THE AMAZING LIBEL ACTION

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 219, 5 June 1918, Page 5

THE AMAZING LIBEL ACTION

EVIDENCE CONCLUDED

BILLING THREATENS TO 1 THRASH COUNSEL I (Roc. June 4, 8.55 p.m.) ; London, June 3. Though the atmosphere, of the trial a.gaiust Pomberton Billing for alleged libel was cooler there wero several heat«l passages. Billing threatened to ! thrash Mr. Hume Williams, die prosecuting counsel, mvlio taid that Billing liad i lied. ; Billing, during his address, declared ; that tho Judge had bullied Lord Alfred Douglas. ' | Mr. Justice Darling threatened to expel him from tho court for contempt. ! The witnesses included Groin, one of ; tho plaintili's, who defended tho moral aspect of "Salome" as a play.. - j llrs. Stuart, recalled, adhered to her j statements respecting the existence of . i .the contents of jho Black j Book with 47,000 names. She ! stated that sho believed that tho Hon. i Neil Primroso and Major Rothschild, ; who wero now dead, knew that the took existed. Proceeding, witness declared ; that she knew how the Hon. Neil Primrose and Major Rothschild wero murder- ! ed. Her own lifo was threatened. An unknown person telephoned her that if sho re-entered tho witness-box sho would j be shot from the gallery. • ' Mr. Justice Darling offered to clear tho ' gallery. '< Mrs. Stuart stated that she told tho story about tho Black Book to Mr. Humo j Williams in 191 G. Ho declined to inter- , 1 est himself, because it had involved selfsacrifice, in viow of the number of prom- j inent persons concerned. Tho book.was now in Berlin, but. she could not explain, how it arrived there. ■ ■' This concluded tho evidonce.—Aus.- j N.Z. Cablo Assn.