Mr Parnell and the London Times

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 143, 9 June 1887, Page 4

Mr Parnell and the London Times

(Truth, 21st April;) ; . The spurious letter of Mx Parnell published in The Times has excited much comment as to how the editor can have allowed himself to bo hum^ bugged in so strange a fashion. Anyone knowing anything of Mr Parnell would have been aware that there is no man in Great Britain less likely to Kigu his- name to a letter of the serious character of that which has appeared in the Times; all the more wiien the letter is avowedly not written by him, when the matter is on the first page and the signature on the f.nirtL and when the letter commences '• Dear Sir," and is addressed to no one.- A-«iore clumsy forgery never .has been palmed off on a confiding 1 editor, and, for the sake of Mr Walter I trust that he did not pay any considerable sum for it. It is however, a curious comment upon the tactics of the Coercionists, that they should be reduced to publishing forged dbcu- ; inents in defence of their loved Bill. r; There are three theories in regard to the manner in which the Times •was humbugged. One is that the late Mr. Foster had been furnished with the letter by some informer who wished to earn a trifle, and that Mr Foster himself, perceiving that he had been tricked, put it aside, and that since his death some person not possessing Mr Foster's acuteness, has got hold of the document, and handed it over to the Times. The second is that the letter was obtained from a person of the name of Pigott, who was once a Nationalist, but who h; ■ of late made money by making what he is pleased to call "revelations." The third is that the letterwas bought of a former servant of Mr Parnell, who pretended that he had stolen it.