tution' of the south; and the true voice and spirit of this province is that when the flying slave has once put the roar of Niagara between him and the bay of the bloodhounds of his master from that hour, no man shall ever dream of recovering him as his chattel property."
As soon as the decision of the Court of Queen's Bench was given, abolitionists in Toronto decided to carry the case to English courts and did so, securing from the Court of Queen's Bench at Westminster an order to bring Anderson there. In the meantime the case was carried to the Court of Common Pleas in Toronto and there on February 16, 1861, Chief Justice Draper acquitted Anderson, for the following reasons, as quoted in The Toronto Leader: "In the first place, the magistrate's warrant was defective inasmuch as the words used in the warrant did not imply the charge of murder, though perhaps expressing more than manslaughter; secondly, the warrant of commitment was also defective in not adhering to the words of the treaty."
It would take long to list all the meetings, petitions, resolutions, and protests that were brought forth by the Anderson case. The Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, with headquarters in Toronto, was, of course, active throughout the whole case. Early in January it was reported that a petition signed by more than 2500 people had been forwarded from Montreal on behalf of Anderson and from elsewhere in Canada came similar protests.
With the decision of Chief Justice Draper the Anderson case was closed and the fugitive disappears. As a result, however, of the unseemly action of the Brantford magistrate the Canadian law was revised so as to take from the control of ordinary magistrates jurisdiction as regards foreign fugitives from justice, leaving such cases with county judges and police justices.
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| London, Ontario. |
