No. 486.
Mr. Manning to Mr. Bayard.
Mexico, September 19, 1887. (Received September 27.)
Sir: Respecting your appeal for clemency in behalf of the perpetrators of the Nogales outrage, I have to inform you that no action has yet been taken thereon. They are still under sentence of death. Our [Page 743] consul at Guaymas writes me “that they are treated as common prisoners; they have but one room, and the use of the jail yard, which is about 50 feet square, and is also used by 30 or 40 others—thieves and assassins are all herded together in this yard. While the thermometer this summer was at 95° and 98° for 18 hours out of 24, you canimagine their sufferings. Colonel Arvizu says he would sooner be shot than stay another summer in the Guaymas jail.”
The sentence of these prisoners will be commuted ultimately, but the President is teaching a lesson to his people, and particularly to the army, that he intends shall be remembered. The confinement of these officers in the common jail with the vilest of criminals is ordered by him with a purpose, i. e., to show officers even of the rank of Colonel Arvizu that personal and official degradation awaits them if they attempt to breed trouble between this country and the United States.
I hope this exhibition of the President’s firm purpose to preserve the entente cordiale between the two countries by all proper means will convince those Mexicans who are evil disposed to our country and countrymen that the cordial friendship of the two nations can not be affected by their vicious conduct. I have not failed on proper occasions to give the President the assurance that my Government heartily and fully reciprocates the friendly feeling thus manifested by himself.
I am, etc.,