New Cutbush Book on the way

[Mike Covell]

As briefly discussed on another thread, David Bullock, is currently writing a new book on Thomas Cutbush. The following links give more details,

The Telegraph Nov 8, 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3407268/Broadmoor-files-could-unmask-Jack-the-Ripper.html

The Telegraph Nov 14, 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/3482227/Files-on-Victorian-lunatic-throw-new-light-on-Jack-the-Ripper-suspect.html

The Times of India Nov 9, 2008
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/UK/Jack_the_Ripper_could_be_unmasked/articleshow/3692034.cms

[Debra Arif]

Thanks for posting these links, Mike

I noticed in the first link that there is still mention of a conspiracy concerning the reported 'uncle and nephew' realtionship, supposedly mentioned by David Bullock too.
I'd just like to say something here concerning the uncle and nephew link, it may not be the right thread for it, but I keep reading about this 'recent' research that has uncovered that there was no uncle/nephew relationship between CH Cutbush and TH Cutbush. Robert Linford discovered several years ago that no such relationship existed between the pair and has posted the information on the archived, crashed and recent boards many times.
I know David was a member of casebook for a while and I really hope that he has taken note of the excellent research that Robert has undertaken into the family over recent years and shared on casebook.

[A.P. Wolf]

Quite right, Debs, if I thought anyone was poaching material for commercial gain from honest contributions made on the message boards by Robert and others, I'm afraid my fury would be limitless, and I should use all the considerable means at my disposal to ensure that such actions are justly rewarded.

[How Brown]

Debs & A.P.

THATS partly why I asked Robert if all the information on Cutbush was accessible and whether some secret squirrel material ( possibly positively linking Uncle to Thomas ) may exist in a highly classified area of the Broadmoor archives which someone, other than SPE or Messrs. Begg & Jones, may be able to access.

Thanks for reminding people,Debs, of what Robert usually downplays out of modesty and doesn't make a huge issue of....this unproven blood relationship between the two Cutbushes.

It will be interesting to see if Mr. Bullock's efforts DO link them sanguiniously....and if so, where would that link come from, if not from Broadmoor.

[Mike Covell]

You have rasied an interesting point there A.P, regarding material posted for free used for commercial gain.

[Debra Arif]

It's not necessarily that, AP,
I just think that the research should be moved on from what we have known for years, and Robert has made public many times, and any book on THC should concentrate on why MM wrote what he did and explore other possible avenues for his mistaken belief that the pair were uncle and nephew. Or maybe not rely on a possible relationship at all to bolster Cutbush's candidacy as the Ripper. It's never affected my interest in Cutbush as a suspect knowing that he wasn't the nephew of CH Cutbush.

...I also hope that any future book on THC doesn't have his father dying when he was young!

[Debra Arif]

It will be interesting to see if Mr. Bullock's efforts DO link them sanguiniously....and if so, where would that link come from, if not from Broadmoor.

Hi How,
As far as I know Robert has had access to all the files on Cutbush from Broadmoor, I believe the ones the public are not allowed to view( because they conain other people's details) were transcribed for him by an official. As usual AP and Robert have accessed these files, paid for the information themselves and are going to transcribe the files and post them for everyone to see without cost!
Robert kindly sent me the transcribed notes and as far as I know the link does not come from Broadmoor.

[Robert Linford]

Oh crumbs, well thanks for the kind words folks but AP, Debs, Nats and myself have been like a little team working on Cutbush these last few years. Also of course others have chipped in with info or interesting points.

We'll keep plugging away. If there is any hidden info on Cutbush - or any other aspect of the case - that we know of then we'll try to get at it. If only so much material hadn't been lost/dumped in a skip/bombed by the Luftwaffe etc!

[A.P. Wolf]

Well Debs, you know me, I will be relentless if this chap merely provides a digest of the evidence that we have collected over the years, and adds nothing new. That is the telling point... his work must show something that we have not already shown.

'It will be interesting to see if Mr. Bullock's efforts DO link them sanguiniously...'

If he doesn't, How, he might as well put his pen down now.

[Caroline Morris]

Hi Debs, Robert, AP, All,

I suppose if Mr Bullock has nothing new to offer, he will always have Cutbush's scissors to fall back on...

Boom boom :)

Love,

Caz
X

[Chris G.]

