Within fifteen minutes after the murder the wires were severed entirely around the city, excepting only a secret wire for government uses, which leads to Old Point. I am told that by this wire the government reached the fortifications around Washington, first telegraphing all the way to Old Point, and then back to the outlying forts. This information comes to me from so many creditable channels that I must concede it. Payne, having, as he thought, made an end of Mr. Seward--which would have been the case but for Robinson, the nurse--mounted his horse, and attempted to find. Booth. But the town was in alarm, and he galloped at once for the open country, taking as he imagined, the proper road for the East Branch. He rode at a killing pace, and when near Fort Lincoln, on the Baltimore pike, his horse threw him headlong. Afoot and bewildered, he resolved to return to the city, whose lights he could plainly see; but before doing so ho concealed himself some time, and made some almost absurd efforts to disguise himself. Cutting a cross section from the woolen undershirt which covered his muscular arm, he made a rude cap of it, and threw away his bloody coat. This has since been found in the woods, and blood has been found also on his bosom and sleeves. He also spattered himself plentifully with mud and clay, and, taking an abandoned pick from the deserted intrenchments near by, he struck at once for Washington. By the providence which always attends murder, he reached Mrs. Surratt's door just as the officers of the government were arresting her. They seized Payne at once, who had an awkward lie to urge in his defense--that he had come there to dig a trench. That night he dug a trench deep and broad enough for both of them to lie in forever. They washed his hands, and found them soft and womanish; his pockets contained tooth and nail brushes and a delicate pocket knife. All this apparel consorted ill with his assumed character. He is, without doubt, Mr. Seward's attempted murderer. Coarse, and hard, and calm, Mrs. Surratt shut up her house after the murder, and waited with her daughters till the officers came. She was imperturbable, and rebuked her girls for weeping, and would have gone to jail like a statue, but that in her extremity, Payne knocked at her door. He had come, he said, to dig a ditch for Mrs. Surratt, whom he very well knew. But Mrs. Surratt protested that she had ever seen the man at all, and had no ditch to clean. "How fortunate, girls," she said, "that these officers are here; this man might have murdered us all." Her effrontery stamps her as worthy of companionship with Booth. Payne has been identified by a lodger of Mrs. Surratt's, as having twice visited the house under the name of Wood. The girls will render valuable testimony in the trial. If John Surratt were in custody the links would be complete.