Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-08-01
BETWEEN OURSELVES.


to catch him." This is the script of George A.
Townsend in the Cincinnati Enquirer lately.
Whether it is conjecture, or hearsay, matters
lit le; there it is crystalized clue to the in
terest and completely of this unfortunate pair
of conspirators, whose design upon Lincoln was
scarcely more heinous than that upon Booth,
inasmuch, remarks our suggestive gossip as
s'the Surratt family were of the very slightest
respec liability where they lived.' That dash
outlaws these women at once, from any select,
sentimental regard, and involves them more
than ever.
The differences are fertile in mischief, That
slightest respectability'' rubs off the glamor.
Their crime can have no kind of dignity, for
it sc ems they were only vulgar selfish intrigara-
teS enamored of the beautiful desperate who
vince died them to the bitter end-instead of
being fsnatical Southrons crazy enough to con-
nive at murder in some sort of patriotic hallu-
cination. Hanging was deserved doom for the
elderly woman W no lent her aid to schemlpg
assassin just for the sake of helping her own
amorous cause with him. Wasn't it? And
being the while of ''the very slightest respec-
liability" her presumption was well choked
off.
When Thackery makes Lady Castlewood
profoundly in love with Henry Esmond-while
she is furthering his suit with her daughter
Beatrice, he only throws duel aud the small
pox in her way. With president and part
of his cabinet to dispose of, the course of Mrs.
Surratts love was decidedly rough. But she
went the full length of her rope, for all the OBJ
stacles, and here we are listening to the gossip
of George Alfred Townsend years after, and
wondering If she did love John Wilkes Booth
enough to catch him. or whether the wiles
were put forth for the daughters benefit.
But why shouldn't men be proficient
where they have SO much exercise? We read of
Schopenhauer that when he dined daily at an
ordinary. he was observed to lay louis beside
his plate when he sat down, and replace it in
his pocket when he had finished.
On being asked for an explanation, he
replied that the coin was to be given to
the poor. when the military gentlemen present
talked about some other topic than women.
Yet this same mordant critic gives the key to
| much OF the recurring conversation. Nature, he
says, intends women for a startling effect in
melodramatic sense; she endows them with
| abundant beauty and charms for few years,
and at cost of the remainder of their lives, in
order that they may captivate the fancy of man
| to such degree as to induce him to undertake
the support of their existence; for calm DELHI
Grafton would hardly be sufficient motive for
| such step.
If women give the melodramatic zest to ex-
| istence, the interest they excite is apparent.
One set of men subjects them, and the gal
| lantries and passions in which they take part
to intellectual discrimination and Judgment.
They are collected and classified like 80 many
specimens, and often the expression of personal
tastes is instructive.
Another class of men, having neither wit
Imagination, nor knowledge, gossip SO literally
of their observation and experience, that it is
as if the beasts had spoken.
The time, patience, and scrutiny which men
can give gossip are largely professional, where
in women are precluded from similar facilities.
The lawyer, the doctor, the pastor have peculiar
veins of gossip, which we all know they work
up with admirable narrative skill at times. If
the doctor knows the skeleton in the closet,
he can disintegrate it and put it together
again. strictly reticeut physician now-a-
days is hard to find, and an occasional publish
ing of the oath of Hippocrates would be salu-
| tary. With him no profitable deceit can be
| managed. and he usually arrives at conclusions
without much intermediate speculation. He
can furnish hints and explanations if he
listeth that would make an astonishing margin
for hearsay. So far the odds are all against
| women when 1t comes to being accomplished.
first rate gossips. The patience and pertinaci-
| ty which follow up lead until any mooted
| personal question becomes an irrefutable fact
| belongs to the manly prerogative. For instance,
may be. the women of Miss Burney's day had
doubts about her being only sixteen when she
wrote "Evelina." But when Croker edited
Boswells Johnson he took weary stage coach
ride to examine the parish register of the place
of Miss Burney's birth to determine just how
old she was when she gave her once celebrated
book TO the world. He found that she was
ltwenty-six instead of sixteen as she had repre-
scented, and having established his data. he
sneer at the unmanly proceeding. Un-
| manly, why it was essentially
manly. Women would talk sharply and 1imsi-
ly ABOUT the affair, but they d hardly think of
clinehing the matter beyond all peradventure
| as Croker did.
No one was more happily qualified for the
CHASTITY critique and dissection of the me
| moirs Journals and Correspondence" of Moore
edited by Lord John Russell than this savage
scribe Croker.
How he took that brilliant record of social
intercourse with the high and mighty, and
titled, and riddled it with unspairing hand in
the London Quarterly Revie,p! Thackeray's il
Illustrative plates in the Parts Sketch Book, rep
resenting Louis XIV, in all the magnifcence
of his state toilet, fresh from the royal dressere
hands, and the other when stripped of all his
fine feathers, and even Of his marvellous wig
he is shown to be a bald, shaky, tottering old
fraud-these suggestive prictures alone, can
convey some notion of the ''poet of sll circles"
as he drew himself in his voluminous record
and his denuded condition, when Croker got
through with him. Croker knew the true in
wardness of that sparkling career, and besides,
he had grudge against Moore, which the
poets diffuse diary shaped into the most fero-
cious reprisal. When he edited Boswell's i'm
mortal monument of gossip, he was in his Gle
nent. By the way, what better proof is there
of mans pre-. eminence in gossip. than this per.