The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-06 00:00:00

SPIRI r OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

TIMES.—Events have just occurred which will
revive the tragical story of President Lincoln's
death, and at.the same time re-open questions con-
nected with that most embarrassing subject—the
extradition of suspected criminals. Among the
persons charged with complicity in the assassina-
tion was an American named Suratt, whose mother,
indeed, actually suffered the last penalty of the law
for her share in the crime. Suratt himself, how-
ever, effected his escape, and was lost sight of for
some time. It now appears that about the begin-
ning of the present year he enlisted in the Papal
army under the assumed name of Watson, and re-
mained in that service undiscovered till Midsum-
mer last. At that time he was suddenly recognised
by a countryman also serving under the Papal
colours, who presently communicated the informa-
tion to General King, the American Minister at
Rome. The General, it seems, did not venture to
act in the matter without reference to his Govern-
ment, but having at length received directions to
arrest the fugitive, he applied to Cardinal Antonelli
for the requisite authority. The Cardinal replied
that his Holiness must be consulted on such a ques-
tion, but that the Pontifical Government could have
no desire to screen a murderer from justice. A day
or two afterwards his Eminence gave orders for the
arrest of Suratt, who was actually apprehended, but
contrived to escape from his captors and to get safe
across the frontier into Neapolitan territory. On
this General King put himself in communication
with the Government of Florence, and after some
delay again obtained an order for the arrest, though
only, it is said, on condition that the life of the
prisoner should be spared. On Sunday, however,
the 18th of last month, the American Consul at
Naples received definite instructions by telegraph
to apprehend the fugitive, but it was too late.
Suratt had just left Naples by the Tripoli, a
Liverpool steamer, bound for Malta and
_Vex-
andria. Hereupon the telegraph was again
set at work, and the Consul-General of the United
States at Malta was directed to apprehend Suratt
while the Tripoli was in harbour. Accordingly,
this officer applied to the Maltese Government for
the necessary powers, but was informed that there
was no sufficient authority for the suggested action.
Immediately afterwards the Tripoli left for Alex-
andria, and there, as we are now apprised, Suratt
has been actually seized and detained. In the pre-
sent state of our information on the subject it is
impossible to pass any opinion on the conduct of our
authorities at Malta, though it is obvious to con-
jecture that the conditions required by law for the
arrest and extradition of a fugitive could not have
been so completely -satisfied by a telegraphic mes-
sage as to justify action at a moment's notice. If,
however, it should be anywhere assumed that we,
either through negligence or indifference, lost an
opportunity of doing what the Egyptians have done,
the conclusion would assuredly be wrong. The law
of extradition is full of difficulties at the best, but it
is perfectly clear that the evidenCe and authority
required for the arrest of a fugitive would be the
same in all cases, whatever might be the nature of
the crime imputed. As good reason mustbe shown
for apprehending a murderer as for apprehending a
fraudulent bankrupt. We could not strain the law
in Suratt's case, whatever might be our detestation
of the crime laid to his charge. If the man has
met in Egypt the fate which he escaped in Malta,
that must be either because the Egyptian authori-
ties required less proof than we do, or because
greater proof was forthcoming. Not in the whole
of this kingdom would there have been any party
found to sympathise with an assassin. At the same
time it need not be disguised that certain subtle
questions might possibly have been raised if the ex-
tradition of Suratt had conic in regular and formal
shape before our Government. In point of fact, it
was actually asked, in the recent debates upon the
Extradition Treaty with France,whether the murder
of President Lincoln was or was not a "political"
crime—the object of the question being to repre-
sent by such illustration the embarrassments by
which the proposed Convention might be at-
tended. In compacts of this nature it would
be universally admitted that murder is a crime
unworthy of asylum, and yet universally re-
quired that political refugees should be sheltered.
