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.

w) no Life, aOCme, and Capture of John Wsilk. A ih.
The White House has been more of a Republican mansion under huw
trol than for many administrations. Uncouth guests came to it often,
typical of the simple western civilization of which he was a graduate,
and while no coarse altercation has ever ensued, the portal has swung
wide for five years.
A friend, connected with a Washington newspaper, told me that he had
occasion to see Mr. Lincoln one evening, and found that the latter had
gone to bed. But he was told to sit down in the office, and directly the
President entered. He wore only a night shirt, and his long, lank hirsute
limbs, as he sat down, inclined the guest to laughter. Mr. Lincoln dis.
posed of his request at once, and manifested a desire to talk. So he
reached for the cane which my friend carried and conversed in this manner:
"I always used a cane when I was a boy. It was a freak of mine..My
favorite one was a knotted beech stick, and I carved the head myself.
There's a mighty amount of character in- sticks. Don't you think so?
You have seen these fishing poles that fit into a cane? Well, that was an
old idea of mine. Dogwood clubs were favorite ones with the boys. I
'spose they use'em yet. Hickory is too heavy,.unless you get it from a
young sapling. Have you ever noticed how a stick in -one's hand will
change his appearance? Old women and witches would'nt look so without
sticks. Meg Merrilies understands that."
In this way my friend, who is a clerk in a newspaper office, heard the
President talk for an hour. The undress of the man and the witness of his
subject would be staples for merriment if we did not reflect that his great ness was of no conventional cast, that the playfulness of his nature and the
simplicity of his illustration lightened public business but never arrested
it.
Another gentleman, whom I know, visited the President in high dudgeon
one night. He was a newspaper proprietor and one of his editors had been
arrested.
"Mr. Lincoln," he said, "I have been offelectioneering for'your re.elecs
tion, and in my absence you have had my editor arrested I won't stand
it, sir. I have fought better administrations than yours."
"Why, John," said the President, "I don't know much about it. I
suppose your boys have been too enterprizing. The fact is, I dbn't inter fere with the press much, but I supose I am responsible."
"I want you to order the man 8 release to-night," said the applicant.
"I shan't leave here till I get it. In fact, I am the man who should be
arrested. Why don't you send me to Capitol Hil?"
,This idea pleased the President exceedingl,iy. lie laughed the other into
good humor.
"In fact," he said, "I am under restraint here, and glad of any pretext
to release a journalist."
So he wrote the order, and the writer got his liberty.
It must not be inferred from this, however, that the President was a de.
votee to literature. He had no professional enthusiasm for it. The liter.
ar,y coterie of the White House got little flattery but its members were
seated as agreeable citizens and not as the architects of any body's'for
tune.
Willis went. there much for awhile, but yielded to his old habit of gos
sip'Ing about the hall paper and the teapots. Emerson went there once,
and was deferred to -us if he were anything but a phirosopher. Yet he so
far grasped the character of his host as to indite that noble humanitarian
eulogy upon him, delivered at Concord, and printed in the WORLD. IX
I.,. I