Year: 1873







THE MANITOBA SQUABBLE


The escapade of those Minnesotans who went
over the border to capture and bring back to
his anxious bail the English adventurer known
in New-York as Gordon Gordon" ls gradu-
ally beginning to assume an undue Importance.
II was q foolish enterprise, marked WIN rat
tle-beaded carelessness in its beginning and It's
execution 1t was one of those boyish tricks
which invest their perpetrators with sort OF
humorous credit If they succeed, ana cover them
with ridicule and embarrassment II they fail. Our
Consul Taylor, instead OF cOninlng himself
TO an effort at mitigating the inevitable pun
ishment of the men who had got into the
scrape, chose to defend their action on
grounds of international law. He advanced
the absurd claim that the common law doc
trine which gives to a bail the right to arrest
his fugitive principal wherever found, in
cuded the right to pursue and cap
ture him upon foreign soil. No
other publicist ever made this claim,
if we except Gen. Dix, who put forward some
such theory to justify the chase OF Rebel raid
ers over the Vermont border. After the trick
had been tried and failed, the judicious course
for the friends of the prisoners was mantestly
to make as little disturbance as possible over
the case, but try to have them beaten with as
few stripes as possible. The Oiiense was
rather folly than crime, and it would bavc
been wiser for both sides to have treated it
with little less fervOr and dignity.


But both sfles thought differently. The
friends of the unsuccessful lidnappcrs wanted
to make an international matter of 1t, and the
authorities of Manitoba were only too glad to
assume an attitude of more than Roman vir-
tue, and to demand full rcparatiOn for the
offended sovereignty of the Dominion. The
Americans had made all the mistakes they
could conveniently make before last Tuesday,
the 22d instant. That day the provincial authori-
ties selectedfo making themselves unnecessarily
ridiculous. Judge Betourney called the Court
together to hear his decision. But before he
began it, Mr.. Mckenzie, the lawyer assigned
to the Americans for their defense, rose and
made personal explanation, which indicates
n scandalous state of feeling between him and
his clients. He spoke Of them with the ut
most harshncss, and showed that they had
accused him of attempting to blackmail
them, and of endeayOring to use his position
as their advocate to induce the friends who
desired to bail them to qualify themselves for
this purpose by buying land in which he was
interested at four times its value. The Judge
next proceeded to give his decision, which was
to commit all the prisoners for trial at the
next term of the Court of Queens Bench,
in October. The prisoners asked that their
application for bail might be heard the
next day This was an opportunity for
Mr.. Attorney General Clark to make him
self absurd, which he promptly embraced.
Not content with calling one of the defend
ants counsel "a puppy" he said that though
"Le had been fOully abused by the friends of
" the prisoners" he did not propose to resent
it in his official capacity. "This was a court
of justice" he observed and therefore he
would not resist the application. This act,
that there might not be any doubt about it,
he characterized as magnanimity.n


The matter of bail came up before another
justice the next day, and he reserved his de-
cision. Meanwhile, there is a good deal of
feeling in Minnesota about the fate of its citi-
zens i'll the ManitOban Jail. Ii is claimed that
they were arrested south of the Minnesota
line, which, if proved, will put an entirely
different face on the matter. But this is, of
course, stoutly denied at Fort Garry, where
the British Lion may be said to be lash
ing himself up to a high state of ex-
element over the matter. The troops and
the official people pretend to be afraid of an
attack from Minnesota-perhaps they know
no better than to believe it-and are strength
ening their Notifications and building q
stockade around the bastion of the fort. All
this is very silly and much to be regretted
1t is an utterly causeless quarrel, and has only
grown to its present proportions through the
passions and the ignorance of olfice-holders
upon both sides. 1t would doubtless be an
excellent thing to have Gordon in Jail but
trying to put him there by irregular means is
an enterprise which should have few chances
of succeeding in civilized country. The
next best thing is keeping him out of the
country, an advantage which does not seem
to be appreciated in Minnesota.