What, then, was to be done with a political mur-
derer ? What was to be the treatment of a man
whose offence was murder, but whose offending,
nevertheless, was in its origin and circumstances
entirely and purely political ? Nobody would deny
that the motives of Booth and his accomplices, in.
concerting and perpetrating this horrible crime, were
political exclusively. The assassination was an in-
cident of the great rebellion, plotted and committed
in the cause of the Confederate insurgents, by them
regarded as patriotic, and not suggested by any of
the ordinary incentives to such atrocious deeds.
Was the crime, therefore, thus originating, a poli-
tical crime, and, as such, to be brought within the
limits of international protection ? We answer,
without hesitation, that it would have deserved no
such shelter. Political offences may be clothed with
a character of their own, and yet it is certainly not
every offence which can be extenuated by a politi-
cal motive. There are things which are not to be
done in any cause, and murder is one of them.
Assassins masked as patriots have never found favour
in this country. With us murder is murder, and
cannot be mitigated by any explanatory epithet.
We have lately been discussing and analysing this
most heinous of crimes, and seem actually to have
arrived at some discriminations in the degrees of
guilt involved ; but we have never recognised such
a definition as political murder. We have always
acted, too, on the principle that a murder committed
with political views deserved hanging as much as
any other murder. For instance, the Cato-street
Conspiracy was concocted with political motives,
but the conspirators were promptly executed ; and
even in the present day, with all our leniency,
nothing woul I save such ruffians from the gallows,
except perhaps the fact that their designs were not
actually consummated by bloodshed.
Posse—The Trades' Reform meeting which was
held in St. James's Hall on Tuesday last, professedly
for an expression of metropolitan opinion,can hardly
be considered so satisfactory for the advanced
Liberals as it was probably expected to be. Those
who were present could not fail to remark that the
prominent places were taken by Lancashire and
Ireland instead of London, and the only metropoli-
tan member who ventured to show his face was
driven away with menace and insult--an incident
which will not encourage any gentleman to make
speeches to working men, unless they are prepared
to abdicate the exercise of their own judgment and
accept without the slightest reserve the most violent
opinions of their audiences. Compliments to Lan-
cashire and to Ireland formed, indeed, a great fea-
ture of the proceedings, and were about equally
mixed with declamation about the rights of the
working man, which showed infinitely more zeal for
them than knowledge of them, and with denuncia-
tions of their opponents in which taste and the Eng-
lish language were alike violated in a remarkable
degree. It is lamentable that the working men
cannot find better leaders than the excited patriots
who mouthed and thumped at this meeting and on
the platforms at Beaufort House, for their violence
and vulgarity are calculated to throw discredit upon
the cause of which they have undertaken the con-
duct, and to lead to what, we are bound to assume,
is a very erroneous conception of the views and
objects of the working classes. Luckily, the re-
ports of the meeting occupy themselves chiefly
with the speeches made by Mr. Bright, Mr. T. B.
Potter, and Sir John Gray, which were at least
worthy of reasonable beings ; and the opinion !
of the meeting and the proceedings is, there-
fore, likely to be higher among those who only
read of it than among those who actually attended
it. The Demonstration naturally came in for a
considerable share of attention. Mr. Potter judi-
ciously abstained—in the face of the reliable facts
which have been collected—from attempting to
show that the procession had come up to his pre-
vious predictions, but he took refuge in a fresh
assertion, which was, that " half a million of people
witnessed" it, and that those who did witness it
were " as much desirous of the attainment of the
object of Reformers as those who walked along."
This is rather a cool- claim to set up ; and as Mr.
Potter explained that the meeting had been called
for the purpose of " argument and logic," it is to
be regretted that in seeking for the former element
he should have paid so little attention to the latter
as to infer that mere presence at a display is an evi-
dence of agreement with its object. Mr. Bright, in
a speech which formed, at any rate, a pleasing con-
trast in taste and English to those delivered by his
associates, adverted to the adviq. which he gave
Some eight years ago to the workirT classes to make
use of their trade organisations for the purpose of
political agitation, and he did not conceal his satis-

faction that his advice had been followed to an ex-
tent which has rendered those organisations sources
of something like disquiet to the advocates of law
and order. Mr. Bright knew, he says, that the re-
sults of his advice would be " of a very formidable
nature," and says, " itwas precisely because it would
be of a formidable nature that I first recommended
it." This, if it signifies anything, signifies that Mr.
