man, and charged with being the thief, and your officer released him. I suppose this was done because you were satisfied he was innocent. And now permit me to ask, why was the man who claimed the horses, and who was charged by all your detectives as being the thief who stole the horses, discharged and the horses retained by your detectives? It is my rule to arrest and punish the criminals rather than seek merely to obtain the possession of the stolen property. Again, your detective took these horses from Reed many days before he was arrested, and no one of them intimated an arrest until Reed was put on the witness stand to testify against the detective who took the horses. After he was sworn, and before he had given his testimony, one of your detectives, in a blustering manner, grabbed the poor negro by the collar and told him he arrested him for the chief. A large number of your detectives were in the court at the time, armed with revolvers, which they took special pains to exhibit. This trial was before A. Brown, esq., justice of the peace in the city, and a simple case of replevin. You may approve the action of your detectives; I do not, nor do our citizens. Why was not this man Reed arrested before? Why so shamefully insult a court of justice?

If I did (which I did not) "arrest and fine $20 for vagrancy a man who aided that detective, and who is not a vagrant," is it sufficient cause for you to declare martial law? You say:

The city is peaceful and orderly enough, but the border is distracted, and property along it insecure, and I must have the robbers and their plunder followed into and arrested in the peaceful city if I am to restore quiet and security to the border. I will not abate or surrender my military jurisdiction, which extends to both arrests and punishments, in favor of a civil jurisdiction, extending only to arrests.

I have quoted the law for you, showing that I have "jurisdiction" for both "arrests" and "punishments." When you say you will not "abate or surrender your military jurisdiction to the civil," I would refer you to Orders, Numbers 63, of your commanding general:

Martial law has been declared in certain portions of this department. This does not, however, suspend the functions of the civil governments of the loyal States. It is the duty of all officers of such loyal civil governments to execute the State laws, as far as possible, in the same manner as if no United States troops were present; and it is the duty of the military authorities of the United States to abstain from interference with the civil officers, and to protect them from violence, if need be, in the discharge of their duties. Any resistance to or interference with civil officers while in the discharged of their legitimate duties, by officers or soldiers, is a crime which merits and will receive the severest punishments.

I have been mayor of this city since April 8, and since that time not fifty dollars' worth of property has been stolen without the property being recovered and the chief punished. You have had your detectives here one month, and not one criminal has been punished by you, so far as I can learn. I have a strong police force, granted to be the best ever appointed. They arrest all parties guilty of the crimes you name, and, if guilty, the criminals are punished. Our city and county were never so peaceful and orderly as at this time. Your detectives have had full sway here, and so had the detectives of General Blunt before you cane, and yet this is the only case in which they have been interfered with, and I assure you this one would not had I not been assured he was guilty of using his office for the purpose of swindling poor runaway slaves out of their horses.

In Atchison County a vigilance committee has to enforce the laws. Why not proclaim martial law there? In Johnson County, Kansas, loyal citizens are being murdered almost every week by bushwhackers from Missouri. Why not send the two companies of soldiers stationed