CHAPTER XIV

THE COLLAPSE OF RICHARD PIGOTT

Sir Charles Russell's cross-examination of Pigott on the fifty-fourth and fifty-fifth days of the Commission's sittings is generally considered to be one of the finest things of the kind, from a technical point of view, ever heard. A friend who was much with him at that time relates that, on the day the cross-examination commenced, he was irritable and depressed and unable to eat, and that he could not have been more nervous had he been a junior with his first brief instead of the most formidable advocate at the Bar. But, as he stood facing the forger, his whole appearance changed. He was a picture of calmness, self-possession, and strength, there was no sign of impatience or irritability, not a trace of anxiety or care.[1] In the profound silence that had fallen upon the court he began, in tones of great courtesy:

Mr. Pigott, would you be good enough, with my Lord's permission, to write some words on that sheet of paper for me. Perhaps you will sit down in order to do it. [He gave him the sheet of paper he had in his hand.] Would you like to sit down?

_Pigott_. Oh no, thanks.

_The President_. Well, but I think that it is better that you should sit down. Here is a table upon which you can write in the ordinary way, the course you always pursue.

_Sir Charles Russell_. Will you write the word "livelihood"? {392} Just leave a space. Will you write the word "likelihood"? Will you write your own name, leaving a space between each? Will you write the word "proselytism," and finally, I think I will not trouble you any more at present, "Patrick Egan" and "P. Egan" underneath it--"Patrick Egan" first and "P. Egan" underneath it? There is one word more I had forgotten. Lower down, please, leaving spaces, write the word "hesitancy" with a small "h."

Pigott, after he had written what he was told, handed back the sheet of paper, and, as soon as Sir Charles Russell had glanced at it, he knew that he had scored a great point for Mr. Parnell. The word that he had told Pigott to write last, and with a small "h," as if that were the significant part of the experiment, was the word which Pigott had misspelt in one of the letters supposed to be from Parnell to Egan which the Attorney-General had produced at the O'Donnell _v._ Walter trial. Pigott had again spelt it wrong. Hesitancy on the piece of paper which he handed back to Sir Charles Russell was spelt "hesitency."

The cross-examination of Pigott occupied the rest of that day, and before the end of it the wretched man had fallen into hopeless confusion. The production of some of his correspondence with the Archbishop of Dublin (Dr. Walsh), in which he offered, for a consideration of course, to avert the possibility of a blow which was about to fall upon the Nationalist party (presumably the publication of the facsimile letter), almost finished his brazen self-command. The day's sitting ended in a roar of laughter, for Pigott's silly, aimless reflections, elicited by the advocate's remorseless, persistent questions, were ludicrous, and it was easy to see what the climax of the affair would be. The next day things went worse and worse for Pigott. A correspondence which he had with Egan in 1881 was produced, in which he had misspelt the word "hesitancy" as he had done the day before in court. Egan's answers to Pigott were not forthcoming, for reasons which the forger made known later on, but the {393} drafts of these answers, produced by Mr. Lewis (who had got them direct from Mr. Egan through Mr. Labouchere), bearing a remarkable similarity to the Egan letters produced by the _Times_, were read by Sir Charles Russell. Copies of letters written by Mr. Parnell to Pigott in 1881 were also read out, coinciding word for word in parts with the "facsimile letter" and the others put in by the accusers of the Nationalist party. Then Pigott was made to acknowledge how he had blackmailed Mr. Forster, and Mr. Wemyss Reid produced the Pigott-Forster correspondence in court. Before the reading of this correspondence was finished, the densely packed audience in the court, according to the _Daily News_ reporter, was wrought up to the highest pitch of amusement and excitement. The court usher had long since ceased to cry out "Silence!" The merriment was almost continuous. The judges themselves were unable to repress their feelings. A loud ringing roar of laughter broke forth as Sir Charles Russell read one letter containing Pigott's application for £200 to enable him to proceed to Sydney, and some hints as to the pressure which was brought to bear upon him to publish the Forster letters. Mr. Justice Day, bending forward, reddened and shook with laughter. In this letter Pigott wrote: "I feel this is my last chance, and if that fails only the workhouse and the grave remains." Poor Pigott looked as if he would prefer even the grave to the witness-box. He changed colour; the helpless, foolish smile flickered about the weak heavy mouth; his hands moved about restlessly, nervously. Then came the climax--Pigott's letter to Mr. Forster, saying that he felt tempted to reveal to the world how he had been bribed by Mr. Forster to write against the interests of Ireland. The notion of Pigott's appearing in the character of injured innocence sent the audience off once more into a fit of laughter. It was now four o'clock, and, in the uproar and confusion, Pigott descended from the box, smiling foolishly.[2] That he had forged {394} the letters no one now doubted for a moment. The way he had actually done it was not yet absolutely clear, but the ingenuous Pigott was not going to leave any mysteries unsolved. The court was adjourned until the following Tuesday.

