"The Claimant," chaperoned by Mr. Guildford Onslow, M.P., is still
starring it in the Provinces. Yesterday week Mr. Onslow and his friend addressed a meeting at the Broadmead Rooms at Bristol, the former saying, on behalf of the latter, that the soi-disant Sir Roger "came out of the bash degraded in mind, and when he first met him he was very little better than a savage ; but the old principles imbued in him in early life soon came to him, and the speaker would now say that a more gentlemanlike or nicer- mannered man, or a man more amiable in society, especially in the society of ladies, he never had the good fortune to meet." Are "the old principles imbued in him in early life" those on which he acted when, according to his own account, he seduced his cousin,—and those which "came back to him" when he made public oath thereof to the Court? The Claimant himself, as supporting, we suppose, his friend's testimony to the charm he exercises in the society of ladies, told a meeting held at the same rooms this day week, that a "kind lady" of Bristol, who called herself "a sincere well-wisher," and signed herself "A Mother," had sent him a Bible, that "precious book of peace and comfort to all those who are passing through sorrow and bitter trial,"—words which the Claimant read, with much unction no doubt, to the meeting. "The mother" did not say for which of the alternative views of the Claimant she designed the "comfort,"—the view that he is Sir Roger, and that the bitter trial consisted in his own pub- lic confessions of his own villany, or that he is not, and that the bitter trial consisted in having to paint himself so much blacker than he is, in order to get a chance of being supposed to be Sir Roger. However, the Bible, fortunately, is quite equal to dealing, —though its " comfort " must be remote,—with either vicious alternative.
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