ANOTHER CRYPTOGRAM. SIR ROBERT STOUT A NOVEL WRITER.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8274, 21 September 1888, Page 3

ANOTHER CRYPTOGRAM. SIR ROBERT STOUT A NOVEL WRITER.

After, tho fusliion of Mr I^nntius Donnelly, who tried to prove that B icon wrote the plays of Shakeapoure, the Otago Wit.ifss has an article in the same stylo to prove that " Tho Mystery of a Honsom Cab " was written by Sir Robert Slout. The skic is decidedly clcvor and vtry amusing. The writer says :— It is curious how stransrely things fall out. The " flansom Cab " came into the proper hands when it came into trine. As it happen?, I am a great admirer of Sir Robert Stout. I have read all his speeches a^ain and again — which is more, I venture to eny, than anyone else on tho globe has done once. I sleep with them under my pillow, end read them the first thing in the morning. I underline my favorite passages, and commit thum to memory ; and in this way I have worn out so maaj numbers of tbe slimly bound N.Z. Hansard that economy has forced me to havo them bound in half calf. Well, after my fourth or fifth reading of the " Hansom Cab " I began to find the style and philosophical tone wonderfully familiar, wonderfully like something with which I had long been intimately acquainted. Every now and then I would exclaim, "How Stoutfrh J" Then I began to compare passages from the book with passages from Hansard, and from tho Echo (a Dunedin Freethought paper now defunct, of which I possess a complete file.) I will not asseverate, but will merely give passages in parallel columnp, and allow tho reader to ju Ige whether my suspicion wns justified : — "E/NtOM CMb." Sib Robert .'tjuj\ He had l»rge *t - Wo have Hrgd «•■- tiotißscittcre i nil over tions 6caittred o\et the ecleny of Victoria Ne»' Ze>land.-(//a». (p. 35). «mJ, 18f6) " Not 'aviii' any Gentlemen, we cancaie" taid the lady not have oor cake nn'l (p. 67). oat if.— (Election speech, 1587.) \ This clcsed tho cvi- This cl scs tbe evidence for the defence dence for the defencrj (p. 139;. —(Sup. Court, 1881.) Yab 1 she's alhys a Gentletren of the talkiu' of dyiu' an jury, it al'ays tny gall&iB. anx'e ( ya' tl c though cf this iria'.'B dying on the gallows to kn>w that \r in yoor bands. -(Ibid.) "I wrsdruDk, blorst Dri: k, g-ntleiuen, yp," Vroko in Gran' and notmoner, in the fiercely — "none of root of all e»ii; *hoyerd ilie*: I wss eve* tells yoi to the. tlazin' drnnk, glory contrary tel'c you, Sec. ralleluj >h 1" (p 132). -(Temperantespce h, 1880.)