Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1867-06-08
MISCELLANEOUS.
JOHN III. SURRATT.

A MORNING WITH HIS COLLEGE CHUM.
From the New York Tribune.
PHILADELPHIA, May 18.-Convalescent
after chronic attack of Centrifugalism, that
| rheumatism of the bones that compels one
to 90 somewhere, for the sake of the go
rather thar of the Somewhere, had got back
the other day, fat and scant of breath, and
was regaling myself with walk on Chesnut
| street. Suddenly passed round bellied
young man with eyeglasses over his nose.
1t was plain to me that had gone to school
with him, though who he was | was indif.
ferent about remembering. During my pu-
piage at the Philadelphia High School
about 1000 youths had entered and departed
from it and while, apart from my own class,
/ knew not a dozen of them by name, had
hardly forgot a single face. so l swung my
hat promptly: =
Good day, sir Glad to meet you again"
The other hat came off in response, and
walked full block, forgetting, meantime,
all about the person, when heard quick
! foot behind me, felt tap on the arm, and
! the eyeglasses had got around to my front
again.
IL beg pardon" said the young man, "but
you went to the High School, Your name
is Exactly have long wanted to see you.
You know Weichmann ?"
"Certainly that is, not altogether"
| Lewis Weichmann Z"
| Lewis 7"
"The boardcr at Mrs. Surratt's."
| felt newsy and centrifugal at once again,
and drew him to one side. In three min
utes / had him promised to come to my
house the next morning.
Out of his face and voice and the new in
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 checks reappeard
as when he climbed into his bench in the
lecture room, and hummed, with the rest of
the boys, dsapproval of some dry vclumi-
nous orator, or peeped at his lesson and got
''noted" for it during the reading of the
morning Scripture. An ordinary fat boy
considered him, whose definition of school
was q place to get fun out of; and be 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, aud into my room the junior school
mate 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
over him, a moustache that will never come
to much, nose with a good deal of bridge
to it, clear light eyes that do not strain by
their near sightedness, and that bodily pre-
maturity which makes him "wadde" some
what in gait, and was expressed by Surratt
in the nickname 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 boarder at Mrs. Cunninghams where
DIR. Burdell was boarded-the young fellow
who waltzed with Augusta and played the
banjo in his cell, sublmely indifferent to the
great tragedy he lived so close to; in hall
an hour found that Weichmann was alto
gether graver man, sobered, practicalize6,
even religiously affected by the part he had
un nwittingly played in the direct conspiracy
of our times.
~ believe, sir" he exclaimed, in the
pitch of the narrative, "that was provi-
dentially thrown in the way of those people
that i was an instrument prepared to
convict them. Look it was l that intro,
duced St. Maurie to John Surratt two years
before the asassination; 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 uoou FRIDAY
an srder came from Mr.. Stanton to the de
partment in which was clerk, giving only
the Catholic employees holiday for the after
noon. But for that holiday should nevel
have driven Mrs. Surratt out to Surrattsvills
four hours before the murder, and 1t was
that drive that hanged her."
asked him to 60 back to the beginning
of himself, and tell me all that had not beer
evidence on the trial-whstever inferential
and domestic, and characteristic had marked
Ibis acquaintance with the Surrstts; for
had been collecting data upon the grsa
crime, and had been present in all its scenes
fresh after their eommsmorations the thea