Thanks for posting these links, Mike

I noticed in the first link that there is still mention of a conspiracy concerning the reported 'uncle and nephew' realtionship, supposedly mentioned by David Bullock too.
I'd just like to say something here concerning the uncle and nephew link, it may not be the right thread for it, but I keep reading about this 'recent' research that has uncovered that there was no uncle/nephew relationship between CH Cutbush and TH Cutbush. Robert Linford discovered several years ago that no such relationship existed between the pair and has posted the information on the archived, crashed and recent boards many times.
I know David was a member of casebook for a while and I really hope that he has taken note of the excellent research that Robert has undertaken into the family over recent years and shared on casebook.

Hi Debra et al.

This is the thread that Chris Scott started at Casebook in which he talks about the web pages he has started showing his research on the genealogies for C. H. Cutbush and T. H. Cutbush. Chris appears to confirm Robert's findings that no uncle and nephew relationship existed as it would be normally understood.

The relationship between Thomas Cutbush and Supt. Charles Cutbush (http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?t=2137)

Chris

[A.P. Wolf]

Thanks Chris
this is a nail that you do like to hammer at, isn't it just?
It is obvious from the Sun reports that there is some link between Thomas Cutbush and Scotland Yard, for it is mentioned that Thomas has been to Scotland Yard to lay a 'complaint' against Dr Brookes.
Now imagine yourself to be Thomas Cutbush in 1888, wishing to lay a 'complaint' against a person you felt was doing you personal harm and injury. You are in Lambeth, Kennington or even the Westminster Bridge Road.
Where would you go?
You would go to the local police station to lay such a 'complaint', not Scotland Yard... that is unless you knew somebody who worked there, of course.
I do not doubt or dispute Robert and Chris' research in this area, I just feel there is something we do not know or understand, yet.
Given Thomas' easy reference to having actually been to Scotland Yard; and then Macnaghten's easy claim that Thomas and Charles Henry were nephew and uncle, I think we tread on swampland, and I advice caution.

[Chris G.]

Hello AP

Thanks Chris
this is a nail that you do like to hammer at, isn't it just?

Just saying that caution may be called for, rather than leaping to conclusions. If Robert or Chris were to find a family relationship or some other connection between Thomas and Charles Henry that would be fine, and thus I welcome them to keep researching.

It is obvious from the Sun reports that there is some link between Thomas Cutbush and Scotland Yard, for it is mentioned that Thomas has been to Scotland Yard to lay a 'complaint' against Dr Brookes.

This may sound like a silly thing to say but D'Onston Stephenson went to Scotland Yard, and he didn't need to have a relative there.

Now imagine yourself to be Thomas Cutbush in 1888, wishing to lay a 'complaint' against a person you felt was doing you personal harm and injury. You are in Lambeth, Kennington or even the Westminster Bridge Road.
Where would you go?
You would go to the local police station to lay such a 'complaint', not Scotland Yard... that is unless you knew somebody who worked there, of course.

Wasn't Scotland Yard in the news a lot? Why not go to the HQ of the police rather than the local clink? Also if Cutbush had mental problems, or was on his way to developing them, he might have had a sense of grandeur which led him there. He might also have known that a high police official was named Cutbush, might even have known that there was a distant family connection between them, but even if both those things were true, it might not have meant there was any personal close link between the two men, or that they had ever met.

Given Thomas' easy reference to having actually been to Scotland Yard; and then Macnaghten's easy claim that Thomas and Charles Henry were nephew and uncle, I think we tread on swampland, and I advice caution.

So do I, AP, against making easy conclusions.

Chris

[A.P. Wolf]

I only reach hard decisions, Chris. A conclusion to me is a double brandy.
One is forgetting that there was also another Inspector Cutbush much closer to home. Your premise appears to suggest that he would have identified and contacted this officer first.
I think you dip your toe in that swamp.

[Donald Souden]

AP,

Where would you go?

The question is not where Chris would go or you would go but rather why Cutbush went to the Yard and that we cannot answer. You may have your "hunch" (which after all supports your theory) and there are a myriad other possible reasons Cutbush went to the Yard rather than a local precinct and none may have anything to do with "connections."

The real swamp is when we create chimera by applying our own logic to someone else--especially someone demonstrably round the bend.

Don.

[A.P. Wolf]

'but D'Onston Stephenson went to Scotland Yard, and he didn't need to have a relative there'.

Chris
I'm interested in that.
Why did he do that?
I remember from the complicated Thaw case that a senior diplomat went to Scotland Yard to raise the issue of Thaw supposedly beating a boy with a whip; but surely you talk of extremely high profile cases here connected with murder, torture and the like amongst folks with interesting connections to high ranking offcials at Scotland Yard?
Surely a little boy from Lambeth doesn't fit in with that, does he, Chris?

