A PLAIN QUESTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 5, 30 May 1890, Page 29

A PLAIN QUESTION.

I (Truth) have recently endeavoured — vainly — to extract from Mr. Matthews a plain answer to a plain question. My question has been this : Was Frederick Jarvis at Kansas City, and subsequently at Del Norte (the town close by Sheridan's Ranche), at any time daring the months of November and December, 1888 ? Mr. Matthews pereistemtly replies that the Cbief of the Criminal Investigation Department says that Frederick Jarvia was not there during that time. Asked whether he will cause inquiry to be made of Jarvis himself, he declines to do so. Ido not exactly know who the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department is. But this I assert : either that he has not inquired of Jarvis, and knows himself nothing of the movements of Jarvis, or that he is deliberately telling an untruth.

The denial is important, because it shows that the Government are fully aware how "damning it is to them if it can be shown that one of their constables was aiding and abetting the Times in its attempt to induce Sheridan to come forward as a Times witness, and that it will stick at no suggestio falsi or suppressio veri in order to escape from admission of this. I again repeat that Jarvis was at Kansas <Jity and at Del Norte at the time that I have mentioned ; and I defy Mr. Matthews, or the Chief of the Investigation Department, to obtain a statement from him that he was not.

If the exact facts were known it would be found that, in order to evade possible inquiry, Jarvis was at that time given a nominal leave of absence. That he should have betaken himself to Del Norte — a small town situated in a remote part of the State of Colorado — for his own private affairs or for his private pleasure, iB simply incredible. He went there in connection with the Times' attempt on Sheridan, and I do not entertain the vestiga of a doubt that he reported — either in writing or verbally — to his superiors what he did there.