The story of how the court met on February 26, and when Pigott was called upon to enter the witness-box there was no answer, and how it was subsequently elicited that he had disappeared from his hotel on the previous afternoon and not been seen again, has been graphically told by more than one writer. Who had given him the money to bolt, and who had assisted him to evade the constables who were supposed to be watching him, has never been positively revealed, but the fact remained--there was no Pigott there to tell the end of his squalid tale. The court adjourned for some thirty minutes, and then Sir Charles Russell made the startling announcement that Pigott, without an invitation from any one, had called upon Mr. Labouchere in Grosvenor Gardens on the previous Saturday, the day after his disastrous cross-examination, and had then and there dictated to him a full confession. This confession had been signed by Pigott and witnessed by Mr. George Augustus Sala. Mr. George Lewis, to whom Mr. Labouchere had communicated the confession, had refused to have anything to do with the document, and sent it back to Pigott with the following letter:

ELY PLACE, HOLBORN, Feb. 25, 1889.

SIR,--Mr. Labouchere has informed me that on Saturday you called at his house and expressed a desire to make a statement in writing, and he has handed to us the confession you have made, that you are the forger of the whole of the letters given in evidence by the _Times_ purporting to be written respectively by Mr. Parnell, Mr. Egan, Mr. Davitt, and Mr. O'Kelly, and that, in addition, you committed perjury in support of the case of the _Times_. Mr. Parnell has instructed us to inform you that he declines to hold any communication directly or indirectly with you, and he further {395} instructs us to return you the written confession which we enclose, and which for safety sake we send by hand.--We are, sir, yours obediently,

LEWIS & LEWIS. Richard Pigott, Esq.

On the following day Sir Richard Webster made the announcement to the court that a letter had been received in Pigott's handwriting, posted in Paris, addressed to Mr. Shannon, the Dublin solicitor, who had been assisting Mr. Soames. The letter had not been opened, and he handed it to the President of the Commission, who passed it down to Mr. Cunynghame, and asked him to open and read its contents. It was Pigott's confession made to Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Lewis's letter to Pigott quoted above. The envelope contained also a note from the irrepressible Pigott as follows:

HÔTEL DE DEUX MONDES, AVENUE DE L'OPERA, PARIS, Tuesday.

DEAR SIR,--Just before I left enclosed was handed to me. It had been left while I was out. Will write again soon.--Yours truly,

R. PIGOTT.

The confession, as far as the letters were concerned, ran as follows:

The circumstances connected with the obtaining of the letters, as I gave in evidence, are not true. No one save myself was concerned in the transaction. I told Houston that I had discovered the letters in Paris, but I grieve to have to confess that I simply myself fabricated them, using genuine letters of Messrs. Parnell and Egan in copying certain words, phrases, and general character of the handwriting. I traced some words and phrases by putting the genuine letter against the window, and placing on it the sheet of which copies have been read in court, and four or five letters of Mr. Egan, which were also read in court. I destroyed these letters after using them. Some of the {396} signatures I traced in this manner, and some I wrote. I then wrote to Houston telling him to come to Paris for the documents. I told him that they had been placed in a black bag with some old accounts, scraps of paper, and old newspapers. On his arrival I produced to him the letters, accounts, and scraps of paper. After a brief inspection he handed me a cheque on Cook for £500, the price that I told him I had agreed to pay for them. At the same time he gave me £105 in bank-notes as my own commission. The accounts put in were leaves torn from an old account book of my own, which contained details of the expenditure of Fenian money entrusted to me from time to time, which is mainly in the handwriting of David Murphy, my cashier. The scraps I found in the bottom of an old writing-desk. I do not recollect in whose writing they are.

