THREAT TO MURDER A BISHOP.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3792, 10 September 1883, Page 4

THREAT TO MURDER A BISHOP.

At tho Norwich Police-court, Joseph Bctts, a commission agent, of 9, Northum-berland-street, Norwich, was brought up on a charge of maliciously sending to tho Bishop of Norwich a letter threatening- to murder his lordship. The town clerk appeared for tho prosecution, and produced a communication, which was dated June 5, 1883, and contained tho following pussages :

—" Having recently been appointed chief agent to a secret society in this city, which has for its object the equalisation of property aud distribution of the land of the United Kingdom to those by whose labor it lias boon accumulated and cultivated, my directions aro first to write to you as tho spiritual chief in this division of the kingdom to acquaint you that it is fully recognised by the wage-earning and wealth-producing class • —the laboring classes generally—that you arc receiving .£5,000 annually for the work that could be very well done at a salary of £500, and that there arc many of your poor curates who are doing much more real practical work who do not receive more than thirty shillings per week for the same. I have, therefore, to intimate that if you are not prepared to resign your position of lord bishop of the diocese, or will bo content with £500 per anniuii, and cause the game declaration to appear in the newspaper to that effect, together that you aro willing to return to whom it belongs £9,000, being tho over-plus of your deserts for the past two years, you must prepare to meet an early death at tho hands of those whoso existenco in this world is blighted by the drain upon their several resources by you and others of your profession who are living on the fat of the land. It is widely felt in England to be a necessity that such as you and those who aro making literally hell upon earth should be swept off the face of tho earth, so that tho essence of the true gospel may bo preached, and practised, and felt. You may take note of tho following— that before five years aro added to 1883, tho country will have boon invaded and conquered by France, and we shall have a Republican Government, and our colonies, including India, will have been severed from ns. If the conditions of this letter aro not; complied with, and you distribute your great worldly wealth to your poorer brothern, as an example to others of your clique and the moneyed class generally, in less than six months your place Avill have boon demolished, together with tho cathedral, and your own life and those of your dearest relations will be forfeited to the rage of the awakened and oppressed poor." Tho letter was signed '' An Invincible.'' The Bishop of Norwich was briefly examined, and, other evidence being taken, the prisoner was remanded.