Year: 1876

Washington, published elsewhere to-day,
will be found the only satisfactory ex-
position yet given of the border troubles
tive positions with regard to the troubles
of the people of Texas and the jobbers
in the lobby. Complaints from Texas
have come to us so constantly and persist
emily for years, and the stories of robbery
and murder recited in them were so charac-
like what it was reasonable to expect would
happen in q district exposed TO the predatory
incursions of an ungovernable and ungov-
erned foreign nation, that the whole country
and Congress have from time to time become
excited on the subject, and the demand has
been loudly made that our government
should peremptorily require Mexico to con-
troll those elements of her population from
which the troops of marauders were drawn ;
or, in Mexico's failure that they should be
punished from our side, even though the
course involved war. But here constantly
arose q doubt-a doubt that must always
arise where the forces of the government





private speculation where corruption
is so much recognized power in
the land that the people can credit the
possibility of its operation behind every act
or fact; where they must scrutinize the shout
of natural defiance, the appeal for protec-
ton, the prayer for charity ITSELF to know if
it does not conceal some swindler's ruse.
There were so many cases that might be
protted by war and consequent conquest-so
many territorial schemes, mine projects,
railway projects, indemnity bonds, contracts
of every species for army supplies-that
people sadly experienced were tempted to
inquire whether the demand for acts that
ested quarters and further, whether the re-
ported outrages that seemed to inspire and
Justify that demand were not all fictitious,
only imagined or perhaps even contrived
and performed with a sole view to their eff
feet in making an indignant opinion, and
thus producing the result desired by the
spectators. This consideration and the ap-
prehension that the Executive, if it found
war likely to help political conspiracy,
would add the weight of its influence to the
schemes of the jobbers, have together in
duced the nation to turn a cold ear to the
stories of the Texas people; for the country
did not want war that would merely enrich
rogues, and believes it can make presidents
more satisfactorily in quieter way


But in view of the facts as now presented,
the separation of the two elements-the real
grievance of the Texas people and the pro-
ject of speculators-does not present an in
superable difficulty. For that there is both
a real grievance of the people on the border
and a grand scheme in the lobby is evident
Life and property in the whole zone of Texas
country along the Rio Grande for q width of
sixty miles, or within raiding distance of the
river, are as insecure as they ever were in
territory similarly situated in the border
wars of the Middle Ages. Cattle are treated
precisely as they were on the Scottish border
in the days when it was thought heroic for a
Scotchman to steal what an Englishman
bred But there is prejudice against that
sort of heroism now and besides, we, as the
victims, are on the wrong side of the line to
see the romantic side of these achievements.
In order to comprehend how it is in Texas
let us suppose for q moment that this were
on the Canada border; that in the whole of
the district where there is only an imaginary
line between, where in the same forest q tree
cut in Canada falls in the United States that
there no man went to bed in security at
night, that any farm might be given to the
flames at any hour and that the fine cattle and
horses were all driven offs intervals whenever
the needs of predatory neighbors inspired
an expedition-no human power could pre-
vent such reprsals as would make desert
of all Lower Canada, for the irritation and
rage could not be soothed or satisfied with
indemnity. And the only difference be-
tween u.s. the only reason why we in this
section have not these troubles while Texas
has them, is that we have respectively differ
ent neighbors. There is no more fault in
the Texans than in us, but we are near to a
civilized, order loving, well governed peo-
pie; they are separated by river from a
country inhabited by a people whose only
industry is brigandage. Persistent revolt
against every form of authority, against every
rule and every restraint has, in that part of
Mexico, finally brought about its legitimate
consequence in relegating society to the
primitive condition when every man does
what is fright in his own eyes"-unless
some stronger man takes different view of
what is right and compels the other to accept
that No government exists and no subor-
dination of any sort except of lesser thieves
to greater ones; and the whole district, with
out industry, commerce or legitimate enter
prises, lives on what it can steal from Texas
and finds distraction and amusement in the
running fights and murders that are neces-
sary to secure the spoil.


Some years ago, when complaint on this
account was first made, Congress instituted