The second batch of letters was also written by me. Mr. Parnell's signature was imitated from that published in the _Times_ facsimile letter. I do not now remember where I got the Egan letter from which I copied the signature.

I had no specimen of Campbell's handwriting beyond the two letters of Mr. Parnell to me, which I presumed might be in Mr. Campbell's handwriting. I wrote to Mr. Houston that this second batch was for sale in Paris, having been brought there from America. He wrote asking to see them. I forwarded them accordingly, and after keeping them three or four days, he sent me a cheque on Cook for the price demanded for them, £550. The third batch consisted of a letter imitated by me from a letter written in pencil to me by Mr. Davitt when he was in prison, and of another letter copied by me from a letter of a very early date, which I received from James O'Kelly when he was writing on my newspapers, and of a third letter ascribed to Egan, the writing of which, and some of the words, I copied from an old bill of exchange in Mr. Egan's handwriting. £200 was the price paid to me by Mr. Houston for these three letters. It was paid in bank-notes. I have stated that for the first batch I received £105 for myself, for the second batch I got £50, for the third batch I was supposed to receive nothing.

I did not see Breslin in America. This was part of the deception.

With respect to my interview with Messrs. Parnell, Labouchere, {397} and Lewis, my sworn statement is in the main correct. I am now, however, of opinion that the offer to me by Mr. Labouchere of £1000 was not for giving evidence but for any documents in Mr. Egan's or Mr. Parnell's handwriting that I might happen to have. My statement only referred to the first interviews with these gentlemen. I had a further interview with Mr. Labouchere, on which occasion I made him acquainted with further circumstances not previously mentioned by me at the preceding interviews.

There was a pause after Mr. Cunynghame finished reading the extraordinary document. It was an awkward moment for the Attorney-General, but, in an extremely dignified speech, he informed the court that, on behalf of his clients, he asked permission to withdraw from the consideration of the Commission the question of the genuineness of the letters which had been submitted to them. On that day Mr. Parnell appeared for the first time in the witness-box, and in answer to Sir Charles Russell's questions swore to the forgery of his signature on all the letters in question. There was no attempt to cross-examine on the part of Sir Richard Webster. Mr. Labouchere entered the witness-box on March 3. He gave his evidence very slowly and realistically, rather in the style perhaps of what Lord Randolph Churchill described as newspaper paragraphs, but there was no lack of connection in his descriptions of his various interviews with Pigott. When it came to the final interview on the preceding Saturday the questions of the great advocate became very close.

_Sir Charles Russell_. He came to your house?

_Mr. Labouchere_. He did.

_Sir Charles Russell_. Did you expect him?

_Mr. Labouchere_. No.

_Sir Charles Russell_. Had he given you any warning he was coming?

_Mr. Labouchere_. No.

_Sir Charles Russell_. Or had you asked him to come?

{398}

_Mr. Labouchere_. No.

_Sir Charles Russell_. Now tell us what took place on the occasion.

_Mr. Labouchere_. He came in. I did not catch the name when the servant introduced him. I was writing at the table, and looked up, and saw him standing before me, and he said to me, "I suppose you are surprised at seeing me here?" And I said, "Oh! not at all. Pray take a seat."

_Sir Charles Russell_. I said what----?

_Mr. Labouchere_. "Not at all." Nothing would surprise me about Mr. Pigott. He sat down. He then said that he had come over to confess everything; that he supposed he should have to go to prison, and he was just as well there as anywhere else. I said that he must thoroughly understand if he did confess, the confession would be handed to Mr. Lewis, and that I must have a witness.

Of the historic interview in Mr. Labouchere's study in Grosvenor Gardens there has been no more graphic an account written than the one by its only witness, the veteran journalist, George Augustus Sala:

In February 1889 [he wrote] I was the occupant of a fiat in Victoria Street, Westminster, and one Saturday, between one and two P.M., a knock came at my study door, and I was handed a letter which had been brought in hot haste by a servant who was instructed to wait for an answer. The missive was of the briefest possible kind, and was from my near neighbour Mr. Henry Labouchere, M.P., whose house was then at 24 Grosvenor Gardens. The note ran thus: "Can you leave everything and come here at once? Most important business.--H.L." I told the servant that I would be in Grosvenor Gardens within a quarter of an hour, and, ere that time had expired, I was ushered into a large library on the ground floor, where I found the senior member for Northampton smoking his sempiternal cigarette, but with an unusual and curious expression of animation on his normally passive countenance.

