The Fac Simile Letter.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 206, 4 June 1887, Page 5

The Fac Simile Letter.

So much curiosity has been aroused by the cable and mail report of the letter which the London "Times" published and fastened upon Mr Charles Stuarb Parnell, the Irish leader, that we have no doubt our readers will be greatly interested in seeing a fac simile of the document. We therefore reprint the letter exactly as it appeared in the "Times." The letter, it will bo observed was written on one side of a sheet of notepaper, and the signature turned over on to the other side. Mr Frederick George Netherclift, a celebrated expert in handwriting, who has been for 40 years a specialist in caligraphy, and to whom the letter was referred for opinion drew special attention to this peculiarity. He said the most significant feature in the "Times'" letter to Iris mind was the fact that the writing on the first? page was crammed at the bottom, so as to avoid turning over the leaf ; whereas, the writer, knowing that the document was to be signed, would in the ordinary course have turned over the last few words on to the next page, instead of so cramming the last paragraph as to prevent the signature being written. This peculiarity gave him an idea that the signature, if genuine, was written before the letter itself. Mr Parnell denounces the document as an infamous forgery, and the leaders of the Liberal party accept that assurance unresorvedly. Such malevolent devices have been resorted to for the purpose of bringing into disreputo all who favour the cause of Home Rule that this one would not be very remarkable, although the proprietors of the "Times" have doubtless accepted

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the document as being genuine. As Mv Labouchere observes, it is easier to believe that some knave forged the letter, knowing there was a good market for such stuff, than that a cautious man like Mr Parnell should have written such a document at the very moment when he and the other Irish leaders were openly declaring their horror of the crime in the following manifesto to the Irish nation :—: — To the People of Ireland. -On the eve of what seemed a bright f uturo for our country, that evil destiny which has apparently pursued us for centuries has struck another blow at our hopes, which cannot be exaggerated in its disastrous consequences. In this hour of sorrowful gloom weventureto give an expression of our profoundest sympathy with the people of Ireland in the calamity that has befallen our cause, through a horrible deed, and to those who have determined at the last hour that a policy of conciliation should supplant that of terrorism and national distrust. We earnestly hope that the attitude and action of the wholelrishpeoplewill show the world that assassination such as has' startled ub almost to the abandonment of hope for our country's future is deeply and religiously abhorrent to their eveiy feeling and instinct. We appeal to you to show, by every manner of expression, that almost universal feeling of horror which this assassination 1 has excited. No people feel so intense a detestation of its atrocity, or so deepasympathy for those whosehearts must be searched by it, as the nation upon whose prospects and reviving hopes it may entail consequences more ruinous than have fallen to the lot of unhappy Ireland duringlbhe present generation. We feel that no act has ever been perpetrated in our country during the exciting struggles for social and political rights of the past 50 years that has 80 stained the name of Hospitable Ireland as this cowardly and unprovoked assassination of a friendly stranger, and that until the murderers of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr Burke are brought to justice that stain will sully our country's name. (.Charles S. Parnell. (Signed) < John Dillon. '■ (' Michael Davitt.