It is quite impossible to condense the mass of evidence
offered in Court and out of Court about these letters ; but the gist of it is this. The Times, which obtained the letters from Mr. Houston, had no witness to produce except Mr. Pigott, who had warned their solicitor that there was so much against him that he should break down in cross-examination. In the box, Pigott, under Sir Charles Russell's terrible fire of questions, collapsed utterly. It was proved not only that he had offered Archbishop Walsh to baffle the Times, but that he had confessed the forgeries in the presence of Mr. Labouchere and Mr. GA. Sala,. He had, he told these gentlemen, traced the signatures, and sold the letters as genuine to Mr. Houston for 2500. He subsequently, in a letter to Mr. Shannon, of the Times' solicitor's office, partly retracted this confession as regards two letters ; but his testimony had -then become utterly worth- less—the Times itself rejects it—and on Monday evening he fled. He has been seen in Paris, but was leaving it; and it is supposed that he would make for Spain, with which country we have no extradition treaty. Hot imputations are thrown out on both sides of his having been paid to fly ; but there is no
particle of evidence to connect any one with his flight, and as he is wanted by the police on other charges, he may have fled from them.
