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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of his aherents of this elmas were, like Helneds Polish virgfn ad he we
very popular with those dramatic ladies-few, I hope and know, in their
profession-to whom divorce courts are superluous. His last pemanent
acquaintance was one Ella Turner, of Richmond, who loved him with all
the impetuosity of that love which does not think, and strove to die at the
tidings of his crime and fight. Happy that even such a woman did not die
associated with John Wilkes Booth. Such devotion to any other murderer would have earned some poet's tear. But the daisies will not grow a
whole rod from his grave.
Of what avail, may we ask, on the impossible supposition that Booth's
~crime could have been considered heroic, was it that such a record should
have dared to die for fame I Victory would have been ashamed of its champion, as England of Nelson, and France of Mirabeau.
I may add to this record that he had not been in Philadelphia a year,
on first setting out in. life, before getting into a transaction of the kind spe.
cified. For an affair at his boarding-house he was compelled to pay a con
siderable sum of money, and it happily occurred just as he was to quit the
city. He had many quarrels and narrow escapes through his license, a
husband in Syracuse, N.Y., once followed him all the way to Cleveland to
avenge a domestic insult.
Booth's paper "To Whom it may Concern" was not his only attempt
at influential composition. He sometimes persuaded himself that he had
literary ability; but his orthography and pronunciation were worse than
his syntax. The paper deposited with J. S. Clarke was useful as showing
his power to entertain a deliberate purpose. It has one or two smart pas.
sages in it-as this:
"Our once bright red stripes look like bloody gashes on the face of
heaven.
In the passages following there is common sense and lunacy:
"I know 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 twenty thousand dollars a year, and where my great personalambitios
in my profession has such a great field for labor. On the other hand, the
Sout have never bestowed upon me one kind word; a place now where I
have no friends, except beneath thi 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 sisters, whom I love so dearly (although they
so widely differ with me in opi.nion) seems insane; but God is my
judge.
Now, read the beginning. of the manifesto, and see how prophetic were
his words of his coming infamy. If he expected so much for capturingthe
President merely, what of our execration at slaying him I
"Right or wrong, God judge me, not man. For be my motive good or
bad, of one thing I am sure, the lasting condemhation of the North.
"I love peace more than life. Have loved the Union beyond exp_'on.
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 woula
be a crime.. All hope for peace it dead. My prayers have proved as idle
as my hopes.'God's will be done. I go90 to see and share th bitter
end."
To wait longer would be a crime. Oh! what was the crime not to wait!
Hlad he only shared the bitter end, then, in the common trench, his ma,
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