Mr. Wagner must be very happy. That kind of man
likes being persecuted, and he is being persecuted most disgracefully. On Friday week Mr. Whalley charged him with " deliberate falsehood," declaring' that his own story of a sum given to St. Mary's Hospital by M3ss Scobell, who was afterwards sent to catch a fever, was strictly correct. It is true the money was given to a Home at East Grinstead, and not to St. Mary's Hospital, and Mr. Wagner had nothing to do with East Grinstead,—but what of than? If John accuses Tom of murder, and Jerry did it, surely. John is not a slanderer Mr. Wagner replied. on Tuesday
by a repetition of the facts in The Times, clearly showing that he bad absolutely no connection• with the Scobell case, but inter- mediately Mr. Whalley's friends had taken the matter into their own hands. Three sweeps proved the genuineness of their Pro- testantism byknocking Mr. Wagner down "two or three times," and but for the interference of a bystander he would have been seriously injured. It is dreadfully hard. upon Mr. Wagner, but we should have more pity for him if he had not set the sweeps the first example. He defied the law, upon the ground of his religious con- victions, and naturally they thought they might also defy it in defence of theirs. Contempt of one's oath as witness is on the whole nearly as great an offence as kicking a priest.
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