Bright is prepared to adopt any course, however
" formidable it may be, in order to compass the
ends which he himself believes to be good, whatever
other people may think about them. The opinion
that is proper and justifiable for a public man to
raise up formidable bodies to overawe the Legisla-
ture of the country by an exhibition of physical
power (because that is what we are distinctly told
these things mean) into the adoption of his parti-
cular views, is one in which Mr. Bright is happily
singular ; and it is necessary to remember that, if

it be well-founded, its application may not alwai°
be limited to the question of Reform and t°
orderly processions of peaceable citizens through
the streets. It would, for instance, justify Mr.
Bright in stirring up the American Fenians4
invade Ireland, and in persuading the iris,
themselves to rise and join them in order to pro 0t
his wonderful scheme for the purchase and resale,?:
Irish land. As this catastrophe would perhaps l'"
more imminent than that which we are told in veil
intelligible language will soon arrive for.this country
unless Mr. Bright's views on Reform are adopteu:
there might be less readiness to provoke it, 1311:
there is positively no difference in principle betwer
the two things. Mr. Bright, it is true, ingeni°lll32
throws back upon his opponents the charge of ue'"'
a disturber of tranquillity and a promoter of e();
citement ; but as his theory, that it is they and 13
he and his followers, who are the " troublesoin
party in the nation," rests upon the assumptionat
his opponents are wrong in seeking to withhold
change that may be demanded, it is valueless
long as that assumption is questioned. 'flie
tration, too, of the dwellers in a hamlet on the silt:
of Vesuvius refusing to be warned by Mr. Brig
and being therefore responsible for the eouso .
quences, will hardly be held to be a fair represeatiaii
tion of the case by those who hold that Mr. Brigbe
is himself stirring up the crater at the very time,,ht
is warning others of the consequences. Mr. Br'od
trusts that those who are afraid of the CI "
manhood suffrage" will no longer any at 2
after the orderg
display of Monday, " entertain fear ,'e
,13
people." Now, nobody does " entertain fear" of
,'0
people, if by the people is meant such men as tucl'et
who mainly composed the procession; but the 18;
that that is no argument for manhood suffrageb'es
sufficiently shown by the manner in whichLe
people" were met and treated at Beaufort Howse
by the classes which arc distinctively called " °a";
gerous," and which are as distinct as possible fro
them in every respect, save in that " Inanho
which it is suggested should in itself const"„t't
as
the right to vote. As Mr. Bright, however,
declared that he himself is not an advocate °to
manhood suffrage, it was hardly fair in 111°10
impute fear of the people to others who may abe
be adverse to it. Mr. Ayrton turned out to ,
rather of the nature of a wet blanket to the
siasin and unanimity of the meeting. His referello
to her Majesty was certainly unwarrantable an", :at
the worst taste ; but it is most significant tuag
when he made it he was cheered fully as much
any of the most cherished opinions previously enukon,
ciated ; and it was only when Mr. Bright rosa.':4
protest against it, and to say that he heard it wit,
" a sensation of wonder and of pain," that the meet'
ing ing became alive to its impropriety, and stultifieol
self by cheering Mr. Bright's view of the matter r,
a.
freely as it had previously cheered Mr. Ayrt°a
As the right to appropriate Hyde Park was anli,es
and again insisted upon, that gentleman deserso
the thanks of the public for endeavouring to 2bbig
the working men the legal state of the case, bu", il4
enunciation of the undoubted truth that there e
" no question whatever as to the legal right of the
Government to take care of the public propertYtbbe
that no set of men have a right to take the Obit
property into their own possession, and deal wither
as they pleased," was met with such a storm of ally
as plainly showed that the working men will (70.
listen to opinions when they agree with their oariar.
and the terms of opprobrium heaped upon :#
Ayrton will serve as a warning to those wh°!:d..
not have the advantage of holding the most
iro
vanced views to abstain from attending Re'c'
meetings.