as an assassin's
act, and a far more cowardly deed than that which Booth perpetrated,
though it had a less tragical termination. The assassinating spirit has
been increasing fast in the South, which is one proof of the growth of
the aristocratical sentiment there,--assassination being much more in
vogue among aristocrats than among monarchists or democrats, and most of
the renowned assassins and conspirators having been aristocrats. It
denotes the change in our condition that has been wrought by slavery and
civil war, that assassination should have been much talked of here, and
that at last the head of the Republic should have fallen before an
assassin's fire. In other countries assassination has often been
resorted to by parties and by individuals, but until very recently no
public man can be said to have been taken off by an assassin in America.
Booth and his associates stand alone in our history. Others may have
talked pistols and daggers, but it was left for them to use weapons so
odious for purposes of the same nature. Under the belief that the reader
may not be indisposed to see what has been done by assassins in other
countries, we shall here cite some remarkable instances of their deeds,
passing over classic antiquity and modern Italy.

In the sixteenth century assassination flourished to an extent never
before or since known: the hundred years that followed Luther's
appearance on the great stage forming murder's golden age, whether we
consider the number or the quality of the persons slain or conspired
against, or the sort of persons who condescended to act on the principle
that killing is no murder. Reformers and reactionists had their
assassins; but it must be acknowledged that the latter had the best
(which was the worst) of the game, so that nearly all the infamous names
that have come down to us won immortality in their service. It was a
great, a stirring time, one that was fertile in all manner of crimes,
and in which a gentleman that had much nerve and no scruples was sure of
constant and well-paid employment, and might make his fortune--or that
of his family, if he chanced to be cut off because he had cut down some
eminent personage whose life was a great inconvenience to this or that
sovereign or party. The conflict that was waged was one of opinion, and
therefore was fertile of fanatics, a class of men who have furnished a
large force of assassins, who have generally acted on principle, without
being