HOW PIGOTT CONFESSED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6518, 10 April 1889, Page 2

HOW PIGOTT CONFESSED.

Sala's Account of the Scene. In the Telegraph of Wednesday, Sala describes the historic scene at Qrosvenor Gardens on Saturday morning last in his own unequalled style. He says : — THE SUMMONS. Last Saturday, between 1 and 2 p.m., a knock came at my study door, and 1 was handed a letter from my old friend and near neighbour, Mr Henry Labouchere, M.P., whose house is at 24, Grosvenor Gardens, -within pistol-shot of my flat. The note ran thus: "Can you leave everything, and come here at once. Most important business. — H.L." ItoiA the servant that I would be in Grosvenor gardens within a quarter of an hour, and, ero that time had expired, I was ushered into a large, library on the ground floor, where I found the senior member for Northampton smoking hia sempiternal cigarette. THE CRIMINAL RECOGNISED. Another, too, was there " poring over a copy of that morning's issue of the Times. The hand which held the copy of the Times never ceased to shake." Sala recogniaed the individual as corresponding precisely with a sketch he had seen " m an evening paper," and when Mr Labouchere, in hiß 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 ," Sala replied, "There i 3 not the slightest necessity for naming him. I know him well enough. That* s Mr Pigott." THE OPENING SCENE. Labouchere, in a dulcet voice, continued : " The fact is that Mr Pigott has come here, quite unsolicited, to make a full confession. t told him that I would listen to nothing that 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 confesß, which will be taken down, word by word, from his dictation in writing. Mr Pigott, although he had screwed his courage to the stickingplace of saying that he was going to confess, manifested considerable tardiness in orally r owning up/ ""So we let him alone for about ten minutes," writes Sala. "Mr Labouchere kindled another cigarette. I lighted a cigar, and — excuse the vulgarity of the phrase— continued to take stock of the man in the easy chair, still poring over the Tivies, still tapping from time to time his forehead with the pencil-case, and still wriggling first one foot and then the other. Perhaps conscience was gnawing like gout ■ in his toes. THE CONFESSION : MEMORABLE MOMENTS.' At length he stood up and came forward i into the light by the side of Mr Labouchere's writing-table. It was very: rude, of course, to stare at him ; but I did . stare, and that persistently. He did not; change colour, he did not blench ; but ; when at length — out of the f ulnees 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 was rarely necessary to halt, to reconstruct a phrase ; and the confession which > subsequently found itß way into the pos- ■ session of Mr George Lewis, and a copy of which has no doubt been produced before the Special Commission, was, from beginning to end, literally and verbally, the composition, as well as the utterance, of Mr E. Pigott. It is only necessary that in this place I should say in substance that 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. THE TEUTH OR NOT? Whether the man with the bald head and the eye-glass in the library at Grosvenor Gardens was telling the truth or uttering another batch of infernal lies it ia not for me to determine. Time will eventually show, or the lawyers will find out, whether his statement made to us last Saturday was veracious or mendacious; but to my mind he seemed to be confessing facts and nothing but facts. 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. Richard Pigott's manner did not in any way resemble that of the ordinary false witness. He was not. voluble, but he was collected, clear, and coherent, nor, although he repeatedly' conf eesed to forgery, fraud, deception, and misrepresentation, did he seem overcome with anything approaching active shame. His little peccadilloes were plainly owned, j but he appeared to treat them more aB I incidental -weaknesses than, as extraj ordinary acts of wickedness. | THE BND. The whole of Pigotfc'a confession, begin- | ning with the declaration that he had | made it uninvited and without any pecu- ; niary consideration, was read over to him. line by line and word by word. He made made no correction or alteration whatsoever. The confession covered several sheets of 1 paper, and to each sheet he affixed his ; initials. Finally, at the bottom of the completed document he signed his name, beneath which 1 wrote my name as a wit- ■ neßS ' — _— — — — ~— .