Governor Robinson, of New York, as was also a second requisition, sent by another agent in January, 1878; that Governor Hubbard, of Connecticut, honored a similar requisition made in March, 1878; that Kimpton knew of these warrants being out, and fled to Canada to escape arrest; that Kimpton, through one D. T. Corbin, in June, 1878, endeavored to secure immunity for himself, by making overtures to the authorities of South Carolina; said authorities, agreeing, if Kimpton would return to South Carolina and tell all he knew about the financial affairs of the State, and if said testimony should prove of any service in bringing any criminal to justice, and should be used, that all indictments against him. should be dropped; but if such testimony should prove to be of no service to the State, and should not be used, that he should be permitted peaceably to return to the north, and things should remain as they were before. This proposition Kimpton rejected.

Kimpton and his counsel conceded that the requisition was regular and in due form; that the Massachusetts courts, and all others before which the question has come up, have held that whether the indictment is good is a question to be determined by the courts of the State sending the requisition. Their defence was that the object of the State, as shown by the negotiations of her authorities, was not to prosecute him for any crime he was supposed to have committed, but to secure him as a witness before the "Bond Court," which was created for the purpose of passing upon the bonded indebtedness of the State. This assertion was denied by South Carolina, and the attorney-general of that State, who was present at the trial before Mr. Train, expressly declared that he intended to try Kimpton on the indictment which had been found against him, and that he did not want him for any other purpose.

Ignoring the declaration of his brother in office from the south, Mr. Train says: "The crime with which Kimpton stands charged was committed in April, 1872, and no attempt was made to prosecute him or his codefendants, until August, 1877; nor does it appear that there is any present

intention to try them on the indictment." * * "I am of opinion that the indictment, when found, was for an ulterior purpose, which does not appear, and not for the purpose of trying him for any supposed crime against the laws of the State." The fact that the crime for which Kimpton was indicted was committed in April, 1872, and that no attempt was made to prosecute him until August, 1877, is considered by Mr. Train a sufficient "train" of circumstances to warrant him in impugning the motive of the State, and in doubting or denying the express declarations of her authorities. But for the calm and judicial mind, they fall short of the required standard. Men of ordinary intellect, who are versed in the laws of language, skilled in dialectics, and familiar with the rules of evidence, are at a loss to understand what the declaration of the attorney-general meant; what the telegrams of Governor Hampton to Governor Rice, after the arrest, asking him to hold Kimpton until the arrival of the requisition, meant; what the indictment and attempted arrest meant, if they did not mean that Kimpton had transgressed the laws of the State, and that for this transgression the State sought to try him.

In the light of all the facts in the case, the conduct of Governor Rice is a violation of the principles of equity which ought to subsist between the States of the Union. He refused to perform an unmistakable duty, imposed upon him by the supreme law of the land, but which there is no sanction to enforce; while he assumed judicial powers which the Constitution does not grant and the laws of Congress do not secure; and impugned the sincerity and good faith of a sister State, which is expressly prohibited by the laws. These laws guarantee full faith and credit to all acts of the courts of the various States and territories.

But, let the bearings of the Hampton-Rice controversy be what they may, it is indispensable to the order and stability of society, as well as to the existence of comity between the State governments, that the provisions of the Constitution relative to interstate extradition of fugitives from justice should be recognized as the law of the land and preserved inviolate.

ART. VIII. THE NEW EASTERN QUESTION.

1. Official Returns of Egyptian Trade, 1870–79.

2. Egypt as it is. By J. C. McCOAN.

3. Afghanistan. By A. G. CONSTABLE.

4. Central Asia and the Russian Possessions There. By CAPT. L. KOSTENKO.

ALL great political problems have a tendency to embody themselves in some one tangible symbol; and the so-called "Eastern Question," having once adopted the emblem of Constantinople, is popularly held to signify that and nothing more. But, in reality, the struggle of the Tartar and Slavonic races for the possession of the Bosphorus is only a small part of the mighty question at issue, viz.: the future destiny of the whole Oriental world. The real problem which now confronts Europe is simply this: "Given three hundred millions of men-to find a place and a use for them."

