The San Antonio Light

THE RIVAL CLAIMANTS.

Squabble For The Reward Offered By Tennessee For Polk's Arrest.

The following appears in a recent number of the Chicago Times: "A gentleman recently from Texas informed a reporter for the Times yesterday that strenuous efforts were making to prevent the payment by the State of Tennessee of the $20,000 reward claimed by Coast Inspector Joe Shely, of Laredo, International train Conductor Morrill, and United States Marshal Hal Gosling for having captured the defaulting one-legged treasurer, Marsh Tate Polk, now under sentence to imprisonment for 25 years in the penitentiary. The principal opposition is made by Colonel E. P. Claudon, the City Clerk of San Antonio, Texas, acting for Captain John Price, the private detective who first arrested Polk and then, as asserted by Inspector Shely, accepted a bribe to render assistance in conveying him across the Rio Grande into Mexico. Evidence in behalf of Captain Price has been submitted to the Governor of Tennessee in the form of a document containing what purports to be the confession of Malcolm Stewart, a man formerly in Price's employ. This is to the effect that while guarding Polk in a chapparal on the border, as ordered by Captain Price, he was prevailed on by Joe Shely to turn traitor to Price and deliver Polk into Shely's charge, the motive being to secure an equal division of the reward. After this was done Stewart, in accordance with a plan previously divulged to him by Shely, was locked up in Laredo on the charge of having conspired with Price to enable Polk to escape, and Price himself suffered a like fate at San Antonio. The charges against these quasi-officers were never pressed and they were soon released from custody. Then the now remorseful Stewart learned that Shely intended to ignore him and had given to the public a story of the capture in which he attributed his success to information of Polk's whereabouts as furnished by the conductor aforementioned, and to his individual prowess. For a while Stewart lingered about San Antonio, but finally he went into Mexico. Price, who appeared deeply chagrined because of the unfortunate turn the affair had taken, determined to prove his own innocence, and to that end trudged on foot to the City of Mexico. There he found Stewart and, by threats and pleading, managed to obtain the confession, which was properly signed and witnessed in the presence of a United States consul. Now he claims that had he not arrested Polk the defaulter would not have been returned to Tennessee, and that, as Polk was unlawfully taken from his custody and a stigma cast on his character, he alone is entitled to the reward. The Tennessee Governor, unable to decide between the rival claimants, seems to be willing to let the matter remain in abeyance and the $20,000 in the coffers of the State."