[A.P. Wolf]

Don
Thomas went to Scotland Yard to see uncle Charles is by far the simplest answer to your complications.
You seek candles whilst the searchlights blind you.

[Donald Souden]

AP,
Thomas went to Scotland Yard to see uncle Charles is by far the simplest answer

For you, AP, for you.

Don.

[Robert Linford]

Hi Don and Chris

I don't really want to get drawn into Macnaghten, who frankly makes my head spin, but there are some very curious coincidences involved in all this.

A young man called Colocott is charged with jobbing. Soon afterwards another young man called Cutbush is put on the same charge. Both have names beginning with 'C' and they have similar sounding addresses - from memory, Albert Rd and Aldebert Terrace. They live two or three streets from each other.

The young man called Cutbush bears the same name as a Supt of Scotland Yard, also living at not too great a distance. The young man is adjudged insane and sent to Broadmoor. At virtually the same moment the Supt develops health problems (presumably mental health problems) and has to retire from the Force. The young man has delusions of persecution, of being poisoned. So does the Supt. Although the young man used a knife on the women, he seems to have a marked interest in guns. A few years later, the Supt blows his own brains out.

I think it's worth a ponder, at any rate.

[Donald Souden]

Robert,

I think it's worth a ponder, at any rate.

Indeed it is, but not a long ponder for me.

My comments here were mostly directed toward AP making what I feel is much too prevalent an error among Ripperologists--endowing those in the 1888 Ripper drama with their own thought processes. As I said at Wolverhampton, usually this makes JtR smarter than he was while in some instances it will make him a lot stupider. In either case, it is a snare when it goes beyond mere idle speculation. This is something that over the years AP has been quick to spot and comment upon with others.

Otherwise, I leave the latter-day Cutbush cogitating to others, like you, who are well-versed in the arcana.

Don.

[A.P. Wolf]

You got some cheek, Don, I'll give you that, but when you finished swallowing that polecat please throw it up elsewhere.
When you got nothing to say, it's best to say nothing.
That's what I'd like to hear from you in the future.
Until you have something to say.

[Donald Souden]

AP,

When you got nothing to say, it's best to say nothing.

"Physician, heal thyself."

I suppose I should chalk your reply up to the brandy, but for empty arrogance it's in the running for the annual Radka Prize.

Don.

[A.P. Wolf]

I liked Radka, a great deal, Don.
He was out of his tree but he could peel a banana.
You blokes just slip on the skins he left on the pavement.

[Debra Arif]

Hi Don and Chris

I don't really want to get drawn into Macnaghten, who frankly makes my head spin, but there are some very curious coincidences involved in all this.

A young man called Colocott is charged with jobbing. Soon afterwards another young man called Cutbush is put on the same charge. Both have names beginning with 'C' and they have similar sounding addresses - from memory, Albert Rd and Aldebert Terrace. They live two or three streets from each other.

The young man called Cutbush bears the same name as a Supt of Scotland Yard, also living at not too great a distance. The young man is adjudged insane and sent to Broadmoor. At virtually the same moment the Supt develops health problems (presumably mental health problems) and has to retire from the Force. The young man has delusions of persecution, of being poisoned. So does the Supt. Although the young man used a knife on the women, he seems to have a marked interest in guns. A few years later, the Supt blows his own brains out.

I think it's worth a ponder, at any rate.

I'm definitely with you on this one, Robert.
I think Dr. Parker may be to blame ;) I'd love to get hold of a transcript of one of his lectures!

[Robert Linford]

Yes Debs, one should be available somewhere.

[Chris G.]

Hi Don and Chris

I don't really want to get drawn into Macnaghten, who frankly makes my head spin, but there are some very curious coincidences involved in all this.

A young man called Colocott is charged with jobbing. Soon afterwards another young man called Cutbush is put on the same charge. Both have names beginning with 'C' and they have similar sounding addresses - from memory, Albert Rd and Aldebert Terrace. They live two or three streets from each other.

The young man called Cutbush bears the same name as a Supt of Scotland Yard, also living at not too great a distance. The young man is adjudged insane and sent to Broadmoor. At virtually the same moment the Supt develops health problems (presumably mental health problems) and has to retire from the Force. The young man has delusions of persecution, of being poisoned. So does the Supt. Although the young man used a knife on the women, he seems to have a marked interest in guns. A few years later, the Supt blows his own brains out.