It is a trite truth, that the decay of a great system is often more formidable than its fullest vigor. A growing oak offers shade and shelter to all who approach it; the same oak, when it falls, crushes to death every living thing within the radius of its overthrow. It needs no demonstration to show that the long duel of armed Christianity with armed Heathenism has ended in the triumph of the former, and that the latter's strongest champion, Turkey, has virtually ceased to exist as an independent State, all its movements being either directly or indirectly controlled by Christian sovereigns and Christian statesmen. But this, far from being the end of the Eastern difficulty, is only its commencement. The impulse that once carried the followers of Mohammed into every capital from Jerusalem to Grenada, is indeed dead forever; but the ablest

political experts are still in doubt as to the best mode of disposing of the body.

There was a time, indeed, when this question involved no such perplexities. To the straightforward intellect of medieval Europe, the one self-evident mode of dealing with nonChristian humanity was the simple method of extermination. "Death to the infidel!" was the watchword of every Christian warrior, from the Teutonic knights of the Vistula to the pious hidalgos of the Guadalquivir; and any one who had presumed to think otherwise, would have been either laughed at as an idiot or burned as a heretic. But this Cromwellian reform measure is no longer possible, and the aim of modern policy is not to destroy, but to utilize. The European Samson has rent in twain the lion of barbarism, and the bees of colonization, traffic, and industry, are beginning to hive in the carcass. Christian France has conquered Moslem Algeria. Christian Russia has annexed Pagan Tartary. Christian England is mistress of both Bramin and Mohammedan India. Even the countries which still remain independent-fireworshipping Persia, bigoted Egypt, "Suni"* Afghanistan, Buddhistic China-are all beginning to feel the universal influence; and the new world, like another Æneas, is supporting the decrepit age of the old world upon its strong shoulders. The haunting "Eastern Question" has embodied itself in a new form. It is no longer "Who shall have Constantinople?" bnt "Who shall have Egypt and Central Asia?" In the former case, the rival claimants are England and France; in the latter, England and Russia.

It must be owned that such prizes are worth contending for. Since Alexander the Great changed the course of the world's commerce by substituting Alexandria for Tyre, the value of Egypt, whether as an important strategic centre or as a great commercial highway, has never been more conspicu

*The Shiah sect, which is strong in Persia, reveres as a saint Mohammed's son-in-law Ali, who is rejected by the Sunis. To such a height has this feud been carried, that an Afghan chief, when entreated by an English officer to spare the life of one of his Persian captives, replied sternly: "Were this dog only an unbeliever, Sahib, you should be obeyed; but, being a Shiah, he must die!"

ous than now. Its soil is preeminently fertile. Its northern provinces are traversed by seventeen well-constructed railroads. The possession of the Nile gives it a direct and commodious highway into the very heart of Africa. Its situation between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, within two days' voyage of Italy and three of Constantinople, makes it the natural thoroughfare of east and west, just as Syria was in the days of caravans. What such a country might be in capable hands, it is difficult to overstate; what it is in non-capable hands, those who have seen it can judge for themselves. To it, even more justly than to Spain, may be applied the bitter old Spanish proverb, "God gave it a bad government, lest the angels should forsake heaven to settle there."

The late czar's attempt to use Egypt as a bribe to secure England's connivance at his designs upon Turkey in 1853, showed how its importance was then appreciated; but it had been even more markedly recognized by the first Napoleon, who, in 1798, made Lower Egypt the base of the most colossal of all his schemes of conquest. Marching toward Syria along the coast, and reducing the seaboard fortresses one by one, he meant to raise all Asia Minor in revolt against the sultan, to overwhelm Turkey with levies of native troops consolidated by his French veterans, and then, seating himself upon the throne of Constantinople, to fall with all the might of the revived Byzantine Empire upon England's Asiatic possessions. But these mighty possibilities vanished like a dream before the hard, practical logic of Sir Sidney Smith's defence of Acre, and Nelson's victory at Aboukir; and the same scheme, revived on a smaller scale in 1839, by the restless genius of Egypt's greatest ruler, Mehemet Ali Pasha, was a second time shattered by the sword of England, whose chief ally on that occasion, singularly enough, was her former opponent France.

And now, in the fulness of time, the affairs of Egypt are under consideration once more, and France and England are again the presiding judges. It is natural enough that "the key of the East," as the Nile valley was justly styled by Napoleon, should be jealously watched by the two great