Amongst other curious illustrations of the deeply-implanted bigotries of this
professedly tolerant age, is the publication in Monday's Times of a very silly and chaffing letter, by "A Vicar::General," on Mr. Green's case, in which the Vicar-General congratulates himself on the continued imprisonment of that gentleman,—who, now that he has forfeited his living, is imprisoned for no intelligible reason, whether penal or pre- cautionary,—and concludes in this grossly personal and discour- teous fashion, after commenting on a letter of Dr. Pusey's :—" I wonder Dr. Pusey did not add that Mr. Green has suffered the additional affliction of another child lately, as I hear from very good authority. Perhaps he thought that too funny for such a solertin business as martyrdom ; or perhaps it is not an afflic- tion, bat a consolation. Clergymen take such different views of their quivers." Evidently, the Vicar-General aspires to be a comic writer of a mean order. But as a matter of fact, what has Mr. Green done to draw down this sort of grossly personal comment on his domestic affairs P Mr. Green's Church- wardens and also Mr. Green himself have told us that this bit of scandal and innuendo has no truth in it whatever, whereupon the Vicar-General replies in yester- day's Times,—" How is one to know that the report that a married man has had another child is false ?" To which we should answer, that rumours about strictly private and domestic affairs, the truth or falsehood of which cue has no means of knowing, is no matter for a public writer's comment, unless, indeed, he wishes to make known to the world that he is either ignorant of, or despises, the courtesies of social life.
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