He was not alone. Ensconced in a roomy fauteuil, a few paces from Mr. Labouchere's writing-table, there was a somewhat {399} burly individual of middle stature and more than middle age. He looked fully sixty, although I have been given to understand that his age did not exceed fifty-five; but his elderly aspect was enhanced by his baldness, which revealed a large amount of oval _os frontis_ fringed by grey locks. The individual had an eyeglass screwed into one eye, and he was using this optical aid most assiduously; for he was poring over a copy of that morning's issue of the _Times_, going right down one column and apparently up it again; then taking column after column in succession; then harking back as though he had omitted some choice paragraph; and then resuming the sequence of his lecture, ever and anon tapping that ovoid frontal bone of his, as though to evoke memories of the past, with a little silver pencil-case. I noted his somewhat shabby genteel attire, and, in particular, I observed that the hand which held the copy of the _Times_ never ceased to shake. Mr. Labouchere, in his most courteous manner and his blandest tone, said, "Allow me to introduce you to a gentleman of whom you must have heard a great deal, Mr.----." I replied, "There is not the slightest necessity for naming him. I know him well enough. That's Mr. Pigott."

The individual in the capacious fauteuil wriggled from behind the _Times_ an uneasy acknowledgment of my recognition; but if anything could be conducive to putting completely at his ease a gentleman who, from some cause or another, was troubled in his mind, it would have been the dulcet voice in which Mr. Labouchere continued: "The fact is that Mr. Pigott has come here, quite unsolicited, to make a full confession. I told him that I would listen to nothing he had to say, save in the presence of a witness, and, remembering that you lived close by, I thought that you would not mind coming here and listening to what Mr. Pigott has to confess, which will be taken down, word by word, from his dictation in writing." It has been my lot during a long and diversified career to have to listen to a large number of very queer statements from very queer people; and, by dint of experience, you reach at last a stage of stoicism when little, if anything, that is imparted to you excites surprise. Mr. Pigott, although he had screwed his courage to the sticking place of saying that he was going to confess, manifested considerable tardiness in orally "owning up." Conscience, we were justified in assuming, had {400} gnawed to an extent sufficient to make him disposed to relieve his soul from a dreadful burden; but conscience, to all seeming, had to gnaw a little longer and a little more sharply ere he absolutely gave tongue. So we let him be for about ten minutes. Mr. Labouchere kindled another cigarette. I lighted a cigar.

At length Mr. Pigott stood up and came forward into the light, by the side of Mr. Labouchere's writing-table. He did not change colour; he did not blench; but when--out of the fulness of his heart, no doubt--his mouth spake, it was in a low, half-musing tone, more at first as though he were talking to himself than to any auditors. By degrees, however, his voice rose, his diction became more fluent. It is only necessary that, in this place, I should say that, in substance, Pigott confessed that he had forged the letters alleged to have been written by Mr. Parnell; and he minutely described the manner in which he, and he alone, had executed the forgeries in question. Whether the man with the bald head and the eyeglass in the library at Grosvenor Gardens was telling the truth or was uttering another batch of infernal lies it is not for me to determine. No pressure was put upon him, no leading questions were asked him, and he went on quietly and continuously to the end of a story which I should have thought amazing had I not had occasion to hear many more tales even more astounding. He was not voluble, but he was collected, clear, and coherent; nor, although he repeatedly confessed to forgery, fraud, deception, and misrepresentation, did he seem overcome with anything approaching active shame. His little peccadilloes were plainly owned, but he appeared to treat them more as incidental weakness than as extraordinary acts of wickedness.

