250
THE GREEN BAG
served. Upon inquiry it was ascertained that he was the possessor of no less illus trious a name than Adam Smith. He had been sentenced some six months before to three years in the penitentiary for defrauding natives out of large sums of money, either by cheating and swindling them, or by forgery. While his case was pending an appeal before the Supreme Court he became a sort of "trusty." He was a handy and accommodating chap and all the American officials had grown to like him, and to feel rather sorry for him. Shortly before the banquet we have in mind, the judgment and sentence of the trial court in the case of the United States against Adam Smith had been affirmed by the Supreme Court and duly published to the defendant in the trial Court. The law • required that no prisoner sentenced to a term of two years or longer should be retained in the province where convicted, but that he should be sent to the peniten tiary at Manila. Smith had a great horror of gcing to the last named place. He always cherished the hope that he might be allowed to serve out his three years sentence in the province of Albay where he had been convicted, and where, since conviction, he had been a "trusty," and where, if he should remain, he would prob ably continue to be a "trusty" until the expiration of the sentence. Judge Carson did not take Smith to Manila on the boat he went on that night. He was too kind hearted. Smith begged so piteously that he was allowed to .remain, and the unpleas ant task of taking him to Manila was relegated to me. After the whole docket had been disposed of, I also telegraphed for a special Coast Guard boat. It came, and all the long-term convicts, together with those sentenced to death, were put aboard. Just before the hour fixed for our departure, Adam Smith had a fit. Prior to that the commanding officer of the Constabulary, Capt. Neville, who is now a Major of the Philippines Constabulary, had asked me
if I could not see my way to let Smith remain in Albay. The reply of course had been "no." As soon as the jailer reported that Adam Smith was having a fit, I sent for Capt. Neville and asked him point blank whether or not he thought the fit was genuine. Neville was as honest as he was brave, and replied very promptly that he had serious doubts, that in fact it was not unlikely that Smith was malingering. I told him to have his Constabulary Surgeon examine the patient and report. The surgeon made an examination, with the aid of a stethoscope, and reported that there was nothing whatever the matter with Smith. This eliminated all appre hension of Smith dying on the voyage up to Manila. It was a desperate gang of thieves and cut-throats who were to go upon that boat with us, and I had made a special request of the Chief of Constabulary of the Islands that Capt. Neville, whom we all recognized as one of the best men in the service, be detailed in charge of the guard for the prisoners on the Coast Guard boat. Smith's last hope of remaining in Albay being exhausted and the prospect of being transported to the penitentiary at Manila having become a certainty he became like a stag at bay, and when Capt. Neville proceeded to put him in the patrol wagon to take him to the wharf he abused the Captain most outrageously. The latter was a stout husky Texan. Smith was a very small man, reminding one as much of a fox as Neville did of a lion. The Captain could not strike his prisoner, even for cursing him. But Smith actually resisted when Neville told him to get in the patrol wagon. Whereupon, Neville, who was a man of immense strength, deftly tossed Smith into the wagon in such a way that he landed on his nose. On the way to the wharf the Captain stopped in front of a store and went in to make a few small purchases, leaving Smith in the patrol wagon without handcuffs or anklets and with no one watching over him save an
