THOSE LETTERS. HOW THEY WERE OBTAINED. London, February 18.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 345, 23 February 1889, Page 4

THOSE LETTERS. HOW THEY WERE OBTAINED. London, February 18.

Before the Special Commission to day Mr Houston, Secretary of the Patriotic League, whom it is alleged first took the letters to the " Times," swore that Pigott had declared to him that the letters had been obtained through the influence of Breslin Eugenie Davies, a Fenian agitator, chiefly from residents in Paris. February 19. Befoie the Special Commission, Sir Charles Russell, counsel for the Parnellites, complained of Mr Harold Finch Hatton accusing Mr Parnell of organising outrages and committing crime by proxy. The matter was left in abeyance. Mr Houston, Secretary of the Patriotic League, was further examined, and deposed to having employed Pigott to obtain evidence connecting Parnellism with crime. H e admitted that the widow of Joseph Miilett, one of the men found guilty of participation in the Phoenix Park murders, gave up one of the letters which had been produced. Frank Byrne, when escaping to New York after the Phoenix Park murdeis were committed, had left several letters in the handwriting of Parnell and Egan behind in a bag at Rome and Pam. These letters Pi°ott had apparently obtained from Kelty, the man who supplied the knives to the murderers of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mi Burke. Mr Houston admitted that a letter written by him to Pigott had been destroyed when Mr Parnell subpoenied him (Houston) in fulfilment of the agreement of secrecy.