ers stationed
near her; and, "in charges for high treason, it is pertinent to
inquire into the humanity of the prisoner toward those representing
the government," is the maxim of the law; and, in addition, we
invite your attention to the singular fact that of the two officers
who bore testimony in this matter, one asserts that the hall wherein
Payne sat was illuminated with a full head of gas; the other, that
the gaslight was purposely dimmed. The uncertainty of the witness
who gave the testimony relative to the coat of Payne may also be
called to your notice.

Should not this valuable testimony of loyal and moral character
shield a woman from the ready belief, on the part of judges who
judge her worthiness in every way, that during the few moments Booth
detained Mrs. Surratt from her carriage, already waiting, when he
approached and entered the house, she became so converted to
diabolical evil as to hail with ready assistance his terrible plot,
which must have been framed (if it were complete in his intent at
that hour, half-past two o'clock), since the hour of eleven that
day?

If any part of Lloyd's statements is true, and Mrs. Surratt did
verily bear to his or Mrs. Offutt's hands the field glass, enveloped
in paper, by the evidence itself we may believe she knew not the
nature of the contents of the package; and had she known, what evil
could she or any other have attached to a commission of so common a
nature? No evidence of individual or personal intimacy with Booth
has been adduced against Mrs. Surratt; no long and apparently
confidential interviews; no indications of a private comprehension
mutual between them; only the natural and not frequent custom on the
part of Booth--as any other associate of her son might and
doubtless did do--of inquiring through the mother, whom he would
request to see, of the son, who, he would learn, was absent from
home. No one has been found who could declare any appearance of the
nursing or mysteriously discussing of anything like conspiracy
within the walls of Mrs. Surratt's house. Even if the son of
Mrs. Surratt, from the significancies of associations, is to be
classed with the conspirators, if such a body existed, it is
monstrous to suppose that the son would weave a net of circumstantial
evidences around the dwelling of his widowed mother, were he never
so reckless and sin-determined; and that they (the mother and the
son) joined hands in such dreadful pact, is a thoug