HOW PIGOTT CONFESSED. SALA'S ACCOUNT OF THE SCENE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 359, 13 April 1889, Page 6

HOW PIGOTT CONFESSED. SALA'S ACCOUNT OF THE SCENE.

In the "Telegraph" of Wednesday, Sala describes the historic scene at Urosvenor C4ardens on Saturday morning last, in his own unequalled style. Ho says :—: — Last Saturday, between one and two p.m., a knock cauno at my study door, and ; I was handed a letter from my old friend and near neighbour, Mr Henry Labouchere, J\J.l\, whose house is at 24, Grosvenor , C4ardens, within pistol shot of my flat. The note ran thus : " Can you leave everything, and

I COME HERE AT ONCE ? Mosb important business. — H.L. I told | the servant that I would be in C4rosvenor | Gardens within a quarter of an horn*, and ere that time had expired, 1 was ushered into a large library on the ground flooi', [ where I found the senior member for North1 ampton smoking his sempiternal cigavette. Another, too, Mas there "poring over a copy of tliat morning's issue of the ' Times.' i The hand which

hkld tjii: cory of Tin; ' times ' never ceased to shake." Sala recognised the individual as corresponding precisely with a sketch he had seen "in an evening paper," and when Mr Labouchere, in his most courteous manner and his blandest tone, said, " Allow me to introduce to you a gentleman of whom you must have heard a fcood deal, Mr ," Sala replied, il There is not the slightest necessity for naming him. I know him well enough. That'fe Mr Pigott." Labouchere, in dulcet voice, continued : " The fact is that Mr Pigobt has come here, quite unsolicited,

TO MAKE A FULL CONFESSION. I told him that I would listen to nothing that he had to say save in the presence of a witness, and remembering that you Ihed close by, I thought that you would not mind coming here and listening- to what Mr Pigott has to confess, which will be taken down down word by word, from his dictation, in writing." Mr Pigott, although he had screwed his courage to the sticking place of saying that he was going to confess, manifested considerable tardiness in orally "owning up."' "So -we let him be for about 10 minutes," writes Sain. "Mr Labouchere kindled another cigarette. I lighted a cigar, and — excuse the vulgarity of the phrase — continued to take stock of the man in the easy chair, still poring over the ' Times,' still tapping from time to time his forehead with the pencil case, and still wriggling first one foot and then the other. Perhaps conscience ■was gnawing like gout in his toes. At length he stood up and came forward into the light by the side of Mr Laboucheve's writing table. It was very rude, of course, to stare at him ; but I did stare, and that persistently.

Hi: DID NOT CIIAXOE COLOUR ; he did not blench ; bub when a^ length — out of the fulness of hi s heart no doubt— his mouth spake> it was in a low, half-amusing tone* more at first as though he wero talking to himself than to any auditors. By degrees, however, his voice rose, his diction became move fluent, ib was rarely necessary to halt to reconstruct a phrase ; and the confession which subsequently found its way into the possession of Mr George Lewis, and a copy of which has no doubt been produced before the Special Commission, was from beginning to end, literally and verbally, the composition, as well as the utterance, of Mr R. Pigott. It is only necessary that in this place I should say in substance that Pigott confessed that he had forged the letters alleged to have been written by Mr Parnell; and he minutely described the manner in which

HE, AND lI E ALONE, ' had executed the forgeries in question. Whefcherthe man with the bald head and the eyeglass in the library ab Grosvenor Gardens was telling the truth or uttering another batch of infernal lies it is nob for me to determine. Time will eventually show, or the lawyers will find out, whether his statement made to us last Saturday was veracious or mendacious ; but to my mind he seemed to be confessing facts and nothing bub facts. No pressure was pub upon him ; no leading questions were asked him ; and he went on quietly and continuously to the end of a story which I should have thought amazing had I not had occasion to hear l

many more tales oven more astounding. Richard Pigott's manner did not in any way resemble that of tho ordinary false witness. Ho was not voluble, but ho was COLLECTED, CLISAB, AND COHERENT, nor, although he repeatedly confessed to forgery, fraud, deception, and misrepresentation, did he seem overcome with anything approaching active shame. His little peccadillos weio "plainly owned, but ho appcarod to treat them moro as incidental weaknesses than as extraordinary acts of wickedness. The whole of Pigotl's confession, beginning with the declarat:on that he made it uninvited and without any pecuniary consideration, was read over to him lino by lino and word by woid. Ho made no correction or alteration whatsoever. The coniession covered several sheets of paper, and to oach .sheet ho aflixed his initials. Finally, at the bottom of the completed document-