THE PARIS ELL COMMISSION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2069, 21 February 1889, Page 2

THE PARIS ELL COMMISSION

[Per Press assooiatiom.l

London, February 18. Before the Special Commission today, Houston, Secretary of the Patriotic League, who it is alleged first took the letters to the " Times," swore that Pigott had declared to him that the letters had been obtained through the influence of Bristen Eugene Dove, a Fenian agitator; chiefly from, residents m Paris. February 19.

Before the Special Commission; Sir Charles Russell, counsel for the Parnellites, complained of Mr Harold Finch- Hatton accusing Mr Parnell of organising sedition and committing crime by proxy. The matter was left m abeyance.

Mr Houston, Secretary d the Patriotic League, was further examined, and deposed to having employed Pigott to obtain evidence connecting Parriellism with crime. He admitted that the widow of Joseph Mullett, one of ths men found guilty of participa? tion m the Phoenix Park murders, gave UP one of the letters which had been produced. Frank Byrne, when escaping to New York, after the Pbconix Park murders were committed, had left several letters m the handwriting of of Parnell and Egan behind m bags at Rome and Paris. These letters Pigott had apparently obtained from Kelly, the man who supplied knives to the murderers of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr Burke. Houston admitted that the letter written by him to Pigott had been destroyed when Parnell subpoenaed him as to fulfilment of the agreement of secrecy.