I think it's worth a ponder, at any rate.


Hello Robert

Okay. I will admit those coincidences. Although I do think that particularly on the Royal conspiracy side of things, there is too much thinking that, so and so lived in the same street as so and so, and therefore. . . . Thus and thus moved in the same circles as so and so, and therefore. . . . Mmmm, if you see what I mean.

Chris

[Robert Linford]

I agree, Chris.

[A.P. Wolf]

Chris, I fear I have to bow to a superior point you made earlier, for I have just discovered a post I made some time ago on the 'Prince of Archers' thread which bears your reasoning out:

'Prince was cautioned by the police twice, for attacking his brother with a knife - the brother claiming at the Old Bailey that Prince 'almost took my life' - and for sending threatening postcards and letters to various people, where he often mentioned Scotland Yard.
As I said we still need to know exactly why Prince was confined to Holloway Prison three times prior to his staged act at the Old Bailey for murder.'

[Chris G.]

Chris, I fear I have to bow to a superior point you made earlier, for I have just discovered a post I made some time ago on the 'Prince of Archers' thread which bears your reasoning out:

'Prince was cautioned by the police twice, for attacking his brother with a knife - the brother claiming at the Old Bailey that Prince 'almost took my life' - and for sending threatening postcards and letters to various people, where he often mentioned Scotland Yard.
As I said we still need to know exactly why Prince was confined to Holloway Prison three times prior to his staged act at the Old Bailey for murder.'

I notice that but wasn't going to say anything. Thanks, AP. :kiss:

Chris

[A.P. Wolf]

Debs, this is the only one that I've found so far:

And young Thomas liked to hear Dr Parker preach, well preach away Dr Parker:

'
At the close of his service in the City temple yesterday morning, Dr. Parker referred at length to the East end murders. Replying to the question of how far the pulpit was responsible for such crimes, the Rev. gentleman said the pulpit had undertaken instrumentally to convert society, and the pulpit had signally failed. Always allowing for exceptions, the pulpit was the paid slave of respectable society. The pulpit loved respectability, the pulpit boasted of respectable, intelligent congregations. The pulpit had lost its hold on the tragic and impetuous life of the world. The outcasts of society turned away from the preacher as from a man who talked in an unknown tongue and troubled himself about antiquities and metaphysics for which the sad and maddened heart of the world cared nothing. Men were wanted who knew the country they lived in, the sorrows which surged in billows around their very homes, the poverty that was completed by hopelessness and the mental unrest which could not be touched by dead fathers and living pedagogues. Every pulpit in the world should denounce the crimes which London mourned, but denunciation was a poor part of pulpit duty. Every congregation should offer a reward for the recovery of the criminal. What the Home Secretary was doing, or thinking of doing, passed his (Dr. Parker's) comprehension. If offering a reward for the discovery of the criminal did not detect the perpetrator of the crime what harm was done? But if offering a reward should end in the detection of the criminal great good was done. (Applause.) This quick murder of women, however, was nothing compared to the slow murder compared to the slow murder that was going on every day. Compared with many who were cruel deliberately, the perpetration of these East end crimes was gentleness - mercy itself. The magistrates should be armed with greater powers. Nothing would really make a certain class of criminals feel their crime but bodily chastisement. It was no use trying moral suasion upon garrotters, violent robbers, cruel husbands and fathers, they must be flogged. Church Congresses and Nonconformist assemblies should suspend their sittings, that these tremendous grievances might be attended to. They had had papers enough on distant subjects, addresses enough upon things that were only in the air. What were they to do with the real concrete intolerable life immediately around them? It was in vain to meet as quiet, respectable, gospel imbibing congregations drinking orthodoxy to the full, and setting down the empty goblet with a sigh of impious satisfaction. The Devil laughed at the sacrifice. As to denouncing the criminal, better ask how far they were responsible for his creation by making labour a disappointment, by running profits down so small as to turn young men to gambling, by surrounding men with drinkeries and then fining them for drinking. Away with piety that trifled with the stream when might dry up the fountain. '

[A.P. Wolf]

Have we considered the possibility that Thomas may have tripped out when Dr Parker left the Temple in mid July of 1888, for a lecture tour in Scotland, and not returning until the end of August?

[A.P. Wolf]

I don't know how this will go, but here is Dr Parker:

A WORD FOR"'^

THE PRESENT CRISIS

BY THE LATE REV. DR. PARKER,
CITY TEMPLE, LONDON, ENG.