When he had come to the end of his statement Mr. Labouchere left the library for a few minutes to obtain a little refreshment. It was a great relief to me when he came back, for, when Pigott and I were left together, there came over me a vague dread that he might disclose his complicity with the Rye House Plot, or that he would admit that he had been the executioner of King Charles I. The situation was rather embarrasing; the time might have been tided over by whistling, but unfortunately I never learnt to whistle. It would have been rude to read a book; and besides, to do so would have necessitated my taking my eyes off {401} Mr. Pigott, and I never took them off him. We did get into conversation, but our talk was curt and trite. He remarked, first taking up that so-often-conned _Times_, that the London papers were inconveniently large. This, being a self-evident proposition, met with no response from me, but on his proceeding to say, in quite a friendly manner, that I must have found the afternoon's interview rather stupid work, I replied that, on the contrary, so far as I was concerned, I had found it equally amusing and instructive. Then the frugal Mr. Labouchere coming back with his mouth full, we went to business again. The whole of Pigott's confession, beginning with the declaration that he had made it uninvited and without any pecuniary consideration, was read over to him line by line and word by word. He made no correction or alteration whatsoever. The confession covered several sheets of paper, and to each sheet he affixed his initials. Finally, at the bottom of the completed document he signed his name beneath which I wrote mine as a witness.[3]

The history of the Commission subsequent to Pigott's disappearance does not belong to this biography. It is enough to say that it terminated its business on November 20, 1889, after having sat no less than 126 times.

On the 8th of March, eight days after his last appearance in the witness-box, the news of Pigott's suicide reached London. It appeared that after his interview with Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Sala, he treated himself to an evening's amusement at the Alhambra Music Hall. He left on Monday morning for Paris, whence he posted the envelope containing his confession and other enclosures to Mr. Shannon. He reached Madrid on Thursday, where he put up at the Hotel des Ambassadeurs, and spent the afternoon and following morning in visiting the churches and picture galleries. He would not have been tracked so quickly by the detectives if he had not sent a wire to Mr. Shannon--the Dublin solicitor who had assisted Mr. Soames--asking for the money "you promised me," which gave the clue to his {402} whereabouts. On the following afternoon, when he was informed by the hotel interpreter that a police officer wanted him, he retired to his bedroom and shot himself through the brain.[4]

Richard Pigott had one redeeming feature in his character--unless his complete lack of self-consciousness in evil doing be counted as another--an intense love for his motherless children. There were four of these. Mr. Labouchere's compassion for the wretched man had early been aroused in connection with the really pathetic state of his domestic affairs, and, although his "underground" relations with Pigott prevented him from being able to promise definitely to give him any assistance for his children in the event of the _Times_ or Parnell prosecuting him as a consequence of his confession, it is easily to be imagined that Pigott would have perceived during his visits to Grosvenor Gardens the extraordinary tenderness of feeling that Mr. Labouchere could never conceal where there was a question of any suffering to be saved to a child. In his examination by Sir Charles Russell Mr. Labouchere had said: "Pigott said to me, 'I shall go to prison, but perhaps I am better there than anywhere else; the only thing I regret is the position of my children, who will starve.' I said: 'Well, I think they won't starve, or anything of that sort, but if you want me to make any terms about your children, you must not expect it from me.'" Poor puzzled Pigott! He had done everything he could to please every one round him, and yet he could get no one at this crisis to do the one thing that would have set his fluttering mind at ease. No one would promise to befriend the four little boys at Kingstown. Truly, as he had told Mr. Labouchere, he was in a terrible mess.

But as soon as the poor fellow was dead, and his motives could no longer be impugned by the vigilant Tories, Mr. Labouchere set himself with energy to see that the children were cared for. He sent a friend to Kingstown to report to {403} him on the condition of the orphans, and she wrote to him as follows: "I had a long chat with the housekeeper who is to my mind an excellent woman. A more self-forgetful creature I never saw, and nobody ever wrapped truths in softer garments. She pitied her master. She says that Pigott adored these children, and that it was his desire to give them comforts and education which drove him into such crimes. I do hope that something will be done for these poor friendless children, to whom the father was a most indulgent parent. I saw lying in the room little toy yachts and tricycles, bearing evidence that there was softness as well as weakness in the character of the dead man. The only relative that the housekeeper knows of is an uncle, who holds a good position under the Government. She wrote to him and got no reply." A fund was started for the benefit of the children, and in the pages of _Truth_ Mr. Labouchere pleaded their cause with eloquence. In May Archbishop Walsh wrote to him as follows:

4 RUTLAND SQUARE, DUBLIN, May 23, 1889.

DEAR MR. LABOUCHERE,--There are two ways in which effect can be given to your charitable purpose. The trust can be executed direct through me, or I can arrange to have the matter carried out by the parish priests of the place where Pigott lived--Glasthule close by Kingstown, Dublin. I may say to you that two generous offers were made to me immediately after the suicide. One was a proposal to take charge of the two elder boys with a view to their emigration to the U.S. or Canada, where something would be done to give them a fair start. The other was an offer to take one of the younger children and practically to provide for this little fellow by an informal adoption.

