INTERSTATE CRIME AND EXTRADITION. 539 necessarily sharing the popular indignation over the murder of a locally well known citizen. The following language from the opinion in Ex Parte Smith,^ though uttered apropos of the duty of care in sifting evidence, will not be amiss in the present connection : — " No case can arise demanding a more searching inquiry into the evi- dence than cases arising under this part of the Constitution of the United States. It is proposed to deprive a free man of his liberty, to deliver him into the custody of strangers, to be transported to a foreign State, to be arraigned for trial before a foreign tribunal, governed by laws unknown to him, separated from his friends, his family, and his witnesses, unknown and unknowing. Had he an immaculate character it would not avail him with strangers. Such a spectacle is appalling enough to challenge the strictest analysis." A few years ago it was reported in the newspapers that a gov- ernor of the State of Texas proposed to demand the rendition of a citizen of New York, who had not been in Texas, for trial for the offence of violating the Texas anti-trust law, the gravamen of his offence consisting of acting as an officer of the Standard Oil Trust, whose principal office and base of operations are at the City of New York. It was said that the demand would not be made upon the State of New York — under repeated precedents there it would have been summarily refused — but upon another Southern State, in which the gentleman in question was in the habit of tempo- rarily sojourning, and whose governor was reported to hold views of the law of extradition similar to those of the extraordinary executive of Texas. If this preposterous scheme actually was entertained it was snuffed out by widespread discussion. If its accomplishment had been attempted and the requisition had b^en honored by the governor upon whom it was made, doubtless the gentleman, who by constructive presence was alleged to have violated Texas law, would have been promptly discharged upon habeas corpus. When we consider the enormous possibilities of half-baked legislation in mining-camps prematurely erected into States, as well as the demagogic legislation adopted in many States old enough to know better, it becomes very obvious that if con- structive presence were regarded as sufficient to authorize extra- dition, persons of conspicuous financial standing would be liable to very serious oppression on frivolous pretexts. 1 3 McLean, I2i. 70
