The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-07-09 00:00:00

THE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

slowly gathering strength to meet the secondary inflamma-
tion when it occurs. As yet there is little evidence thereof,
and there is no indication that it will be of extraordinary
extent or severity. Dr. Agnew regards the President's con-
dition with much hopefulness.

WASHINGTON, July 4, 11.30 p.m.—The following communi-
cation has been addressed to the American press:—

Executive Mansion, Washington, 11 p.m.—On behalf of the
President and Mrs. Garfield I desire to make public acknow-
ledgment of the very numerous messages of condolence and
affection which have been received since Saturday morning
from almost every State in the Union, from the South as
bountifully as from the North • and from countries beyond
the sea, have come messages of anxious inquiry and tender
words of sympathy in such numbers that it has been found
impossible to answer them in detail. I therefore ask the
newspapers to express for the President and Mrs. Garfield
the deep gratitude which they feel for the devotion of their
fellow-countrymen and friends abroad in this hour of heavy
ailliction.—(Signed) JAMES G. BLAINE, Secretary of State,

WASHINGTON, July 5, 3.55 p.m.
The President's condition has not materially changed
since 1.45 p.m. The physicians continue to regard the symp-
toms as very favourable. Be suffered to some extent yester-
day and to- day from the great heat, and the medical attend-
ants are consulting with a view to the adoption, if practi-
cable, of some plan of artificial refrigeration in the President s
room. Vice-President Arthur called- this afternoon at the
White House.

4.15 p.m.
•
The pulse has fallen to 104, and the President is rest-
ing quietly. Dr. Agnew and Dr. Hamilton have returned
home.
Notwithstanding the favourable character of the bulletins
the feeling everywhere is one of deep anxiety.

Guiteau is said to be a Canadian Frenchman by birth, and
has been considered by people who knew him in Chicago
and other places as erratic or half crazy. He has been in
Washington since March, and was a persistent applicant for
the Consulship at Marseilles.—General Grant says of him
'I met him in the Fifth Avenue Hotel at the close of the
last presidential campaign. He wanted me to sign a paper
recommending him as a proper person to appoint as Minister
for Austria. I knew nothing about him. My son told
me that Guiteau was a lawyer in Chicago, and was sup-
posed to be half crazy. He was no doubt crazy when he
shot the President, and I attach no political importance to
his act. Under these circumstances it was the act of a
cowardly assassin, who had been disappointed in his search
for office. Guiteau evidently believed that he was a man of
great importance to the Republican party, and the defeat
of his aims must have unbalanced his mind. He told me
that he was engaged to a young woman worth one million
dollars, and that he should obtain the appointment he was
looking for it if I would join Henry Ward Beecher and others
in seeking it for him. I refused to sign his papers. I told
my servant not to allow him to enter my parlours. He sub-
sequently forced his way in one day, but I refused to talk
with him, and dismissed him speedily. I regret this sad
occurrence from the bottom of my heart."

Mrs. Sarah V. B. White, a lady in charge of the waiting-
room at the station, was the person who first reached the
President after he was shot. She thus describes the attempt
and arrest of Guiteau :

'I saw the whole thing. A man came in from the door,
entering the ladies' room from the main waiting room just
as the President entered the middle door from B-street.
Wheuhe had approached within five feet of the President he
fired, aiming, I thought, at the President's heart, and
missed him. The President did not seem to notice
him, but walked right on past the man. He fired
again, and the President fell. He fell right at the
turn of the second row of seats. I was the first
to reach him and lifted up his head. A janitor
rushed in and called the police. held him until some men
came and lifted him up. He did not speak to me or to any
one until a young man, who I think was his son, came.
After he had vomited I think he said something to him.
When he was lifted upon a mattress he spoke or groaned.
The man who shot him said nothing. No words at all passed
between them. The man walked deliberately out of the centre
door where somebody headed him off. He turned and started
back the way he came, and was seized at the door by the
police. I have seen the man once or twice before. One time
in particular I noticed him, a few days ago. He promenaded
up and down, just as he did to-day, wiping his face, and ap-
parently excited. I thought he was waiting for some friends.
This morning he waited here half-an-hour, walking up and
down. There were few people in the room when the sh3t
fired; all the passengers had gone out. I think there was a
gentleman standing near the door.

