'THE BLACK DIARIES,' discussed in the Spectator last spring on
the occasion of its publication in America, has now appeared over here (Sidgwick and Jackson, £5 5s.). There is nothing to add to what has been said in this controversy before, except to repeat that the typescript on which the book is based is.a true copy (allowing for the minor discrepancies inevitable in transcription) of the originals now held in the Public Record Office. The only conceivable doubt which remains, there- fore, is whether the originals were forged; and for anybody who has seen them to continue to say they are forgeries requires a staggering effort at self-deception. Talk about 'erasures' and 'interpo- lations' is simple nonsense, in view of the scores of times that the diaries deal with the vices which players of the patriot game find intolerable. If only they would accept the fact that Casement was a morally sick man when he went to the Putumayo, it would be possible to let his tormented spirit rest; and to remember only the greatness of his achieve- ments for humanity.
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