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Show Tiik president has commuted the sentence sen-tence of the Navassa rioters to life imprisonment. im-prisonment. This action recalls one of the most tragic events with w hich our courts have had to deal. Navassa is a smalt island in the West Indies, owned by a guano company, and its sole inhabitants in-habitants vere employes of tho company. com-pany. The men were brutally treated by the bossns and a conflict was finally precipitated in which a number were killed. The bosses were besieged by the infuriated men for several days until a ship appeared and took the men away. The rioters were brought to trial in the Baltimore court under the law conferring jurisdiction for crimes committed com-mitted on the high seas and three of them were condemned to death. The case furnishes a remarkable illustration of the tendency of human nature to run to tyrauny when tbu individual is placed in the position of an absolute master; aud the president, in mitigating mitigat-ing the puuishmeut of tho men, has bimply recogui.ed the iuhereut right of a human being to def.ud his rights when thero is no recourse to law. |