CROSS-EXAMINATION OF RICHARD PIGOTT
a forgery. The Government refused this request, but appointed a special committee, composed of three judges, to investigate all the charges made by the Times.
The writer is indebted again to Russell's biographer, Mr. O'Brien, for the details of this celebrated case. Seldom has any legal controversy been so graphically described as this one. One seems to be living with Russell, and indeed with Mr. O'Brien himself, throughout those eventful months. We must content ourselves, however, with a reproduction of the cross-examination of Pigott as it comes from the stenographer's minutes of the trial, enlightened by the pen of Russell's facile biographer.
Mr. O'Brien speaks of it as "the event in the life of Russell—the defence of Parnell." In order to undertake this defence, Russell returned to the Times the retainer he had enjoyed from them for many previous years. It was known that the Times had bought the letter from Mr. Houston, the secretary of the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union, and that Mr. Houston had bought it from Pigott. But how did Pigott come by it? That was the question of the hour, and people looked forward to the day when Pigott should go into the box to tell his story, and when Sir Charles Russell should rise to cross-examine him. Mr. O'Brien writes: "Pigott's evidence in chief, so far as the letter was concerned, came practically to this: he had been employed by the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union to hunt up
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