No. 497.
Mr. Romero to Mr. Bayard.
Washington, December 8, 1886. (Received December 9.)
Mr. Secretary: I have had the honor to receive your note of this date, wherein, referring to my note of the 4th instant, in which I. asked the arrest of an individual who assumed in the City of Mexico the name of Mr. Marcus E. Mayer, agent of Mr. Henry E. Abbey, and who, according to reports published by the papers of New York, appears to be really named Charles Bourton, and who in that city fraudulently obtained a considerable sum of money through the sale of tickets for the operatic performances of the company of Signora Adelina Patti, you were pleased to state to me that, in the opinion of your Department, the provisions of section 5270 of the Revised Statutes of the United States are sufficient for the purpose of obtaining the arrest of the fugitive, at the same time remarking that my note did not express any offense enumerated in the treaty of December 11, 1861, between Mexico and the United States, as having been committed by the person in question.
Although, because sufficient time therefor has not supervened, the data to enable a judgment to be formed of the precise nature of the offense have not yet been received, I deem it to be comprised in that of forgery mentioned in the third article of the convention of December 11, 1861, since Bourton assumed in Mexico the name of Marcus E. Mayer, who is the real agent of Mr. Abbey, and under that name issued tickets and gave receipts for the money which was paid to him.
I have already given instructions to the Mexican consuls at El Paso and Laredo, Tex., and in the cities of New York and New Orleans, to go before the judge of the respective district for the purpose of procuring the arrest of Bourton, in compliance with the provisions of section 5270 of the Revised Statutes of the United States; but these instructions will be insufficient if the aforesaid consuls be not aided by the police of the respective localities, since as the guilty fugitive comes in disguise it will be very difficult for the consuls mentioned to know when he arrives in or passes through the cities named, and only the vigilance of the police can discover this. For this reason, the recommendation which I made in my note of the 4th instant had also for its object that the police should be advised, that they might exert their vigilance in order to be able to apprehend the fugitive, if the Department should deem itself authorized to do so.
Be pleased, etc.,