The life, crime, and capture of John Wilkes Booth,: with a full sketch of the conspiracy of which he was the leader, and the pursuit, trial and execution of his accomplices./ By George Alfred Townsend.

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opened In Montgomery, Alabama, in his father's cons ted part of Rieard
17z. It w very different work between reeeiving eight dollars a week
and getting half the gross proceeds of every performance. Booth kept
nortliward when his engagment was done, playing in many cities such
parts as Romeo, the Corstcan Brothers, and Raphael in the" Marble HearS,t
in all of these he gained applause, and his journo., eastward, ending in eas
ern cities like Providence, Portland, and Boston was a long suecess, in part
deserved. In Boston he received especial commendation for his enactment
of Richard.
I have looked over this play, his best and favori'te one, to see how ecow
ly the career of the crookback he so often delineated resembled his own.
How like that fearful night of Richard on Bosworth field must hav
been Booth's sleep in the barn at Port Royal, tortured byghosts of victims
all repeating.
"When I was mortal my anointed body
By thee was punched full of deadly holes:
Thiak.on the Tower and me I Despair and die I"
Or this, from some of Booth's female victims:
" Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow I
I that was washed to death with fulsome wine;
Poor Clarence, by thy guile betrayed to death:
To-Miorrow in the battle thisnk on me; despair iad dio "
These terrible conjurations must have recalled how aptly the see s
often rehearsed by Booth, sword ini hand, where, leaping from his bed..
eries in horror:
"Give me another horse I bind up my wounds I
Have mercy, Jesu I Soft! I did but dream.
Oh I coward conscience how thou dost afflict me I
The'lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight
Cold, flareful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear Ibyself? there'is ione eise by:
Is there a murdererherel No l-Ye I-I am I
Then fly,-"what fromt myselft
* * * * * **
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale
And every tale condemns me for a villain I -
Perjury, perjury in the highest degree:
Murder, stern murder in the direst degree:
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, Guity I guit I
By thee starring engagments, Booth made incredible imra y s
book, for one single season, showed earnings dsposited in bank of twenty
two odd thousand dollars. In New York he did not get a hearing, exet
at a benefit or two: where he played parts not of his selection. in Philf
delphia his earlier failure predisposed the people to discard him, and they
did. But he had made enough, and resolved to invest his winnings, The
oil fever had just begun; he hired an agent, sent him to the western dis tricts and gave him discretionary power; his investments all turned out
profitable.
Booth died, as far as understood without debts. The day before the mur der he paid an old friend a hundred dollars which he had borrowed two days
previously. He banked at Jay Cook's in Washington, generally; but
turned most of his funds -into stock and other matters. e gave eighty
dollars eight month's ago for a part investing with others in a piece of
*
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