Mr. Blaine to Baron Fava.
Washington, March 21, 1890.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 19th instant, in which you inclose two letters rogatory, accompanied with English translations. These letters, which relate to the trial, in Italy, of Giuseppe Bevivino and Vincenzo Villella, who are charged with most atrocious murders in the United States, are respectively addressed by the chamber of indictments of the court of appeals of [Page 555] Calabria, Italy, to the competent judicial authorities of Wilkes Barre, Luzerne County, Pa., and the competent judicial authorities of New York.
I have caused these letters to be transmitted, respectively, to the governor of Pennsylvania and the governor of New York for such action as they may find themselves able to take.
While pursuing this course, in order that justice may not, if possible, be entirely defeated in the case of the two criminals in question, I take thisofportunity to advert to the fact that this Government demanded their surrender more than a year ago under the stipulations of the existing treaties between the United States and Italy. The Italian Government declined to surrender the fugitives, on the ground that they were Italian subjects. The treaties, however, require the surrender of persons generally and make no exception in favor of citizens or subjects, and I therefore deem it my duty, while transmitting the letters rogatory to the authorities of the States of Pennsylvania and New York, to reserve the right, which this Government thinks that it possesses, to have the fugitives surrendered for trial in the place where their offenses were committed.
Accept, etc.,