The news from Uganda is of the kind which makes
that "darker which was dark enough before." On Wednesday, the Times published a long telegram from Paris, containing extracts from a document, signed "An ex-Missionary of Uganda," which has been published by the Catholic news- papers. The document declares that all Captain Lagard's accusations as to Catholic intrigue are false, and represents him as the aggressor. The Times also published on Wednes- day a letter addressed to the Secretary of the Church Missionary Society by the Rev. S. K. Baskerville, dated -Uganda, January 31st, 1892, and an extract from a letter written by the Rev. R. H. Walker in February, 1892. These assert that the Roman Catholics have been the cause of all the trouble, and that Captain Lugard has through- out done his best to hold the balance fairly between the two bodies of Christians. This, we suspect, is true, as far as Captain Lugard is concerned, for he, it must be re- membered, represents, not the Protestant missionaries, but a trading company. The letters contain a curious story as to the religious attitude of the King Mwanga. The French Bishop, it is asserted, having failed in a scheme to depose Mwanga, exhorted him to come to confession. "First," said Mwanga, "I must have a present. My men have been killed and my house burned." "All right," says Monseigneur, "you shall have forty tusks of ivory." "As soon as I get them," says the King, "you shall confess me." Whichever way the balance of right inclines, we fear there has been a most dis- creditable struggle for the possession of Mwanga's person, as the chief counter in the game. When the letters were written, the Catholics had "bagged him," but the latest tele- grams show that he is now in the hands of the Protestants.
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