money in oil speculations, and I suppose he had, for he showed me a pamphlet?a sort of prospectus of oil property for sale?in which it was mentioned that the land adjoined the very successful property of J. Wilkes Booth. He told ray brother Harry that he was only going to act twice that winter?once in a performance for John McCullough's benefit, who had not then become famous as an actor, and once for Harry's benefit. McCullough and Booth were great friends, and Booth had played the Apostate, I think, for Mr. McCullough's benefit, when he told Harry he would play for his. I believe he was going to repeat the same play for my brother's benefit. Booth came to Washington evidently bent upon the single errand of capturing the President. "Finding that all his plans for the abduction had failed, and the end of the war was growing nearer and nearer, he, at the very last moment, determined to take the desperate chance of assassination. Booth was a very gifted young man, and was a great favorite in society in Washington. He was engaged, it was said, to a young lady of high I ' 1 ? T J ,L.l posuiOD aua cnaracier. x uuueruiuuu ujui she wrote to Edwin Booth, after the assassination, telling him that she was his brother's betrothed, and would marry him, even at the foot of the scaffold." A THRILLING RECITAL. "My God ! My God 1 I have no longer a country ! This is the end of constitutional liberty in America." These were the words spoken with startling emphasis, on the evening of the 14th of April, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth. He was passing down Pennsylvania avenue, in Washington, and near the corner of Thirteenth street, had met John Matthews, a fellow aetor, and a boyhood friend, whom he thus addressed. "He was as pale as a ghost when he uttered those words," said Mr. Matthews to me, a day or two since, while relating the occurrence. "There was quite a number of Confederate prisoners passing along the avenue as he spoke, and when he said, 'This is the end to constitutional liberty in America,' he pointed feel ingly toward them. He looked at them a moment, after they had passed, and was thoughtful. He then turned to me quickly and said : " 'I want you to do me a favor.' "'Anything in ray power, John,' I replied. He thrust his hand into his pocket and drawing out a letter, said : 'Deliver this to Mr. Coyle, of the National Intelligencer, to night by eleven o'clock, unless I see you be fore that. If I do I can attend to it myself.' "I took the letter, saw that it was sealed, put it into my pocket aud walked on. Booth, who was on horseback, rode rapidly down the street, and I never saw him again until he jumped from the box in Ford's Theatre to the stage after shooting the President. I was then playing at Ford's, the piece being 'Our American Cousin.' Laura Keene was the star. Booth almost ran against me as he leaped across the stage on his way to the door. There was, of course, a great commotion, and I at once went to my dressing-room and picked up my wardrobe, parsed under the stage, out through the orchestra and the auditorium and into the street with the audience. My room was directly opposite, at Mr. Peterson's, the house in which Mr. Lincoln died. I walked nmplrlir nprnsa lnntprl flip rlnnr nf mv rnnm and began at once to change my clothes. In picking up my coat the letter Booth had given me upon the street, that evening before the theatre opened, fell out of my pocket upou the floor. I had almost forgotten it in my excitement. I quickly picked it up, tore it open, and read it very carefully. 'My God,' thought I, 'this self-condemnation of my friend shall not be found in my possession,' and I threw it into the fire, watched it until it burned to cinders, and then mixed the atoms with the coal ashes. Iu the excitement and horror which followed the shooting the Archangel could never have explained the possession of that letter. I did not then realize, however, by what a slender thread my life huug. My impulse when I burned the letter, was that the evideuce to condemn my friend should not remain with me." "Who else saw that letter beside yourself?" "No other living man after it came into my possession. It was sealed and directed to Mr. John F. Coyle, one of the editors of the National Intelligencer." "Do you recall its contents?" "Almost as vividly as though I had just committed it to memory. It began : booth's last letter. Washington, D. C., April 14, 1865. "To my Countrymen : "For years I have devoted ray time, my energies and every dollar I possessed in the world to the furtherance of an object. I have been baffled and disappointed. The hour has come when I must change my plan. Many, I know?the vulgar herd?will blame me for what I am about to do, but posterity I am sure will justify me. Right or wrong, God judge ine, not man. Be my motive good or bad, of one thing I am sure?the lasting condemnation of the North. I love peace more than life. Have loved the Union beyond expression. For four years have I waited, hoped and prayed for the dark clouds to break and for a restoration of our former sunshine. To wait longer