The Times-Parnell Commission

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 97, 21 February 1889, Page 2

The Times-Parnell Commission

_5y Electric Telegraph.— Copyright I PER UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION. 1 London, February 18. Before the .Special Commission today, M* ; Houston,, Beerntary of the Patriotic League, whom it is alleged first took the letters to the Times, swore that Pigott bad declared to him that the letters had been obtained through the influence of Brislin Eugene Dove, a Fenian agitator, chiefly from residence in Paris. Before the Special Commissiou Sir Charles Russell, counsel for the Parneliites, complained of Mr Harold Finch Hatton accusing Mr Parnell of organising and committing crime by proxy. /The matter was left in abeyance. Mr Houston, secretary of the Patriotic League, was further ex- - amiued> and deposed to having employed Pigott to obtain evidence connecting Parnellism with crime. He admitted that the widow of Joseph Mullett — one of the men found guilty of participation in the Phoenix Park murders— gave up one of the letteis which had been produced afresh; Byrne, when escaping to New York after the Phoeuix Park murders had been committed, had left several letters in the handwriting of Mr Parnell and Egan behind in bags at Rome and Paris. These letters Mr Pigott- had apparently obtained from Kelly, the man who supplied knives to the. murderers of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr Burke. Mr Houston admitted that the letter written by him to Mr Pigott had been destroyed when Mr Parnell subpeened hija (Houston) as to the. fulfilment of agreement of secrecy. '