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.

24 The l~e, Ori,e, and Capture of Joan edke. Booeth.
western oil land. The oertificate for this land be gave to his sister. Just
before,he died his agent informed him that the share was worth fifteen
thousand dollars. Booth kept his accounts latterly with great regularity,
and was lavish as ever, but took note of all expenditures, however irregu.
lar. He was one of those men whom the possession of money seems to
have energized; his life, so purposeless long before, grew by good fortune
to a strict computation with the world. Yet what.availed so sudden refor.
mation, and Of what use was the gaining of wealth, to throw one's life so soon
away, and leap from competence to-hunted infamy.
The beauty of this man and his easy confidentiality, not familiar, but
marked by a mild and even dignity, made many women impassioned of
him. He was licentious as men, and particularly asactors go, but not a set
ducer, so far as I can learn. I have traced one case in Philadelphia where
a young girl who had seen him on the stage became enamored of him.
She sent him bouquets, notes, photographs and all the accessories of an
intrigue. Booth, to whom such things were common, yielded to the girl's
importunities at last and gave her an interview. Hie was surprised to find
that so bold a correspondent was so young, so fresh, and so beautiful. He
told her therefore, in pity, thle consequences of pursuing him; that he en.
tertainled no affection for her, though a sufficient desire, and that he was a
man of the world to whom all women grew fulsome in their turn.
"Go home," ke said, "and beware of actors. They are to be seen, not
to be known."
The girl, yet more infatuated, persisted. Booth, who had no real vir tue except by scintillations, became what he had promised, and one more
soul went to the isles of Cyprus.
In Montgomery, if I do not mistake, Booth met the woman from whom
he received a stab which he carried all the rest of his days. She. was an
actress, and he visited her. They assumed a relation creditable only in La
Boheneme, and were as tender as-love without esteem can ever be. But, after
a time, Booth- wearied of her and offered to say "good by." She re.
fused-he treated her coldly; she pleaded-he passed her by.
Thien, with a jealous woman's frenzy, she -drew a knife upon him and
stabbed him in the neck, with the intent to kill him. Being muscular, he
quickly disarmed her, though he afterward suffered from the wound poign antly.
Does it not bring a blush to our faces that a good, great man, like he who
has died-our President —-should have minet his fate from one so inured to
a life of ribaldry I Yet, only such an one could have been found to mur.
der Abraham Lincoln.
The women persecuted Booth more than he followed them. He was
waylaid by married women in every provincial town or city where he
played. His face was so youthful, yet so manly, and his movements so
graceful and excellent, that other than the coarse and errant placed them.
selves in his way. After his celebrated Boston engagement, women of all
ages and degrees pressed in crowds before the Tremont House to see him
depart. Their motives were various, but whether curiosityor worse, ex.
hibiting plainly the deep intfluence which Booth had upon the sex. He
could be anywhere easy and gentlemanly, and it is. a matter of'wonder that
with the entry which he had to many well-stocked homes, he did not make
hospitality mourn and' friendship find in his visit shame and ruin. I have
-ot space to go into the millionth catalogue of Bo6oth's intrigues, even if
,his journal permitted further elucidation of so banned a subject. Most