JOHN WILKES BOOTH, PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S ASSASSIN. An interview with an old stager was published a few months ago in the New York _Dramatic News_, which furnishes some new ideas about John Wilkes Booth, brother of the illustrious Edwin, and the terrible crime with which he shook a nation to its centre. John Wilkes Booth, it will be remembered, was the man who shot and killed President Lincoln, while the latter was witnessing a performance of "Our American Cousin," at Ford's Theatre, Washington, D. C., on the night of April 14, 1865. Laura Keene was on the stage at the time. Wilkes Booth entered the President's box and shot him in the back of the head. He then made his escape by leaping from the box to the stage, and running thence through the stage entrance to the street, where he leaped on a horse in waiting for him. As he sprang from the box, his foot caught in the American flag which was draped around the railing, and he fell, spraining his ankle. Landing on the stage, he jumped up, and waving a dagger over his head, he shouted, "_Sic semper tyrannis_." He was subsequently shot by Sergeant Corbett, while attempting to escape from a barn in which he had sought refuge. [Illustration: JOHN WILKES BOOTH.] Said a veteran actor, referring back a score of years, to Wilkes Booth's opening at Wallack's old theatre, on Broadway, near Broome Street: "The piece to open in was 'Richard III.' Monday morning came for rehearsal with the star, and the company had all assembled awaiting him. Many were the stories told of his wonderful gifts and eccentricities. One old member of the company, who had played with him through Georgia, prophesied he would make a terrific hit. Said he: 'I am an old man at the business and have seen and played with some of the greatest tragedians the world has ever seen. I've played second to Macready. I've divided the applause with Charles Kean. I've acted often with Forrest, but in all my long years of professional experience this young man Wilkes Booth (I might call him a boy), this boy is the first actor that ever (to use a professional term) knocked me off my pins, upset and completely left me without a word to say! Yes, sir, an old actor like me that you would suppose an earthquake could not move, was tongue-tied--unable to speak his lines.' 'Perhaps you never knew them,' said our saucy soubrette. The old man smiled, and then glaring at her said: 'Not know Shakespeare?' He turned from her with a contemptuous smile. 'Why, then,' said Jim Collier, 'were you so much at sea if you were so well up in the lines?' 'Wait till you see him yourself, then ask. I tell you, gentlemen, there is more magnetism in Wilkes Booth's eye than in any human being's I ever saw.' I listened to the old actor with pleasure, and set him down as an enthusiast--a not uncommon thing among some veterans of the stage, although, as a rule they are apt to carp at the present and deplore the downfall of the past. 'What do you think?' said Ed. Tilton to me.