prosperity of the nation which was characteristic of all his public life, he announced his cabinet as follows: Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, of Maine; Secretary of the Treasury, William Windom, of Minnesota; Attorney-General, Wayne MacVeagh, of Pennsylvania; Secretary of War, Robert T. Lincoln, of Illinois; Secretary of the Navy, William H. Hunt, of Louisiana; Secretary of the Interior, Samuel J. Kirkwood, of Iowa; Postmaster-General, Thomas L. James, of New York.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE ASSASSINATION.

CHARLES J. GUITEAU. SEEKING AN APPOINTMENT.-EVENTS OF HIS LIFE. HIS DISHONESTY. — A LAWYER, WRITER, AND STUMP-Speaker. -APPLIES FOR A CONSULSHIP. THE REFUSAL.

DEADLY PURPOSE.

ENCOURAGEMENT FROM THE POLITICAL CONTEST IN THE SENATE. -DETERMINES TO MURDER THE PRESIDENT. HOPES OF ESCAPE. — FOLLOWING THE PRESIDENT. — FAILURE OF HIS COURAGE. MRS. GARFIELD'S PALE FACE SAVES THE PRESIDENT. THE FINAL ATTEMPT. --THE MEETING. THE FATAL SHOT. THE PRISON. — -THE WHITE HOUSE.- UNIVERSAL GRIEF. EXHIBITIONS OF HEROIC DE

VOTION AND LOVE. THE PRISONER IN HIS CELL.

AMONG the thousands of persistent hunters for office who followed General Garfield and intruded themselves upon his notice at unwelcome hours was a man, forty years of age, and of rather slender stature, by the name of Charles J. Guiteau. He was born in Freeport, Illinois, and was by profession a lawyer. He was not long in the practice of law, owing to the fact that, in Chicago and New York, the only places where he opened his office, he was unable to obtain business. He seems to have been from earliest boyhood an erratic, self-willed, cruel character. He was a student at Ann Arbor University, and was a gifted man in many respects.

He

married a most lovable lady in Chicago, but was so immoral, cruel, and licentious that she obtained a divorce about two years after marriage. Finding the profession of law to be a failure, and getting into jail in New York through some irregular practice and swindling, he concluded, on his escape, to adopt the literary profession. Having in his early life been connected with the Oneida Community and several other singular and seclusive religious bodies, he concluded that in the line of religious books he might achieve success.

This attempt was also a failure. He wrote and published a book called "Truth," and resorted to anything but religious and moral means to create a market for it. He floated about from city to city, swindling landladies and hotels, and whoever would trust him. His plausible manner and knowledge of religious literature gained him admission to the clergy and churches, and nearly all of them suffered more or less from his dishonesty. He once took an office in the Congregational House in Boston, and was for a time advertised as a lecturer on religious topics. His success in his dishonesty was so small that none cared to take the trouble to prosecute him, and he failed to receive at the hands of the law his just de

serts.

Being laughed at, hooted, and driven out of the field as a religious lecturer, he turned his attention to politics, and, by his great assurance and falsehoods, secured engagements and money in the campaign of

1880, in New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. He was one of the first persons, after the election, to send to General Garfield for an appointment. He importuned the prominent politicians of New York State for letters of recommendation, and received several. He appeared in Washington during General Garfield's visit there, before the inauguration, and construed, or pretended to construe, a promise to see him again into the promise to grant him an appointment as consul at Marseilles.

He frequently stated to persons from whom he borrowed money, and to the proprietors of boardinghouses where he owed for his board, that the appointment was promised to him, and he should soon. be able to pay his debts. Some persons excused his eccentricities and dishonesty by the thought that he was insane, and his father, before he died, seemed to think that his son's persistent lying and swindling was the result of a diseased brain. But when the peculiarities of his father's religious opinions and eccentric behavior, which were often exceedingly strange, are noted with the fact that his mother died in his infancy, leaving him without maternal care or advice, we can see much in his circumstances and hereditary disposition to account for his crimes. Not enough, however, to lead the public to believe that he was actually insane. He was a great annoyance and disgrace to his family, and none felt the shame more keenly, or denounced the crime more strongly, than did those who lived to hear of his terrible crime.

The day after the inauguration, Guiteau called at the White House to see President Garfield, but did not find him there. He then wrote to the President, asking an interview, to which he received no reply. He then followed the President closely, wherever he went, and stood outside for hours and watched the houses where the President called, waiting for a chance to press his suit for an office. Again and again he intruded himself upon the President, who, after becoming convinced of the man's unfitness for official position, frankly refused to grant the petition. Guiteau was very angry, and refused to be satisfied with two or three denials; and at last he became so insulting in his demeanor that the President, after a most remarkable display of patience, ordered the officers at the White House to expel the intruder, and refuse him admittance should he attempt to enter again.

Mortified at his failure to obtain the coveted appointment, and angry beyond expression because of his forcible ejection from the White House, he determined to have revenge. Various schemes suggested themselves to him, according to his own confession, which would bring disgrace and failure upon the administration and shame upon the President, but none would or could satisfy him but the murder of General Garfield.

While he was nursing his wrath and pushing his courage up to the point where he could perform the deed, a circumstance occurred which encouraged him