The herald., 1897-01-13

prevented the fulfillment Of this pro-
gram, and that. in their stead, Mr.. Lin
coins carriage took up Miss Harris and
Major Rathbone on the way to the the
ater
Exactly a week after the assasslna-
ton spent the evening at the residence
of Senator Harris, when Miss Clara gave
me a circumstantial account of the whole
transaction. which 1 put on paper the
same night, and I may add that, years
after, l loaned this recital of what she
told me, at his particular request. to
Walt Whitman, who wished to read 1t
before writing and lecturing on the sub
jest.
The dagger with which it appears
Wilkes Booth had wounded Mr.. With
ers must, of course. have been the same
weapon with which a moment or two
before he had struck Major Rathbone,
who had sprung upon the assassin be-
fore he mounted the rail of the box for
his spring to the stage. The wound, Miss
Harris told me, was a severe one. and
several times In the course of the even
ing she left the room in which we were
sitting to go and look after her step
brother.
This historical tragedy. some of their
friends have thought. affected with ele-
ments of like kind the afterlives of
these inadvertent participants in 1t.
One cannot say spectators of II, FOR 1t
is evident that no one besides the as
sassin-unless II may be the victim him.
self-saw the murderCus shot fired. Miss
Harris told me that all the three sur
vivors who occupied the box We're lean
Ing out of it when the shot was fired, and
that as far as she herself was con-
rerned, 1t was quite an appreciable space
of time before she realized that the firing
and succeeding excitement We're not
part of the play" which she had never
seen before. My recollectiop moreover,
is that she told me. that same Friday
night next succeeding the misnamed
Good Friday of the deed, that Mrs.
Lincoln had made the same Statement.
to her. and ALSO that Major Rathbone
said he did not, for the first few mo-
| ments. associate the president with
Booths appearance, but supposed the
latter to be some maniac who had just
found his way into the box, and whose
course ought to be arrested.
No blood relationship existed between
Miss Harris and Major Rathbone, and
they were grown up when their parents
married. They were naturally congo
nial and their mutual share in the ira
Sedy, with her subsequent nursing of
him while recovering from his wound,
resulted, naturally enough. ir, their mar
riage not long afterward. when they took
promise for a happy life, SO far as ex-
ternal things were concerned. But the
tragedy had planted its seed of evil in
the memory of the husband and in
course of time. the father of several chill
0ren. He brooded over II until his mind
was unhinged. developing a homicidal
tendency, from which his wife more than
once-if l remember rightly-barely es-
capped; and one night on the eve of his
proposed removal to an asylum, he made
a rush, with murderous intent on their
children. The wife, of course, threw
herself between them and her maniac
husband, and paid with her life the for
felt of mothers devotion. Thus also
died by murder one linked with the gre It
murder of her period, and herself a
woman of no inconsderable talent and
one OF the most prominent in Washing
ton society during the civil war. And
thus, as so often before ard since, was
eXemplif1ed the melancholy truth that a
great wrong wrought in high places
breeds similar, If less conspicuous, evil.
to which no limit of time or place can be
assigned.-New York Tribune.