would be acrime. My prayers have proved as idle as my hope. God's will be done. I go to see and share the bitter end. This war is at war with the Constitution and the reserved rights of the States. It is a war upon Southern rights and institutions. The nomination of Abraham Lincoln four years ago bespoke war. His election forced it. I have ever held the South were right. Iu a foreign war I too could Bay "country, right or wrong." But in a struggle such as ours (where the brother tries to pierce the brother's heart) for God's sake choose the right. When a country like this spurns justice from her side she forfeits the allegiance of i every honest freeman, and should leave him j untramraeled by any fealty soever to act as his conscience may approve. "People of the North, to hate tyranny, to : love liberty and justice, to strike at wrong i i and oppression was the teaching of our fa- j j thers. The study of our early history will ! 1 not let me forget it, and may it never! " 'I do not waut to forget the heroic patri- I j otisra of our fathers who rebelled against the oppression of the mother country. "'Thiscountry was formed for the white, j not the black man. And looking upon Afri! can slavery from the same standpoint held by ' the noble fraraers of our Constitution, I for j i one, have ever considered it one of the great- I ! est blessings, both for themselves and us, that j ! God ever bestowed upon a favored nation, i j Witness heretofore our wealth and power ; wit-1 ' ness their elevation and enlightenment above ' ! their race elsewhere. I have lived among it most of ray life and have seen less harsh treatj ment from master to man than I have beheld i j in the North from father to son. Yet, Heav; en knows no one would be willing to do more for the negro race than I, could I but see a way to still better their condition. "'But Lincoln's policy is only preparing the way for their total annihilation. The South are not, nor have they have been, fighting for the continuance of slavery. The first battle of Bull Run did away with that idea. Their causes since for war have been as noble ?? t i and greater far than those that urged our fathers on. Even should we allow they were wrong at the beginning of this contest, cruelty and injustice have made the wrong become the right, and they stand now before the wonder and admiration ofrthe world as a noble band of patriotic heroes. Hereafter, reading of their deeds Thermopylro will be forgotten. " 'When I aided in the capture and execution of John Brown (who was a murderer on our Western border, and who was fairly tried and convicted before an impartial judge and jury of treason, and who, by the way, has since been made a god), I was proud of my little share in the transaction, for I deemed it my duty, and that I was helping our common country to perform au act of justice. But what was a crime in poor John Brown is now considered (by themselves) as the greatest and only virtue of the whole Republican party. "'Strange transmigration ! Vice to become a virtue, simply because more indulge in it. I thought then as now, that the abolitionists were the only traitors in the land, and that the entire party deserved the same fate as poor old Brown. Not because they wished to abolish slavery, but on account of the means they have ever endeavored to use to effect that abolition. If Brown were living, I doubt whether he himself would set slavery against the Union. Most, or nearly all the North do openly curse the Union if the South are to return and retain a single right guaranteed to thera by every tie which we once revered as sacred. The South can make no choice. It is either extermination or slavery for themselves (worse than death) to draw from. I know my choice, and hasten to accept. I have studied hard to discover upon what grounds the right of a State to secede t has been denied, when our very name, United | States and the Declaration of Independence provide for secession. But there is now no time for words. I kuow how foolish I shall be deemed for undertaking such a step as this, where, on the one side, I have many friends and everything to make me happy, where my profession alone has gained me an income of more than 820,000 a year, and where my great personal ambition in ray profession has such a great field for labor. On the other hand, the South have never bestowed upon me one kind word ; a place now where I have no friends, except beneath the sod ; a place where I must either become a private soldier or a beggar. To give up all of the former for the latter, besides my mother and sister whom I love so dearly (although they so widely differ from me in opinion), seems insane ; but God is my judge. I love justice more than I do a country that disowns it; more than fame and wealth, more (Heaven pardon me if wrong) more thad a happy home. I have never been upon a battlefield, but oh ! my countrymen, could you all but see the reality or effects of this horrid war, as I have seen them, in every State save Virginia, I know you would think like me, and pray the Almighty to create in the Northern mind a