In both cases I pointed out that there is, I fear, a serious difficulty in the way of my interfering in any prominent way in the case, and indeed in the interference of anyone who is an active sympathizer (as was the case in the two offers) with Home Rule, etc.

{404}

The Liberal Unionists of Dublin who brought the unfortunate father into temptation have a heavy responsibility towards the poor children. It is worse than mean of them to shirk it. But they not only shirk it, they try to throw the responsibility on to the other side. The insinuation made by many of them is that Pigott was got out of the country by sympathizers with Mr. Parnell, and that the suicide even may have been managed for a consideration.

A very serious question then arises as to what can be prudently done in the case of the children. Of course they must not be neglected. But, so far as I can see, there is no present danger on that score. The two elder boys are at school at Clongowes, a high-class school for lay pupils, conducted by the Jesuit Fathers. Their schoolfellows have, throughout the whole case, shown a splendid spirit towards them. The two younger boys are safely placed in charge of the former housekeeper in a place where they are not known, not far from Dublin.

My advice would be to let matters lie until the school holiday time comes on, about the beginning of July.

In the meantime I shall communicate with the persons who made the offers of which I have told you.

When the case comes to be dealt with, I should suggest that the best way to act would be through Canon Harold, the parish priest.

Meanwhile should not something be done through the newspapers to work up the call, which can be most legitimately made, on the Irish Liberal Unionists to do at all events something really substantial in the case?--I remain, dear Mr. Labouchere, faithfully yours,

WILLIAM WALSH, Archbishop of Dublin.

The statement of Dr. Walsh that there were people in Dublin who insinuated that Pigott had been got out of the country by the friends of the Nationalists seems almost incredible, but it is a fact that, even in England, in country places, lectures were given, under the auspices of the Primrose League, to persuade rural voters, who might have been reading the newspapers, that the forgery of the Pigott letters {405} had never been proved, and even more ridiculous statements were made in some places. Mr. Labouchere wrote in _Truth_ on March 7:

I feel it my duty solemnly to affirm that (incredible as it may appear to Primrose Dames) I did not bribe Pigott to commit suicide by promising him an annuity. It is somewhat fortunate for me that I can prove an alibi; otherwise I make no doubt that I should have been accused of having been concealed in Pigott's room at Madrid, and having shot him. Well, well, I suppose that allowance must be made for the crew of idiots who have gone about vowing that the _Times_ forgeries were genuine letters, and who are now grovelling in the mire that they have prepared for themselves.

Nothing can exceed my sorrow that we were not privileged to hear in court the evidence of the expert in handwriting, Inglis. So great, indeed, is my regret that I will willingly (if the _Times_ is in want of money) pay the sum of £20 for his "proof." I have always regarded these experts as the most dreary of humbugs, and in this view I am now confirmed. I myself subjected the photographs of the _Times_ forgeries to the limelight in a magic-lantern, and I soon discovered that there were signs of tracing. In some of the words--and particularly in the signatures--there is a small white line, where the ink had not taken over the tracing. If Inglis had done the same, he would not probably have made so ridiculous a fool of himself.

It must be owned that Mr. Labouchere made himself exceedingly annoying in the pages of _Truth_ on the subject of the forged letters. His taunts and scathing witticisms at the expense of the prosecuting side and Messrs. Soames, Houston & Co. were almost past enduring, and more than one apology was furiously demanded of him, to which he usually replied by heaping more ridicule on the unfortunate, writhing victim. Some abortive attempts were made to hoax him and make a fool of him as he succeeded so frequently in doing of others. In the winter of 1889 a somewhat unpleasant case was brought before the Central Criminal {406} Court, the only event of public interest connected with which was the departure from England of a well-known nobleman on the very eve of the day that the warrant was issued for his arrest, and it was in connection with this affair that someone tried to put salt on Labby's tail. Whoever the joker was he must have felt rather sold when he read the following paragraph in the next issue of Labby's journal;

I have received through the post the following letter and enclosure. Evidently someone is attempting to Pigott me. I do not hesitate to say that the letters are not from those by whom they profess to be written. It is really shameful that two such good men and true as Lord Salisbury and Mr. Houston should be selected for this reprehensible hoax.

