The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-05-21
4 JOHN Il. sURRATT.

4. chronic attack of Centritugalsm, that theu-
,oetism of the bones that compels one 10 90
somewhere for the sake OF the 60 rather sr',i ns,
~ the sopetohere, had got back the other Gay,
Sat and scant of breath, and was regahng
,oveeIf with n walk on Chestnut street. sud
Jenly 7 nassed nd-bellied young man
with eve glasses over his nose IL was pam
10 me that / had gone to school WIN nun,
tbouqh who he was ! was Indifferent ABOUT
ronemberinp During my pupilage at the
PbiIadelnbis High School about 1000 youths
had entered and departed from it; and While,
anart from my own class, knew not dozen
p ri them by name, had hardly forgot single
D.. face. So 1 swung my hat promptly .,
iGood day, sirl Glad to meet you again;
The other hat came off in response, ana
walked full block, forgetting, meantime, an az
about the person, when heard qtnGA loo'
behind me, felt tap on the arm and the eye
glasses had got around to my front AGAIN. ~
~ beg pardon, " said the young man, IDue
Won went to the High School Your name Isl
EXACTLY | have long wanted to see you
You know Weichmann 7" ,..,,y
Certainly that is, not altogeVher'
"Lewis Weiohmann Z"
"Lewis i' u
UTbe boarder at Mrs. Surratts." ..
fall newsy and centrifugal at once again,
and drew him to one side. In three minutes
had him promised to come to my house the
next morning.
OI
terest in him, / summoned, meantime, the
whole memory of the man again. He had
been in the next class behind me, and his
round, chubby, red-tipped cheeks reappeared
as when he climbed into his bench in the
lecture-room, and hummed, with the rest OF
the boys, disapprOval of some dry, volumi-
nous orator, or peeped at his lesson and got
''noted" for it during the reading of the morn
ing Scripture. An ordinary fat boy con-
sidered him, whose definition of school was
place to get fun out of; and he was of mixed
religious origin, his father being Protestant
and his mother Roman Catholic. He went
to the High School three years, and left it
in 1859.
Next morning after meeting him was Sun
day, and into my room the junior schoolmate
was ushered at 10 o'clock. When he put
by his hat, gloves, and cane, | saw him
grown up to be young fellow of twenty
four, brown hair, with dimples and tints all
over him, mOustache that will never come
to much, a nose with a good deal of bridge
TO it, clear light eyes that do not strain by their
near-sightedness, and that bodily prematurity
which makes him ''waddle" somewhat in gait,
and was expressed by Surratt in the nick
name of "Fatty."
His address was singularly intelligent and
pleasant and he has more than average in
dependence of opinion. | compared him, for
the first few minutes, to Snodgrass, the Junior
dell was boarded the young fellow who
waltzed with Augusta and played the banjo
an his CELL sublimely Indifferent to the great
tragedy he lived so close to; in half an hour
found that Weichmann was altogether graver
man, sobered, practicalized, even religiously
affected by the part he had unwittingly played
in the direst conspiracy of our times.
81 believe, sir,'' he exclaimed, in the pitch
of the narrative, "that l was providentially
thrown in the way of those people-that was
an instrument prepared to convict them.
Look it was l that introduced st. Maurie to
John Surratt two years before the assassina-
tion how did | know that one was to be the
man who should chase the other round the
world and bring him home Look again on
Good Friday an order came from Mr.. Stanton
to the department in which was clerk, giving
only the Catholic employees holiday for the
afternoon. But for that holiday | should
never have driven Mrs. Surratt out to Sur
rattsville four hours before the murder, and it
was that drive that hanged her"
asked him to go back to the beginning of
himself, and tell me all that had not been
evidence on the trial-whatever inferential,
and domestic, and characteristic had marked
his acquaintance with the Surratts; for had
been collecting data upon the great crime, and
had been present in all its scenes, fresh after
their commemorations; the theatre, the Sur
ratt House, the Maryland swamps, the route
OF Booth escaping the barn where he died,
the scaffold. | admonished Weichmann that
as John Surratt was shortly to be tried, l
might print this conversation, and here
set it down in running order, and it makes,
unless | am over-sanguine, the straightest
story OF the conspiracy against the Govern
ments preservers yet related
WEIoHMANN's IS NARRATIVE.
In 1859, he began, l left the High School,
where You had known me- and in February of
the same year | entered st. Charles College
at Elicotts Mills, near Baltimore. cOnsi-
derable number of students were present, and
the Principal was the Rev. Father Jenkins.
About six months after my admission Surratt
came there to study for the diocese of Florida
de attracted no attention, either by his talents
or prowess, being one of the most sober and
Obedient scholars, and winning the commen-
"a dation OF all the professors by his tractable
bearing. He was then a fresh-faced fellow of
sixteen, straight and thin, with good broad
forehead, and deeply sunken eyes. We were
not allowed to sleep with one another. the
mOnastic system being enforced, and, although
talked often with Surratt, / recall nothi3o
now that showed him to have any depth az
character, nor pointed ever so remotely to this
crime.
When the war broke out the whole schoo
was, with few exceptions, favorable to the sue
cess of the Rebellion. The teachers seemed
opinion, the secular education, and the repub
lican civilization of the North, and most o
the students either came from slave States, o.
Iaeditated ministering in them. We wer
kept ignorant of Union victories; the news
papers were prohibited; and when emerge'
/ iound myself as misinfOrmed as if | ha
been in iail. Surratt with the rest san