sense of right and justice (even should " " aP r*"? onrl PT O lb pUSSCOO IIVJ ocacuuiu^ Ul Uibl WJ j i*uva AAV would dry up the sea of blood between us which is daily growing wider. .Alas ! I have no loDger a country. She is fast approaching her threatened doom. Four years ago I would hare given a thousand lives to see her remain (as I had always known her) powerful and unbroken, and now I would hold my life as naught to see her what she was. Oh ! my friends if the fearful scenes of the past four years had never been enacted, or if what has been had been a frightful dream, from which we could now awake, with what overflowing hearts could we bless our God and pray for His continued favor. "How I have loved the old flag can never now be known. A few years since and the entire world could boast of none so pure and spotless. But I have of late been seeing and hearing of the bloody deeds of which she has been made the emblem, and shudder to think how changed she has grown. Oh ! how I have longed to see her .break from the mist of blood and death so circled around her folds, spoiling her beauty and tarnishing her honor. But no; day by day has she been dragged deeper and deeper into cruelty and oppression, till now (in my eyes) her once bright red stripes look like bloody gashes on the face of heaven. I look now upon my early admiration of her glories as a dream. My love is now for the South alone, and to her side I go penniless Her success has been near my heart, and I have labored faithfully to further an object which would have thnn r-\*>r\*r c\A mv nnoolfioli ^fiUAflAn I1IUIC tlJUU piuvcu Lit J uuowugu uvvvw?vm? Heart sick and disappointed I turn from the path which I had been following into a bolder and more perilous one. Without malice I make the change. I have nothing in my heart except a sense of duty to my choice. If the South is to be aided it must be done quickly. It may already be too late. When Caesar had conquered the enemies of Rome and the power that was his menaced the liberties of the people, Brutus arose and slew him. The stroke of his dagger was guided by his love for Rome. It was the spirit and ambition of Caesar that Brutus struck at. "O then that wo could come by Ciesar's spirit, And not dismember Caesar ! But alas! Cicsar must bleed for it!" I answer with Brutus. He who loves his country better than gold or life, John W. Booth. story of john matthews, the actor. "Following Mr. Booth's signature," Mr. Matthews continued, "which was evidently written in great haste, were the names of Payne, Harold and Atzeroth, all in Booth's own hand-writing, given as the men who would stand by him in executing his changed plans. Booth wrote John S. Clarke, the actor, his brother in law, in the November preceding the assassinatiou a letter identical in many respects with the one he left with me as a justification for his act. The arguments were all the same, the changes in the letter I destroyed being those which would follow the change of plan from kidnapping to assassination. The material alterations are in the first part of the letter, where he indicates the change in his purpose. The most striking difference between the letter he gave to me and the one he wrote to Mr. Clarke is his reference to Brutus and the quotation from "Julius Caesar." The body of the letters were identical. Of course there maybe some immaterial omissions, but you may imagine how such a letter, carefully read under the circumstances which surrounded me when I perused it, would impress itself upoD one's ! mind. My profession lias, of course, trained ray memory to retain a great deal of matter without much study, so that I feel justified in saying that the letter I have given you is practically a correct copy of the one poor John handed to me in the streets of Washington upon that fearful night. I am glad to say that it is positive evidence that the murder of the President was neither born of malice or even contemplated until within a very few hours of the time the fatal shot was fired." "How did the fact that Booth had left such a letter become known T "When John was killed a diary was taken from his person containing the entry that he had left a letter to the National Intelligencer. About the time of the impeachment of President Johnson the other Washington papers made au assault upon the National Inieli. gencer, calling it the organ of John Wilkes Booth, and rather insinuated that President Johnson was in some way cognizant of the letter if Dot of the killing before it occurred. I fell compelled then to apeak out and announce that it was I who received the letter from Booth and destroyed it. I had at the time of its destruction, as a Catholic, told < the Reverend Father Boyle, of Washington, all about the letter and the circumstances I under which I received it." "Were Booth and you often together during the winter preceding the murder ?" "A great deal. He and I were boys together, you know, having both been born and i raised in Baltimore. Often during the winter < he had talked to me of the feasibility of kidnapping the President, but never confided i to me any of his plans. He often seemed to i be brooding over the war, and seemed to have i UZ- ??? itoliof onrl ovoKatiirP nf 1 IJIO ucai b OCt UjJUU LUC igilVl UIIVI VAVMMt.