DEDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM.
The Law's Deductio ad Absurdum with regard to explosives found in a Gladstone bag reminds one of the story, told by Henry Leach in Fleet .Street from Within, of two New Zealand newspapers which, years ago, were faced with the problem of expanding this press telegram : " Dynamite found in Gladstone-bag; Ludgate-Hill Station." The meaning seemed obvious to each, and next day the news appeared, with editorial comment. That of one of the read, While we have no sympathy with Mr. Gladstone's politics, we cannot too strongly condemn the authors of this dastardly outrage upon a deservedly respected public servant." To its contemporary,' on the other hand, " the complicity of Mr. Gladstone with the Irish dynamiters, of which it had always been convinced, had now been proved beyond all. doubt. It awaited, with an impatience which it was sure. was shared by all its readers, further information of the affair from London. It thanked God that the efforts of that unserupulmis statesman to dismember the British Empire had brought him to a felon's
SLMPSON, 4 Melrose Road, Merton, S.W. 19.
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