Notes and Events.

Manawatu Herald, 20 October 1892, Page 3

Notes and Events.

Stead on Dilke. This is the character sketch in the August I number of the Review of Reviews. It may be truthful, it. certainly is not complimentary, and is written 'with all Mr Stead's well known vigour. Sir Charles Di]ke',s re-ap-pearance in the House of Coibinons, after aa absence of six yeaw/suggests the sketch. The essential note of the Character Sketchy so the writer says, has been to describe the subject as he appears to himself at his best moments, rather than as he appears to his opponents at hig worst. "As an authentic human document, the autobiography of Sir Charles. Dilke, if written, with perfectccandourr r would be one of the most extraordinary, although no doubt, in some respects, ;one r of the most unprintable works ever written." So he does not do so, but very near it. -. Mr. Stead accuses Sir Charles Dilke with haying won bis election ■"by vehemently ks^erting that it was " false, scandalous, and abominable " to suggest that he had ever been shown to be guilty of any'immbrality in the whole course of his existence, and that he secured the: acceptance by the electors of this assertion by taking the Sacrament.; Mr Stead is annoyed, very much so, at Sir Charles Dilke having after the first trial sought him out and assuring him " with the utmost gravity and solemnity that the only intrigue he had ever had in his life was that with Mrs Crawford's -mother." After further talk interspersed with many professions.: of ■- piety, Sir Charles - Dilke sobbed, and said 'f Believe me, the time is coming when you, too, will recognise me as one. of the good people/ In like. manner, says the writer, spoke Lady Dilke— only more so. Mr Stead became, to uso his own words, ■* a kind of foolometer for him — a, kind of sample test of the credulity of the average Englishman, his great card with me, as with every one else, was the revolting alternative of his guilt. It seemed too horrible to conceive that a man who was still a Privy Councillor was lying in so wholesale a fashion. Even if he had never ginned with Mrs Crawford, the evidence at the (second) trial, excluding her own statements, was sufficient to prove that he had lied when he protested so solemnly that he had neve,* had immoral relations \vith--ahy|w'oman,' save one. The evidence of the Hillers and the rest aa ta 'the Warren, Street house of assignation wts overwhelming. The opinion of the majority of Englishmen would: undoubtedly have been in, feyow 6£«:kltowing liim, or any other aduise|er, |o:fb6me back to Parliament,' "3f an y constituency wanted him, if he had,, but. kept gill^, 1 -'pHt iSjjsijljr " accented . the ,:^^ M; how Mr BteMc6ncluae3— -oblivion for the past "has been ; offered him times withotit ' nuiodber, but it ! has been offered in vain. For he persists in proclaiming that if he was guijty, bis conduct is a bar to trust, and then he aggravates his guilt by maligning bis victim. It is that fresh and ever-renewed offenoe, not the sin of long ago, that makes him an outcast among our public men. He cannot, of course, prove his innocence, ior he is guilty. He has not the moral courage to confess his sin. But he might at least stop lying. Until he does so, he has only himself to blame for the protest whiohhis conduct forces from the cdnicience and the heart of his countrymen.