^v W. the Confederate prisoners. He once told me i that if he could capture the President, carry i him within the Confederacy and hold him at ] a ransom, it would compel the exchange of i prisoners man for man. By that he meant < white man for white man, not recognizing the < negroes as soldiers. That was his plan and aim until within a very few hours of the time I he Bred the fatal shot." { "Do you know when his plans for the ab- 1 duction of the President were formed ?" I A REMARKABLE STORY. I "Yes, sir, very well. The elder Wallack, the late E. L. Davenport and I, walked into my room one day, and found Booth lying upon my bed studyiug the part of Marc An- : tony in 'Julius Caesar.' By-the by it was in the same rooru and on the same bed upon which Mr. Lincoln died. Mr. Davenport . and Mr. Wallack began talking of the war. < They had been to visit some of the hospitals | about Washington, and both of them seemed , very much affected by the scenes they had ] witnessed. Booth joined them in the talk , about the conflict, and all of them expressed { more or less feeling against the war. It was | a feeling not of bitterness but of sorrow, that : Ml* 1. J brothers should be engaged in Killing eacn other. The pathos and power with which both Davenport and Wallack expressed their desire for peace is beyond description. It made a great impression upon my mind as I know it did upon Booth's. It had been arranged that Mr. Wallack, Mr. Davenport, myself and some others were to go out to the Soldiers' Home to play for the benefit of the soldiers, and this subject was discussed. Booth made his arrangements to go with us, and said he would be one of the audience. He knew Mr. Lincoln intended to be present, and at once set to work arranging his plans for capturing him after the play was over. We played "Still Waters Run Deep." At the last moment Mr. Lincoln was detained by a pressure of business and did not attend the performance. Booth was very much disappointed, as I afterwards learned. The minuteness with which every detail of Mr. Lincoln's transportation within the Confederate lines had been arranged and the care and attention which Booth intended to bestow upon him after his capture can be read from a transaction with which unwittingly I had something to do. A few days before we played at the Soldiers' Home I was going over to Baltimore. Booth asked me to carry a trunk which he would have at the depot and deliver it to a gentleman living in Baltimore whom I knew. I took the trunk with me to Baltimore and delivered it to the gentleman named by Booth. I did not see him in person and left the following note : " 'My dear Mr. : "Please deliver this trunk to Mr. , who will see that it is delivered to Mr. , who will have it safely shipped so its destination, of which he is informed. Be careful. "Very truly, John Matthews." I do not fill the blanks in the note for the reason that the gentleman to whom it was addressed, as well as those who were to handle the trunk, are still living. "This trunk was filled with potted meats, j sardines, the finest kind of crackers, some t flasks of brandy and other comforts, even down to toilet articles necessary for a gentle- 0 man's use. This trunk was to be shipped to lower Maryland, where Booth went when he attempted to escape. It was intended for the comfort of President Lincoln on his journey to the Confederate lines. It was Booth's intention to show the President every attention after his capture for he had great respect for him, notwithstanding he abhorred the manner in which he was forced to use his power. He never had a thought of taking the President's life until the last moment, when it seemed to him necessary for the object he had nearer his heart than anything else in life?the release of the Confederate prisoners." "When did Booth form his determination to kill the President?" "Not until late in the day on which the deed was committed. He had spent the whole winter in Washington in the endeavor to kidnap him, and the failure of his every j effort, followed by the surrender of Lee, decided him at the last moment to resort to exI treme measures to accomplish bis object. The j very argument he uses in that letter about I the killing of Cscsar by Brutus shows the J stateof his mind and the exalted method of I reasoning which brought him to commit the' act." ' booth's sweetheart. "Was Booth acting any that wiuter?" "No ; he was devoting himself entirely to his scheme for the release of the Confederate prisoners. He boarded at the National Hotel and was courted by the best society in ! Washington, and, indeed in the country. After his failure to capture Mr. Lincoln at the Soldiers' Home, he seemed very much depressed. He had had some words at the National Hotel upon the subject of the exchange of prisoners with a United States Senator, and coming up to my room he spoke on the subject with great feeling. Finally he threw himself upon my bed and seemed to t be a good deal distressed. He lay for a mo- j ment in deep thought and then quickly turn- ] ing to me, said : < "'John, were you ever in love?' I " 'No, I never could afford it,' I replied. j " 'I wish I could say as much. I am a < captive. You cannot understand how I feel. i What are those lines in Borneo and Juliet i describing love? I have played them a hun- ] dred times but they have flown from me." I " Will you stand a bottle if I'll give it to i I Ol T _ I 1 | you r 1 asKeu. . ( '"I will?two of them,' replied Booth. | 1 " 'Here are the lines,' I answered : ( O! anything, of nothing first create! O ! heavy lightness ! Serious vanity ! ? Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming form ! 6 "'That's it,'replied Booth. 'If it were not 1 : for this girl, I could feel easy. Think of it, ( ! John, at my time of life?just starting as it i : were?I should be in love!' " 1 "Did he meution the lady's name?" i "Oh, yes, but that shall be sacred with rue. 1 She is married now, and it would serve no 1 good purpose either to his memory or to the i truth of history to revive it. He loved her s as few men love. He had a great mind and i a generous heart, and both were centered upon t the girl, whom he intended to make his wife, t Her picture was taken from his person after c he was killed." It "Were you upon the witness stand in the trial of the conspirators ?" "No, sir, I was simply held for a time, as were all the other actors and persons connected with the theatre. Poor John T. Ford was kept in prison more than a month, when there was not the faintestsuspicion of bis complicity, but St. Michael himself, could not have escaped arrest in those days." Mr. Matthews is now an actor in the Union Square Theatre, in New York, where I met hira and listened to the story above retold. His recollection of Booth is naturally very vivid. He has retained as relics the wardrobe he wore on the night of the assassination, as also some trinkets which we?e the property of Booth. "Do justice to poor John," said bespeaking of his friend. "He thought he was doing right, and had brooded so much over the terrors of war, that he had reached a point where be looked upon his act as patriotic. He was a tiro fro man Tkarn nao nnmpfhincr PTftlt.pd in his courage. Think of his begging for simply the chance to fight for his life, when the joldiers bad surrounded him in the barn. I Jo not believe that the cranky soldier who is credited with killing Booth ever shot him. That he shot at him there is no doubt, but my Iieory is that when John found he could not ;et a chance for his life, and either had to die ay fire or be killed by his euemies, he himself ired the shot which ended what had been so promising a life." fading. A WOMAN'S DUTIES. The late number of the Student, a literary aaper published by the students of Hiram College, quotes an extract from a letter writ;en by Mrs. Garfield to her husband over ten fears ago, and intended for no eyes but his. [t fell into the hands of President Hinsdale, >vho made use of it in a lecture to the students, md as it showed the qualities of Mrs. Garield's mind, and her opinions upon the subect of woman's work, he gave it to the stulents. The extract is as follows : "I am jlad to say that out of all the toil and disapjointments of the summer just ended, I have isen up to a victory; that silence of thought tiuce you have been away has won for my ipirit a triumph. I read something like this .he other day : "There is no healthy thought vithout labor, and thought makes the labor lappy." Perhaps this is the way I have been ible to climb up higher. It came to me one norning when I was making bread. I said o myself, "Here I am compelled by an inevtable necessity to make our bread this sum ner. Why not consider it a pleasant oecu)ation, and make it so by trying to see what )erfect bread I can make ?" It 6eemed like in inspiration, and the whole of my life grew >righter. The very sunshine seemed flowing lown through my spirit into the white loaves, ind now I believe that my table is furnished vith better bread than ever before; and this ruth, old as creation, seems just now to have >ecome fully mine?that I need not be the hrinking slave of toil, but its real master, naking whatever I do yield me its best fruits, fou have been king of your work so long hat may be you will laugh at me for having ived so long without my crown, but I am too 'lad to have found it all to be entirely dis:oncerted even by your merriment. Now, I vonder if right here does not lie the 'terrible vrong,' or at least some of it, of which the voman suffragists complain. The wrongly educated woman thinks her duties a disgrace, ind frets under them or shirks them if she :an. She sees man triumphantly pursuing lis vocations, and thinks it is the kind of vork he does which makes him grand aod egnant; whereas it is not the kind of work it all, but the way in which and the spirit vith which he does it." The Wandering Jew.?There are varies versions of the story of "The Wanderng Jew," the legends of whom have formed he foundation of numerous romances, poems, ind