Sketcher.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 363, 23 April 1903, Page 7

Sketcher.

RICHARD BROTHEES. S3STHE story of Eichard Brothers; who jfcWo announced himself 'Prince of the Hebrews' and ' Nephew of tbe Almighty '—a relationship difficult to understand- special interest just now, in view St'Mt. Pigott'B doings at Clapton, j Eicnwctf Brothers had the honour of beii^gdarraigned before the Privy Council afteVbeing arrested by two king's messengers at Paddington Street on a warrant for ' treasonable practiees.' It does toot appear that Brothers ever went in fear and trembling of a London" mob, nor was be ever granted police protection. Bat he made a great stir, and was accepted as a prophet by a considerable number of people, including a member of Parliament Darned Nathanial Brassey Hal Ltd, who wrote several pamphlets in Brothers' defence, and who espoused his cause in the House of Commons. Mr. Smyth Pigott, of the Clapton ' Ark of j tho Covenant,' was a sailor before he became a curate of the Church cf England and a member of the Salvt - Hon Army, prior <o drifting into Agapemonite quicksands and esoteric mysticism. Eichard Brothers was a sailor, too, but his record is a brec zler one; ho fought in one. engagement under Admiral Keppel off TJshant, and in another between Admiral Bcdney and the Comte de Grasse in the West Indies. Objects to takib Oath. We fir»fc find Brothers busying himself in a wordy wrangle with the Lords of the Admiralty concerning his pension, which he refused to draw because the form of attestation coatained the word '.voluntarily' m what Brothers contended was not a voluntary hut an obligatory oath. After this refusal Brothers' landlady appears on the scene with the statement i hat the ex-naval officer and stickler over phrases owed her J635.' The wrangle continned till Brothers ; everltuaily became destitute,, and found himself in Newgate for debt. By this time the word voluntarily' was struck out to suit his taste, but our proptet was 'a deefioult man,' so My Lords found, inasmuch as he then objected to the words ' our Sovereign Lord the King f as being ' blasphemous.' The Admiralty patience cculd go no further, and the pension seems to have been never paid to Brothers. At One time he was m a workhouse, and the authorities drew it for him. j Later on, one Finlayson, a .Scotch' advocate and disciple of Brothers, prefenedlaclwrn of .£20,600 against the Qoveinmen'} after Brothers' death for this pension,' whic 1 * no*- is cemputed by Finlayscn's descendants to have reached the sum of But this is another Btory.' His Fkophecies Come True.

In 1792 Brothers wrote to the King, the Ministers of Sfc*te, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, to say that he was commanded by the Almighty to announce to the House of Commons, and the assembled niambers of Parliament, that the time; was come for the fulfilment of Daniel vii. Ha followed this message by another to the King and Qouen and Cabinet containing numerous prophecies. Among them were several good shots, and it caused sc me alarm to find that the King of Sweden and Louis XVI., whose violent deaths he prophesied, did actually fulfil his ;words to the letter. People in high places began to think he knew too much, and his followers increased in number. His arreßt by two king's messenger's for 'treasonable practices' was a fine advertisement for a new sect. The Piivy Council, j advised by Bomeone high in authority, placed him under restraint at an asylum at Islington. Meantime, his Parliamentary backer, Nathaniel Brassey Halhsd, moved! that Brothers' * Revealed Knowledge/ a series of prophecies, be laid on the of the House. Halhed waß on Oriental* traveller, and, Brothers had promised to make him, in his new kingdom, ' Governor of India or President of the Board? of Control.' By the way, the actual plans for the ' New' Jerusalem ' in this aforesaid kingdom were prepared by a draughtsman a&d magriifioiently 'engraved at accost-of £1,200 A set'of the prophecies < f Brothers, 'wrote under the direction of the Lord God,' as to * the Restoration of the Hebzews to Jerusalem' . . . nndcr ' their Eevraled Prince and Picphet,' were- bought, by the present writer strung together with a copy of a play bill of Sir Henry Irving's ' Corsican Brothers,' which we need hardly say has no connection with the propbet. Brothers imagined 'the'sudden and perpetual fall of the Turkish,-German, and Russsian Empires.' Among th> batch is ' A Warning to the Inhabitants of Great Britain to forsake their evil doings '—sound enough advice on the face of it, but the prophet tells of a coming conflagration *. whic-i will burn the Wicked of the Earth as an Oven.' : . . ;

Joanna Southcott . attacks Bsothers

Altogether Brothers was a moßt slagular mart,- and hiß portrait,, shows him to have been fir'man of "good presence and having a fine head. We have a word or two to say concerning this finely-engraved portrait, which; is one of "th% thousand which Joanna vSouthfeott defaced by having a textcn ted paper pasted over his title. 'Prince of tbe Hebrews.' William Sharp, the engraver, became convinced that Brothers was a true prophet, and stated so on _the engraving. Finally, however, Sh'a¥p-went over to Joanna Southcott, who denounced Brothers as an impostor and as blasphemous.- Sharp finally engraved her portrait. Both she and Brothers lie buried in the little burial ground at St Jin's Wood Chapel. His tombstone was shattered by the explosion at Regent's Park some years ago, and the remnant of his followers tock hepe that he was about to appear on earth again.—-Akthuer .Kavdjin. ,