THE FORGED LETTERS.

Evening Star, Issue 7875, 6 April 1889, Page 4

THE FORGED LETTERS.

ASTOUNDING ADMISSIONS AND

COINCIDENCES.

LIE UPON LIE,

[From Our Special Correspondent.]

London, February 23,

The best summary I have seen of yesterday's extraordinary proceedings is Mr Stead's. The editor of the 'Pall Mall Gazette' and Mr T. P. O'Connor did their own report 3 for once on this occasion. O'Connor's is a capital descriptive account, but much too long for you. Here is Mr Stead's: —

Punctually at half-past ten the Judges entered, and the troubled interior became still as Mr Richard Pigott was ushered once more into the box. "Is that your letter?" said Sir Charles, handing him another note in black-edged envelope. " Yes," said Pigott. This was a letter to Archbishop Walsh on March 12, saying that he had thought that it might be well to forestall the publication of the charges and allegations against the Parnellite members by publicly exposing the discreditable means by which the evidence was obtained and by which other evidence was being sought. After the Archbishop's letter was read Mr Pigott volunteered a statement. It came to this, that last night he had lied, and he might as well state that he had lied to tho Archbishop. "I may say at once," said he, "that my statements were entirely unfounded." "Lies?" thundered Sir Charles. " Well, not exactly lies, but exaggerations '."—(Laughter.) How much truth remained after these exaggerations? Very little. Mr Pigott further explained that his object was to raise money. He was in very distressed circumstances. Houston had given him no money. He was considerably nervous, fearing that he might be called as a witness in a criminal prosecution. He thought that the Parnellites might provide him with means of leaving the country, as the entire burden of the proof would fall on him. When the fac-simile letter appeared he wrote an indignant protest to Houston. " I call for that letter," said Sir Charles. Houston had not got it; he didn't remember ever having rccived it. Poor Pigott! On went the remorseless examination based on the letters to the Archbishop. Dr Walsh is a capital letter writer. His replies to Pigott are splendidly incisive expositions of the bearings of the question which he handles. In one passage His Grace said that Pigott had told him that he had " neither hand, act, nor part in the publications." In another Dr Walsh spoke of Pigott having given an unqualified disclaimer of having anything to do with the publication. "You said that?" "Yes." "It was not true?" "No." This was only the third lio admitted by witness up to eleven o'clock, an average of one per ten minutes. He contradicted himself about whether he had asked his letters to be returned, but that may be passed by. He had made a statement to the Archbishop, which had been returned. He had mentioned no name, but he had told the Archbishop that the Parnell letters were, in his opinion, rather doubtful, but the Egan letters were genuine. He told His Grace that he thought none of the ParncH's letters were genuine. He was in a doubtful state of mind as to their genuineness. "Did you ever tell Houston that you had doubts ?" Never. You swear that ? I do. Then came another letter to the Archbishop in which Mr Pigott said of the fac simile letter which he had procured for ' The Times,' and for which he had received LSOO, besides his expenses, "lam not the fabricator of the published letter as has been publicly circulated, and I defy anyone to prove that I had anything to do with it. It is another instance of mc having to suffer for the sins of others." This is the fourth lie admitted, excluding all doubtful, and giving him the benefit of all contradictions.

The cross-examination about Dr Walsh's letters came to a close about 11,15. Its importance arises from the fact that Pigott has admitted that he had informed tho Archbishop of Dublin that he believed none of the Parnell letters were genuine, that he had declared solemnly that he had neither part nor lot in the getting of the letters, that he had approached the Archbishop with the view of getting the Parnellites to give him money to escape the country, and that Dr Walsh refused.

Mr Wcmyss Reid, the biographer of Mr Forstcr, attended on subpoena with forty letters addressed by Mr Pigott to Mr Forsler, and about thirty in reply. In the first he applied for L 1.500, as he was in dire straits.

Then while Mr Reid was picking outthe most important dozen letters, we went into Egan's correspondence. Mr Pigott was getting very nervous. He wore his eyeglass and played with a quill pen. lie swore he never received, or rather that he believed he never received a letter from Egan, which a moment afterwards he had to admit he had not only received, but replied to. Ho had written to Egan saying that he had received an outrageous libel on the Land League as to the expenditure of the League, which he was asked to publish by two unknown men. It was so artfully done, and so apparently truthful—almost the same phrase used in his letters to the Archbishop as to the letters in ' Parnellism and Crime' —that it would do much harm. He also used a declaration that the Supreme Council had neither act, part, nor lot in it—another familiar phrase. It was not them, it was the Castle, he wa3 sure. This, by tho way, was about the same time he was writing to assure Mr Forater of his devotion to tho Castle. Mr Pigott's letter to Egan was almost a replica of his subsequent letter to the Archbishop. He had got to know of these outrageous charges ; was anxious to forestall their publication; but he must have some money. He had wanted LSOO. He had only got L2OO, and he was sore straitened. Would Mr Egan not send him some, and prevent the publication of his outrageous calumnies? He was always true to those who trusted him.

Pigott, not receiving an answer as soon as he expected, tells Egan that he is about to take a step which might be irrevocable. He sent an outline of the proposed publication, for which he was offered Lsoo—" I am in desperate straits; I must have money somehow." So ho would publish it—outrageous libel though it is—unless Egan would lend him L3OO. He enclosed a scrap of paper on which was written, in handwriting which Sir Charles suggested resembled the writing of the fac-similo, words promising him LSOO if he would publish tho libel on the Land League. Pat Egan replied refusing to advance the money. Pigott then wrote again, saying that he had finally declined to publish the libel. In cross-examination on theso Egan letters Mr Pigott solemnly swore that it was truo that two mysterious strangers came at night, after dinner, and offered him LSOO to publish a document which ho at first believed to be falße, and then decided to publish, and afterwards discovered to be true and then refused to publish, although by doing so he would have put LSOO into his pocket. His explanations were of the most incoherent

description. Ho was sure it was not from a lofty sense of virtue that he refused. _ First, it was because he wanted to punish tho Land League for forcing him into bankruptcy, and then it was becaute he thought it the best thing possible for the League to force it to answer the false statement. Yet he was all along writing to Mr Egan, first, that he was a friend of the League, and then that the publication would be most damaging to tho League. A more hopeless muddle it is impossible to imagine. The important bearing of the cross-exami-nation upon the question of the letters is obvious. It shows that eight years ago Mr Pigott approached Egan just as he approached Archbishop Walsh in 1887, telling a story about a forthcoming publication to be averted on payment of money to Richard Pigott, full of all the garnishing of mystery with which he vamped up the Parnell letters, and professing to have nothing to do with a series of what he admitted to be libels, which he in reality had written himself. Then Sir Charles wmt off to the letters written by Pigott to Egan about the Bale of his paper. Interest at this point dragged somewhat. (To be continued.)