tragedies. One version is that this peron was a servant in the house of Pilate, and rave the Master a blow as He was being {ragged out of the palace to go to His death, i popular tradition makes the wanderer a neinber of the tribe of Naphtali, who, some even or eight years previous to the birth of Christ-child left his father to go with the wise nen of the East whom the star led to the owly cot in Bethlehem. It runs, also, that he cause of the killing of the children can \a tranp/1 tn thn sfnrtpfl this nerson related vhen he returned to Jerusalem of the visit >f the wise men, and the presentation of the jifts they brought to the Divine Infant, when He was acknowledged by them to be the king )f the Jews. He was lost sight of for a time, vhen he appeared as a carpenter who was iraployed in making the cross on which the saviour was to be lifted up into the eyes of uen. As Christ walked up the way to Calvary, He had to pass the workshop of this nan, and when he reached its door, the solders, touched by the sufferings of the Man of sorrows, besought the carpenter to allow Him ;o rest there for a little, but he refused, adling insult to a want of charity. Then it is aid that Christ pronounced his doom, which vas to wander over the earth until the sec>nd coming. Since that sentence was utterid, he has wandered, courting death, but inding it not, and his punishment becoming nore unbearable as the generations come and jo. He is 6aid to have appeared in the sixeenth, seventeenth, and even as recently as ho picrh?M>nth rent.nrv. under the name of 3ataphilus, and Ahasurus, by which the Wandering Jew has been known. One of the egends described him as a shoemaker of Jerusalem, at whose door Christ desired to est on the road to Calvary, but the man refused, and the sentence to wander was prolouuced.?Inter Ocean. Discretion and Cunning.?At the same :ime that I think discretion is the most useful talent that a man can be master of, I ook upon cunning to be the accomplishment >f little, mean, ungenerous minds. Discre;ion points out the noblest ends to us, and pursues the most proper and laudible methods )f obtaining them ^cunning has only private, selfish aims, and sticks at nothing that nay make them succeed. Discretion has arge and extended views, and like a well'orraed eye commands a whole horizon ; cunling is a kind of short-sightedness, that disjovers the minutest objects that are near at land, but are not able to discern things at a listance. Discretion, the more it is discovered, gives i greater authority to the person that poslesses it; cunning, when it is once detected, oses its force, and makes a man incapable if bringing about even those events which he night have done if he had passed only tor a ilain man. Discretion is the perfection of 'eason, and a guide to us in all the duties of ife ; cunning is a kind of instinct, and only ooks out after our immediate interest and velfare. Discretion is only found in men of itrong sense and good understanding; cunliug is often to be met with in the brutes hemselves, and in persons who are the few;st removes from them ; in short, cunning is inly the mimic of discretion, and may pass lpou weak men, in the same manner that vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdoto.?Addison. Select (no Cotton-Seed.?A Misnssippi planter has on exhibition at the Atlan ta Cotton Fair, a bale of cotton, pronounced by many good judges, as the finest short staple cotton ever seen in Atlanta. His especial hobby is the selection of his seed. It is not a question of different varieties, but of good and bad seed of the common variety. He has the seed of the best stalks selected every year for planting; and he claims that it is by a judicious selection of seed that the cotton can be made better. It is needless tlo say, remarks a critical observer, that as a rule, the selection of seed and guano, as well as the methods of culture, are matters of accident and not of exact study. There is no reason why the greater part of the inferior cotton that sells for 8 or 9 cents, might not, under a careful system ot agriculture and manipulation, be made to sell for 10 and 12 cents. Careful agriculture, if need be scientific agriculture?this is what the South needs quite as much as manufactures and capital. The samples of cotton are not a very great iittrac*-? iL. o?.i e ? ? n;.u <l.Aav. uoo to iut; ouuiuem luruieis wuu vioil luc exhibition, but the lessons that are to be learned from the experiments that have produced them are the most important lessons, by all odds, that the exhibition can teach. The Ruins op Nineveh.?There were four sites of the royal Assyrian residences discovered on the left side of the Tigris, in what was considered Assyria proper, and which were in the time of the preaching of the prophet Jonah, within the metropolis Ninneveh. These are Kuyunjik, Nebi Yonis, Nimrud, and Khorsabad. There are other important ruins within what I consider to be the radius of that "great city,'- such as Yarinija, Balawat, Karamlais, Bahsbika, and Sharif khan. Taking the oblong distances of those different ruins, together