The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-06-27
who Were the oonspirators 7

From The World.
When Benjamin Butler, in fit of personal
spleen against an opponent in Congress, de-
clared last March that Mrs. Surratt was an in
nocent woman unjustly hung, very few people
were convinced who were not convinced be-
fore, because very few people are in the habit
of believing anything Butler says. But the
testimony of a low drunkard against, may
perhaps be regarded as doubtful as the testi-
mony of Butler for, that unfortunate victim of
the military Star Chamber at Washington;
and whoever carefully read the statements
ELECTED from the witness John M. Lloyd,
during the examination at the Surratt trial on
Monday, must have been startled into a sus-
picion, at least, that Butler did not lie.
1t was the evidence of this man Lloyd, the
landlord of the hotel at Surrattsville, that did
most to convict Mrs. Surratt at the assassina-
tion trial. Lloyd alleged, in the first place,
that some five or six weeks before the assassi-
nation, Harold, Atzerott, and John II. Surratt,
who is now on trial, came to his house, and
left and concealed in it, with his knowledge
two carbines, cartridge box of ammunition
and rope sixteen or twenty feet long; that the
carbines were covered, and he did not examine
them at that time that on the Tuesday pre-
vious to the assassination he met Mrs. Surratt
in buggy near Uniontown, when she called
his attention to the shooting irons" that had
been left at his place; that about 5 o'clock on
the afternoon previous to the evening when
the President was shot, he returned home
that the village of Marlboro where he had been
attending trial, and found at his house
Mrs. Surratt, who said to him, ''Mr. Lloyd,
/ want you to have those shooting
irons ready; some parties will call for them
tonight" Mrs. Surratt then handed him a
package enclosed in paper, which he ''did not
undo until he got up stairs, and found it was
a field glass;" and asked him to 'have two
bottles of whisky ready, as they would be
called for that night" He also testified that
soon after u O'Clock the same night, after the
assassination, Booth and Harold came and
called for and took away one of the carbines,
the feld-glass, the whisky, and monkey
wrench, without alluding to the rope, and
leaving that behind and further that, just as
they were leaving, Booth said:-"I will tell
you some news; / am pretty certain that we
have assassinated the President and Secretary
Seward !" The War Department spy, WEIGH
man, gave certain color to these fatal allega-
tions by telling that he drove in buggy with
Mrs. Surratt. to Surrattsville, on the afternoon
! alluded to-, for the purpose, as she explained,
! of collecting some money from man named
! Notify, on which occasion she carried a
paper package which 'looked like two or
! three saucers done up in brown paper. !"
|
this later trial. After rehearsing in substan-
TALLY the same terms, the circumstances of
the first visit of Harold, Surratt, and Atzerott,
their deposit of the arms and other articles at
his house, and of Mrs. Surratt's visit the after
noon preceding the night of the murder, he
states that when Booth and Harold called near
midnight, after the deed, he ''went up stairs,
and got one of the guns, field glass, and a
cartridge-box, which was all he could bring,
and he did not go back" Nothing is said
here about monkey-wrench, or the rope
which had been deposited by the conspira-
tors nearly six weeks before In his cross
examination Lloyd states that at BriantOwn,
two weeks after the assassination and before
the trial, ga man named Cattngham said il
he would testify he would receive the protee-
tion of the Government" The endeavor by
counsel to procure an answer from the witness
to the question as to whether he, the witness,
''wOuld have given different evidence if he had
not been put in fear, and that if it were not
for his previous examination he would give
} different testimony now,' was overruled by
the Court. But the following passages in his
} subsequent testimony We're sufficient not only
to render direct reply to that question need
less, but to quash it would seem, in the judg