In a telegram from New York on Saturday, the Corre-
spondent of the Daily News says :

This city was overwhelmed with amazement and sorrow
when the news came from Washington that the President
had been shot.

The first and overpowering feeling was of bewilderment.
That in a time of profound peace, in a period of the greatest
prosperity ever known in a country, a President of so amiable
a character, who had no bitter personal enemies, should be
stricken down by the hand of an assassin was utterly in-
comprehensible. Hardly any one believed the report when
it was first heard, but the bulletin boards of the newspapers,
and the announcement which appeared in every office
receiving stock quotations, quickly gave unwelcome con-
firmation. The excitement aroused was rarely violent
in its demonstrations. The prevailing sentiment was one
of profound sorrow. It was asserted soon after the first
news of the tragedy that the President was dead. The
giief caused by the sense of the great loss to the nation
gave way to hope when this statement was contra-
dicted and the wires brought word that the wounds might
not prove fatal. Further encouraging despatches were
received, and people began to think that the earlier accounts
had greatly exaggerated the matter.
As the afternoon wore on, and the news in regard to the
President's condition grew more and more ominous, the ex-
citement grew correspondingly intense. The crowd in the
streets increased, and people waited breathlessly for addi-
tional information. Park-row, where all the morning news-
paper offices are, was almost a solid throbbing mass
of vehicles, and men, women, and children. The
crowd was enormous. The street was filled with
vehicles, but above the heavy rumble of the wheels could
be heard on all sides the cries of the newsboys. Papers
brought high prices. At all the bulletins were large
crowds, and the policemen were unable to keep them from
obstructing the pavements. Men were very quiet and orderly,
and talked in low tones of the tragedy and its probable
and possible effects. The excitement was too deep
to display itself in a noisy way, and the sadness of the people
was too genuine and heartfelt to expend itself in loud talk.
There were men of all shades of political opinions in the
crowds which surged around the bulletins, but they all had
one sentiment in common upon the great crime which had
been committed.

Mr. Camacho, the Venezuelan Minister to the United
States has made a statement, in which he says he had just
sent his carriage home and walked to the other end of the
waiting-room of the station and was in the act of returning
to the door, when a carriage drove up, from which Mr. Gar-
field and Mr. Blaine alighted. Their carriage was dismissed,
and they entered the waiting-room. As the President's car-
riage drove away another one drove up, and a man with
a pale face jumped out, told the driver to wait, and
followed the President and Mr. Blaine into the room. This
turned out afterwards to be Guiteau. He did not seem to
be at all insane, and he acted throughout with amazing
coolness. The President and Mr. Blaine had advaned some
little distance into the room, and the Venezuelan Minister,
raising his hat, was about to speak, when the man who had
alighted from the second carriage jumped forward
and shot the President from behind. Mr. Blaine, on
the impulse of the moment, ran away a little, while
the President, without a word, staggered forward and
turned half round to face his assailant. The man then
advanced two steps in a crouching position, deliberately
pointed his pistol at the President and fired another shot
into his body. Mr. Garfield fell forward on the floor, and
Mr. Blaine, after making a start after Guiteau, dropped on
his knees besides Mr. Garfield and tried to raise him. The
assassin turned after the second shot and ran towards the
door. The Minister jumped forward at the first shot, and
was nearer the door than Guiteau, and the man then
darted back. His carriage, with the open door, was
waiting for him to enter. When driven back he
started for the other door, intending to run around the
cr,ruer of the building and enter his carriage that way. At
that moment Guiteau was pounced upon by half-a-dozen
men and secured. Mr. Blaine called out to have the doors
closed, and they were at once barred by the officials. The
President was then e,xamined. He lay as he had fallen for-
ward on his face, apliarently dead. Assistance was sent for,
physicians and an ambulance summoned. The excitement
increased when the significance of the deed became known,
and the people become almost uncontrollable. Guiteau
was perfectly cool, and as determined and defiant-looking as
possible.