with Kuyunjik and Nebi Yunison the western limit, Nimrud on its southern border, and Khorsabad on its northern side, they make the size of the old city around about sixty miles, or three days' journey, as mentioned in Holy Writ; because twenty miles are reckoned in that couotry, according to the traveling of a pedestrian, about a day's journey. In all these mounds there have been discovered Assyrian rem sins; and at Balawat especially the famous bionze gates and temple dedicated to the god of war Assur nazir-pal. There are besides ;hese mounds, several others, scattered all over the above-mentioned space, which must have been formerly temples or watch-towers to guard the several quarters of the great town, with gardens and orchards enclosed. Southern FoRESTS.--The Southern States are awaking to the realization of the richness which exists in their vast forests. The New Orleans Democrat estimates that Louisiana contains more than 17,000,000 acres of wooded land. The saw mills have made little impression upon this vast supply of timber, which comprises a large variety of valuable woods. Most of it, too, can be easily marketed, thanks to the bayous and watercourses with which the State is so liberally provided. Since the increasing scarcity of Western timber becomes apparent, large purchases of timbered lands have been made in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina. It is to be hoped that this splendid poesesnion, the importance of whioh the South is jusi; beginning to comprehend, will be managed with more care than has been bestowed upon the forests of the North and West This country must learn the science of forestry sooner or later, and now is a good time to begin.? Boston Economist. -? Too Much Pride.?General James Weir was once a rich and respected Ohio lawyer, the leading jurist of Belmont county, and famous througout the State; but he fell into profligacy, lost all his money and good reputation, and was a year ago compelled t? sell his library, to which he had clung as long as possible, in order to keep from starvation. His sons, George and James, disgraced themselves by drunkenness, were accused of robberies, and one was sent to prison for shoot ing an enemy. It will thus be seen that the Weirs had sunk very low in the social scale. Still, when a dressmaker offered to take Ada, the General's fourteen-year-old daughter, and teach her how to earn an honest living, the old man became furiously angry, declaring that the girl should not "disgrace herself and the family by learning a trade." It wa* in an altercation over this question that James Weir, as lately reported in a telegram, killed his father with a blow on the head. Too Many Such Husbands.?Only a short time ago, says the Osceola Sentinel, while we sat in an Osceola store, we saw a man and his wife from the country trading. The woman had the appearance of being a hard working, industrious, intelligent lady. She was examining a piece of calico or ot her cheap goods. The clerk said : "Shall I cut you off ten yards?" The pale faced overworked woman turned to her husband, and in a timid, frightened manner asked hint if she might buy a dress as she needed it, and the cost would be less thau $1. "No," he grunted, "I can't afford it," and yet he bad just paid as much for a great plug of navy and a paper or two of smoking tobacco. The poor, ill clad, but neat woman, subsided as though this was no new experience, while her rough, coarse and animal husband bit off a mouthful of the weed and ordered hei to get ready for home. Why Southern Cotton Factories Prosper.?It is stated that the cost of plating a year's cotton crop in the New England market is $108,600,000, of which over 830,000,000 is paid for freight and insurance. Is it any wonder that Southern cotton factories are prosperous, when by working up the product of their fields at even less cost than it can be done in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and selling their cloth at their doors, they can save more than one-half of the total expense mentioned above, or say, $50,000,000.?Rochester (N. Y.,) Morning Herald. tThe soot of soft, or rather bituminous coal, dusted upon onions when wet with dew, is said to be a remedy for the maggot. The moeher fly closely resembles the house fly. As soot is a good fertilizer, nothing is lost by the application, even if it does not always destroy the maggot. If soot from this varietj' of coal will destroy the maggot, it might be veil to try soot derived from the burning of pi :ch pine or other soft woods. aST A clergyman lost his hat one evening and was obliged to go home with a shabbier one, which was left in the place of it. Next day the hat was returned by the penitent appropriator, who said : "I'll never take a minister's hat again. You can't think what queer things I've had running through my head ever since I put that hat on." Conquer thyself. Till-thou hast dene that thou art a slave; for it is almost as well to bo in subjection to another's appetite as thy own. I?* Coffee drinkers should read the advertisement in another column headed Gcod Coffee.