54 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



or the other statement of Gibbon, in concluding the descrip- 

 tion of the trial of Ferrer : "The government and the orders 

 had won the second round of the game. The dice were loaded, 

 it is true ; the game was not honest" ; to say nothing of the 

 dozens of innuendos scattered throughout the earlier article. 

 For this much we must be thankful to Mr. Archer; he has 

 amply proved that there was a trial and that there were wit- 

 nesses, and he does not lay the blame and execration on the 

 orders and the Church. 



But Mr. Archer, as was pointed out in the December number 

 of this magazine, does not take the trouble to ascertain all the 

 facts, or divest himself of his prejudices, even where he might 

 easily have done so. This causes him to overlook the obvious 

 and easily ascertainable, and very justly casts discredit upon 

 the efficiency and impartiality of his work. A few instances 

 of this kind in his concluding article may be pointed out. 



For instance, he drags in "La Ley de Jurisdicciones," which 

 has little or nothing to do with the case. It certainly did not 

 apply to Ferrer and the Barcelona riots, although by its terms 

 it might well have done so. It is a law defining the jurisdiction 

 of military tribunals for offenses committed (a) directly 

 against the army or navy, as for example by soldiers on duty 

 or in uniform; or (b) where it may be doubtful as to the 

 nature of the offense, which essentially may be an offense by 

 civil law, but committed where the army or navy are already 

 in control. But it is a law applying directly to acts committed 

 in peaceful times. We have almost analogous provisions in re- 

 gard to Federal and State jurisdictions, and an offense com- 

 mitted in the corridor of a LTnited States court house or post- 

 office, or the boundary line thereof, immediately divests the 

 State courts of jurisdiction and turns the prisoner over to the 

 United States courts. It must be remembered that Barcelona 

 was under martial law from July 26, 1909, until near Janu- 

 ary, 1910; the civil powers were superseded, and the whole 

 city was under the control of the military commander. The 

 writer was present in Barcelona when General Valeriano Wey- 

 ler succeeded the commander, Don Luis de Santiago Manescau, 

 who had issued the July proclamation which suspended all 

 civil authority and declared the city in state of war and subject 

 to the provisions of the Military Code. Articles 3 and 4 of 

 his proclamation read : 



