ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Evening Star, Issue 21076, 13 April 1932, Page 12

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

ASSASSINATION MYSTERY Stories which have been, long current among many sections in this country that John 'Wilkes Booth, the actor, who shot President Abraham , Lincoln, escaped and that an innocent man was executed in his stead, may be proved true by science (says the Chicago correspondent of the London ‘ Morning Post ’). Seven hpysiciaus here have announced that they are virtually convinced that a battered mummy, for twenty-eight years a freak in a side show, is the body of the real assassin. A series of X-ray examinations of one of the mummy’s legs prove that it was broken at exactly the same place as was Booth’s when the murderer leaped from the railing outside Lincoln’s box in Ford's Theatre in Washington on the night of April 14, 1865, after having fired a shot into the President’s brain. On that tragic occasion the actor gained the stage, despite the leg fracture, ran into _ the wings, escaped through the rear door to where his horse was waiting, and galloped away. Innumerable stories and legends since -have declared that he made good his, escape, and roamed the country a free man for thirty-seven years. The historical version hitherto held to bo correct says that ho was cornered in a bam twelve days later, wounded, and. later executed. Following his execution, says history, the body was buried secretly in Baltimore under cover of darkness. The mummy had been regarded as that of John St. Helen, who committed suicide in Oklahoma in 1902. The theory that Booth escaped after the wrong man had paid the penalty for his deed is supported by the alleged confession of St. Helen, who is said to have murmurraed' before he died: “I am John Wilkes Booth.” Booth’s murderous act aroused the nation to feverish excitement and indignation. The woman in whose boarding house the plot was said to have been hatched was hanged, and the actor’s family suffered the deepest humiliation. Invective was heaped upon a Maryland doctor who set the fugitive’s fractured leg. Even the name of Edwin Booth, beloved Shakespearean actor and brilliant brother of the assassin, was for many months under a cloud, although when ho appeared on the New York stage in 1 Hamlet ’ a year later the audience showed by unstinted applause its conviction tliat “ the glory of one brother would never be imperilled by the infamy of another.” Lord Charnwood, who is the author of a work entitled ‘ Abraham Lincoln,’ stated to a ‘ Morning Post ’ representative, when shown this statement: “ The only thing I can point out is that nobody was executed, strictly speaking. A man, supposed to be John Wilkes Booth, was shot down while trying to escape arrest in company with a man who surrendered and was afterwards hanged as one of the conspirators. “ Such at least is the story gven by John G. Nicolny, Lincoln’s biographer and secretary, who was in Washington at the time. “ I do not know what possibility there was of mistake as to the identity of the man who was shot, and, of course, a much fuller account 'of the evidence on which it is now denied that he was Booth would be necessary before I could say anything further about it. There is "not, I believe, the smallest doubt that John Wilkes Booth was the actual assassin.”