Time and time again, one may be warned, "Your name will be
mud." Many have used the expression in the mistaken belief that it has something
to do with the kind of dirt found in the streets or on unclear river bottoms.
But the expression comes from the name of Doctor Samuel Alexander Mudd, a
physician who fixed the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth, the man who
killed President Abraham Lincoln. On the night of April 14,
1865, Lincoln was watching a play in a Washington theatre. John Wilkes Booth
shot him in the back of the head. Then he jumped to the stage a few meters
below, breaking a bone in his leg. He needed a doctor to treat his injury. Booth
finally reached the home of Doctor Mudd. The doctor treated Booth’s injured leg
without knowing who he was. Doctor Mudd had nothing to do with Lincoln’s murder.
All the evidence (证据) seems to show that he was an innocent (清白的) man. But he
had given aid to the man who shot Lincoln. This in itself was a crime (犯罪) then.
And so, Mudd was sentenced to life imprisonment. In jail,
Doctor Mudd saved many prisoners and guards in a yellow fever outbreak.
President Andrew Johnson pardoned him in 1869, after the doctor had spent almost
four years in prison. Doctor Mudd was freed, but people never forgave him. His
name passed into American folk speech as something bad, hateful.
The Mudd family also suffered because of the name. No one knows how many
descendants (后代) changed their name because of the trouble it brought
them. Doctor Samuel Alexander Mudd was put in prison because ______.
A. he had helped Booth murder Lincoln
B. the American people loved Abraham Lincoln deeply
C. he had broken the American law
D. he hadn’t reported the fact to the American government