LAST PHASE.

Grey River Argus, 15 July 1922, Page 3

LAST PHASE.

HORATIO BOTTOMLEY. {1 BUSI NESS ’ ’ GOVERN ME NT. Writing in Glasgow “Forward/ 1 “T.F." says:—Big mouthed, firm lip ped, grey fishy-eyed, rather heavy am flabby Jawed, tapping his fingers slowly on the ledge of the witn-ess box as h-e waited on the next keen, incisive, sometimes brutal, question. Horatio Bottomloy stood in the witness box at the Old Bailey. Skecno Mackay had smuggled me in. past entrenchments of police, close' up to the rows of be-wigged counsel, who sat behind Mr Travers Humphreys, K.C., the Government prosecutor. It was real drama. Bottomloy, who had played with the fortunes, the lives, and the characters of men and women, who sported with millions as little boys sported with marbles, who heard voices from Heaven, and posed as a spiritual leader of the nation, who crushed opponents ruthlessly and recklessly, a great arch-humbug, a very Napoleon of humbugs, a huge financial parasite, a wholesalc' - Vlcvourer of the simple-minded—and here he was at last trapped ,and being put through a sort of third degree for six hours a day. Timo and again Bottomloy j wilted under the lash: lie cowered I back in the corner of th-e box like ■ a dog cringing from punishment. His I nerve was clearly breaking, and once or twice he turned with a snarl upon ] Travers Humphreys. “Don’t grin at I tho Jury," ho cried, as the Treasury | Couns-ol smiled triumphantly at the ! end of a decisive question. I Bottomloy endeavoured to show that : he had no necessity to steal the moneys iof the poor. Bis income was £40.000

: a year “-at lea-t." Th-en Mr Humphreys turned to a dork behind him and received a long envelope; slowly and amid silence he extracted a document. 11-e held it up, declaring it was an affidavit sworn to by Mr Bottomley in May. 1920, when in another law case. At that time, he swore that, his income was only £ll,OOO a year, sub ject to certain liabilities. What Bottomloy said in reply 1 could not hear, for his \<;iee sank, but everyone could see that Counsel thought he had scored a bullpoint. Again, something like this went on:— “When did you make up your mind to take £lO,OOO of fha War Stock to pay your debts to Mr Howard?” asked Air Travers Humphreys. “After I had advanced to this Chib nearly £20,000,” was the reply. ‘Did you tell your subscribers that you had used £lO,OOO of your War Stock to pay your debts?” persisted Counsel. “It would have been an absolute lie if I had said so,” thundered Air Bottomloy, as he hamm-ered the wit- , ness box with hi:; ‘‘They wore my War Bonds and nobody elsc’s. Tr a .y were War Bonds which T paid for with my own money.” Counsel: Thon will you tell us tfie date gii which you paid this £10,00(‘ into the Club? The defendant was making a long statement when Counsel exclaimed: “All right, if you won’t answer the question I won’t press it."

Defendant: I will answer it as best I can, but I am not going to be tricked into admission. Counsel: Do you or do you not understand I am trying to got a date from you as to when you paid £lO,000 to or for the Club? Air Bottomloy: I had tho money lying idle and paid it into that account. Counsel: On what date? Defendant: About tho time tho Club j was formed. Air Humphreys asked witness if lupaid himself out of the, War Stock Combination in preference to other subscribers? Mr Bottomloy: Any subscriber who asked to be paid out was paid out. “And you were the first subscriber who asked to be paid out, and were paid out £10,000? When you took up these shares in your own scheme did you take out the certificates? — In slow, even tone-.l Air Traver*; Humphreys kept at it. A man on tho right side of 50, not unlike John A. Paton in facial appearance, he had evidently spent a long time in mastering the details of his case: and clearly he meant business. Whoever else in that Court had sympathy for his quarry, he had none. Up above sat tho old Judge in a red cloak, spectacles on his nose: a whitey, yellow face, something of an Egyptian mummy look about him, but his eyes travelling between the Crown Counsel and the man in the dock, taking in everything. | every swing of the toils as they closed round the Soldiers’ Friend who had hoard the A’oice from Heaven. And that in the dock was the Vox Dei in Britain for four years! The great anti-Socialist, the apostle oi Business Government, the star performer in the Rothermere Sunday Press, whose war yells drowned all the other maniacs in stridency and venom. There stood tho man who away back on August 8, 1914, boasted that it was he who had published a secret, cypher letter from tho Serbian Legation in London which led to the ultimatum that began the war. There stood the man who issued posters: “To Hell with Serbia,” the man who cried that “Serbia must be wiped out!” There the man who on October 22, 1915, addressed the anti-German League in the London Pavilion, giving a '"patriotic” address and taking a fee of £52 10/for it, so that there was nothing left for the funds of the League, There

the great Jingo, the leading patriowith his mouth, the humbug who was feted and honoured and fawued upon by our guardians of morality and public honour, exploited by th-e politicians, loaded to by the Church, and only tho Forward and Ramsay MacDonald, 'if C. 11. Norman, and the late William Lotinga daring to tell the people tho truth. There in the dock was Business Government, and nven who heard it being riddled offered and accepted bets as to its sentence. Some said three years, some said ten. Others looked anxiously at the jury. One man there by holding out for Not Guilty would. . . . But the jury was unanimous. Seven years for Business Government! —T.J.