PRIMROSE LEAGUE CENTRAL OFFICES, VICTORIA STREET.

SIR, I enclose you an autograph letter of Lord Salisbury. I obtained it from a man of the name of Hammond, whom I promised to reward if he could get me any letters likely to injure the character of Tory leaders. He tells me that a client of his in Cleveland Street called upon him and produced it from a black bag. I have already offered the letter to Lord Hartington and to the Editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, but they have both declined to have anything to do with it. If you use it I must request you to send me a cheque for £1000, and you must pledge yourself never to give up the name of Hammond. He is a very worthy man, and he fears that if it were known that he had given me the letter some Tory would shoot him.--Your obedient servant,

E. C. HOUSTON.

(_Enclosure_)

HATFIELD HOUSE, Oct., 17.

MY DEAR LORD***,--There is a good deal of evidence against you, although the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney-General have decided that the evidence of identity is not sufficient, but I hear a rumour that more evidence can be obtained. I can count upon the Chancellor standing to his guns, but I am not quite so sure of Webster. He, you know, will have to answer that {407} scoundrel Labouchere in the House of Commons, when he brings on the subject and he is getting shaky. Perhaps he will be forced to issue a warrant.--Yours very truly,

SALISBURY.

Another hoax practised on Mr. Labouchere came off, and a considerable time elapsed before the perpetrator of it was discovered. He eventually turned out to be a member of one of the most staid and respectable clubs in London. Here is the story of the hoax, as Mr. Labouchere related it in _Truth_:

During the last few weeks I have received a number of anonymous letters, all in the same handwriting, couched in terms the reverse of complimentary. Some of them were on the paper of the East India United Service Club, St. James's Square. This did not trouble me, as I receive so many of such letters that I am accustomed to them. On Thursday last, however, my anonymous friend sent orders signed in my name to a number of tradesmen desiring them to send me goods. He ordered two hearses each with two mourning coaches, and requested a representative of the cremation company to call and arrange for my cremation. He also ordered a marriage cake of Messrs. Buzzard, a bed of Messrs. Shoolbred furniture of Messrs. Maple, Messrs. Druce, and Messrs. Barker & Co.; coal of Messrs. Whiteley, Ricketts, Herbert Clarke & Co.; Cockerell & Lee; a coat of Mr. Cording, caps of Messrs. Lincoln & Bennett, a billiard table of Messrs. Thurston, prints of Messrs. Clifford, carpets of Messrs. Swan & Edgar, beer, spirits, and wine from several firms, some of which was delivered, and a vast number of other goods from West End houses, including an umbilical belt for hernia from a city firm. He also sent letters to various physicians in my name, and they have favoured me in reply with prescriptions for divers diseases. He further engaged cabins for me to India and to the United States. Not content with this he ordered a salmon to be sent in my name to Mr. Gladstone, a Stilton cheese to Sir William Harcourt, a travelling bag to Mr. Asquith, and a haunch of venison to Sir George Trevelyan. And he supplemented these liberal orders {408} by issuing invitations in the name of a mythical niece to a party at Twickenham and a dinner at my London house. All this is far more annoying to the tradesmen than it is to me, and I would therefore suggest to my friend to revert to his old plan of anonymous letters. Neither of the hearses came, owing to representatives of the firms having called to know how many men would be required to carry my corpse downstairs. Had the hearse arrived it would have been curious, as the mutes would probably have disputed in which I was to be moved off, and would have had to appeal to me eating my marriage cake and arrayed in my umbilical belt to decide to which I would give my preference.

[1] Barry O'Brien, _Life of Lord Russell of Killowen._

[2] Macdonald, _Diary of the Parnell Commission._

[3] _Life of Sala_, written by himself, vol. ii.

[4] Macdonald, _Diary of the Parnell Commission._

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