The correspondent of the Standard says that when Mrs.
Garfield was hastening to her husband's side, she
narrowly escaped serious and, perhaps, fatal accident. The
train that brought her from Long Branch consisted of an
engine and one Pullman car. When within two miles of
Bowie Station, sixteen miles from Washington, a parallel rod
on the side of the engine broke, while the wheels were
making 250 revolutions a minute. The rod is a steel bar
which connects the wheels. It is about 12 feet long,
inches wide, and 4 inches thick. As the engine
continued to thunder along, although the engineer im-
mediately reversed steam and put on the air-breaks, the
broken rod plurrged into the ballast with each revolution of
the wheels, tore up the sleepers, and considerably damaged
the engine. This continued for two miles before a stop
could be effected. A.n eye-witness states that as the train
flew by Bowie Station splinters of shattered sleepers filled
the air. „Had the engine left the track the Pullman car
must have been/splintered into kindling wood, and the pas-
sengers all killed. Another engine was sent out from Wash-
ington, and Mrs. Garfield's car was brought to the city.
'Guiteau's brother-in-law had interviews with the prisoner.
Guiteau asserted that he had done the will of the people at
the inspiration of God. When asked how he knew that it
was the will of the people he should kill the President, he
said, "I studied newspapers ever3Oday, and found from
them what people wanted. I cut slips from these
papers, which showed that, if the Stalwarts got into
power, the country would be satisfied and all differences
would be ended. Slips so cut out were enclosed by
me to Attorney. General Macveagh, together with my ex-
planation why I was going to shoot the President. I asked
him to publish the whole in the newspapers. He has done
me great wrong by not having done as requested. People
ought to know my reasons." Ile says nobody knew he was
going to shoot the President. Ile had no personal feeling
against him, but considered it his duty to shoot him. Ile is
not afraid of being punished.

In New York, at the corner of Madison-square, near the
Fifth-avenue Hotel, is a stereopticon bulletin sheet, where,
during the Presidential election, the results of the poll were
flashed after dark upon a large white disc on the side of a
house for the information of great crowds of excited
electors. On Monday night thousands came again to gaze
at the stereopticon, which took up and continued the start-
ling despatches in the sensational evening papers. Despatch
after, despatch flashed on the illuminated space towards which
a sea of anxious faces of men and women turned. "The
symptons are not so favourable," " Tympanitis is setting
in," "Not one chance in a thousand," were the first mes-
sages on the illuminated disc, *then came in detail official
bulletins announcing that the patient must die before mid-
night.
•

Among the warmest expressions of sympathy received
from organizations are some from different Hebrew congre-
gations. _ _

As rumours of a conspiracy still circulate, Mr. Secretary
Blaine has placed an emphatic condemnation on the reports
tending to create an impression that Guiteau is stool of a con-
spiracy.

RECEPTION OF THE NEWS IN LONDON.
The news of the attempted assassination reached London
about four o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and created a pro-
found sensation. At present an unusual number of
American visitors are in the metropolis, and the moment
the news was published in the brief form of the first
telegrams the greatest excitement prevailed among
.the
American colony. The Government offices, the American
Legation, the London offices of the New York Herald, and
the American News Exchange in the Strand, were thronged
by anxious citizens of the United States inquiring for
news.. The telegraph-office at Charing-cross was busily
occupied in the despatch of messages to Washington asking
for the latest details. For a considerable time after the
news had been otherwise received nothing was known offi-
cially on the subject at the United States Legation. Mr.
Lowell had arranged to leave town on a brief visit to Mr.
Matthew Arnold, and had actually left his residence,
Lowndes-square for the purpose. But on his way to the
railway station he found that the report was but too well
authenticated, and he telegraphed to his expectant host the
cause of the postponement of his visit. Before the news
reached the United States Minister, it had been officially
receiv: d from the British represpntative at Washington, by
the Foreign 011ie. The telegram, which was of the briefest
character, was forwarded to Lord Granville, aui by him a
copy was despatched to the Queen.
The news reached her Majesty at Windsor late on Satur-
day afternoon. By the Queen's command Sir Henry Pon-
sonby telegraphed Mr. Lowell as follows July 2.
Windsor Castle. 5.50 p m.—The Queen has heard with the
deepest concern the report of an attewpt having been made
upon the life of the President, and sincerely tiusta the
rumours of his having been hurt are untrue. Her Majesty
would be glad to learn any news you may be able to give
her."
To this of course a reply was at once forwarded, giving