The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1885-09-26
The Man Wh0 Shot a President.
REmYIEcENcE OF J. WILKES BOOTH.


George c. Bates has turned his poetic
and vivid Imagination upon the actors
he has known and this appears in the
Denver Tribune;
Poor Wilkes Booth was the most
beautiful man whom ! ever saw. Now
that the memory of the samted Lincoln
can be recalled without tears of emo.
ton, let us try to to do justice to the
memory of genius and to the truth Of
history.
1t so happened that among the years
from June, 1860, until 1871, my home
was in Chicago, where first met John
Wilkes Booth, and became attached to
him, because he was one of the most
brilliant men, perfect gentlemen and
accomplished artists that l have ever
met. His personal beauty-his exquis-
tie manners-his dress and address and
all his habits of life were SO unlike the
commen set Of young Americans that he
was absolutely bewitching while his
dramatic performances were unequalled
by any one, save his splendid old father.
L had heard Forrest for years, had
listened to Macreedy and Charles Kean.
l had lived for weeks on the same ranch
with James Murdoch in California: had
idolized Charlotte Cushman for years
had written up the life and times of
Matilda Heron; had time and again
listened to Fannie Kemble, and yet
there was something in the professional
ability, the magnetic delineations of
young Booth, that has left an indelible
impression on my mind and memory.
To see him and Edwin play 'Othello'
and 'Iago,' alternating the characters in
each act, was a feast of reason vouch-
safed few men. That Wilkes Booth
was young man of more dramatic
talent and ability than Edwin, all who
watched bis early career must admit,
and that if he had lived he would have
been his fathers successor none can
deny. But that lie was the sole inheri-
tor of his fathers genius and well-known
eccentricities and insanity, his sad end
and fearful crime bear witness; and ON
this point 1t is desirable that the truth
should now be known.
During his last engagement in Chic
ago, in 1868 and 1864, learned that
John Wilkes Booth was heart and soul
in full sympathy with the Union cause
and its triumph-and on more that one
occasion he went with ME to the Union
meetings in the early part of the even
ing where 1 spoke--and invariably
went to the theatre where he played in
the latter part Of the evening, and sat
entranced under his wonderful perform
ance. His rooms were at the old Tre-
mont Hotel, and almost every evening
after the play went home with him,
supped with him and sat al his bedside
until he went to sleep at midnight. In
all this time he was an active, jealous,
sympathizer with all the efforts in the
cause of the Union. But on leaving
Chicago he went to Louisville, Ky. And
then and there began the first steps in
the life of Wilkes Booth which after
ward ripened into Il state of absolute in
sanity, under the influence of which,
AID in a paroxysm of which, he finally
killed Lincoln, and afterward was shot
himself by captors almost as crazy as
he was in the burning barn. Whoso-
ever remembers his last fearful act to
the tragedy at Washington--whcn hav-
ing fired the fatal shot which ended
Lincoln's career, he jumped from the
stage, crying out as he held the glitter
ing dagger in his hand, Sic semper tg-
ranuS, will see at once that his prompt
inss were of mind diseased.