At a meeting of the Free Church Council in
England, the message of the President, Kev.
Dr. Joseph Parker, was in part as follows:

We were brought up amongst simple, unsus-
pecting believers. They told us that the Bible
was all true. They called it the Holy Bible,
and they held it to be such. They told us that
Eden was a real place, with real trees, and a
real serpent. They told us that a four-branched
river rolled through the sunny paradise; we
thought that Adam bathed in Hiddekel, and
that the gold that coloured the Pison stream
was solid and yellow. We never doubted it.
The place on the map w^as pointed out, wdth
the assurance that if Eden was not there it v/as
thereabouts. Some people believe this still. The
Salvation Army believes it. Some Primitive
Methodists believe it; Spurgeon believed it. In
its highest, deepest, grandest meaning I myself
believe it.

Our mothers are responsible for a good deul.
They were not literal grammarians, but they

I



>.



were gigantic believers. They used to read to
us the story of Joseph and cry over it, and
made much of the coat of many colors, and
when we came to '^your father, the old man
of whom ye spake, is he well?^' our brawny
fathers sobbed and pretended to be only cough-
ing. If anybody had told us then what some
people tell us now, that there was no Joseph —
no old man — no coat of many colors — no life in
Egypt — no forgiven brethren — no family recon
ciliation, that it in all a dream, a fantasy, an
illusion in color, I know not in what terms he
would have been denounced and with what hor-
ror ho would have been shunned. Some of us
still believe in the history of Joseph; and when
all other stories have run out, this story of
Joseph will exact its tribute of tears from the
eyes of far-off generations.

Then in this matter of credulity our quaint
old pastors were little better than our mothers.
If some modern criticism is true, those old pas-
tors wero unconscious impostors. They read the
Bible and actually believed it, and preached it
without a stammer. They used to preach about
Daniel and the lions' den, and make us feel
heroic in the heroism of the brave young man.
Now it turns out that there were no lions, there
was no den, and worst of all, there was no
Daniel. The Book of Daniel is taken away



H






bodily. Yet we are told that the Bible has
been given back to us by the critics, and that
it is a better book than we had before. Some
of us cannot yet recoive this saying. At pres-
ent we are suffering from a grievous sense of
loss. '

Do not suppose, however, that all the higher
critics are of one mind, or that they all pursue
one method, and do not suppose that every min-
ister has given up Joseph and his brethren, or
even Daniel and the lions ^ den.

Broad and indiscriminate statements are apt
to be untnie and unjust on all sides of great
controversies.

Our dear old pastors used to preach about
David, and quoting, call him the ^' sweet singer
of Israel,'' and now according to some it turns
out that David was no singer at all, and that
he probably never heard of the Psalms which
he is supposed to have written. Still more
widespread is the havoc made by some ruthless
sickles. It is bad enough to lose Joseph and
his brethren, Daniel and his den, David and his
harp, Jonah and his whale, but these are com-
parative trifles. .■'.'. ^ V

There was, according to some, no miraculous
conception, no ministry of miracles, no resur-
rection of Christ. — All is idealism, poetry,
dream, and hazy myth. Bethlehem and Nazar-

3






__;._^ ___ ^ ; ; ^^ '— _^ — -"" i'H, ' "•■•-''






-■>4i* ' ■'-i'-ij^S.-"-' ■•y. 'tteW -■> , . -T.-'- ^ ," :^^ ..'^ - -r „'



■tl



eth disappear from what we used to call the
sacred page.

In the old, old times when we were young the
Christian Church had a heaven and a hell, an
immortal soul, a direct revelation from heaven,
a book which it called ''the Word of God.''

In those early days we thought that Chris-
tians who died went to be ''forever with the
Lord.'' We said in a sob, which was really a
song, ' ' They shall hunger no more, neither thirst
any more, neither shall the sun light on them,
nor any heat. The Lamb which is in the midst
of the throne shall feed them and lead them
unto living fountains of water, and God shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes. ' ' We said
that each of them had a crown, a harp, and a
white robe. Now we are told that all we sup-
posed to be real was but fancy, mirage, and
"the stuff that dreams are made of."

Now I want you to see that if we yielded to
these suggestions and demands we should be
giving up a good deal. Do not suppose that
it is easy for the soul to part with its very
self — with all the things which would leave
only emptiness and mocking echoes behind. We
were sad when we saw the Bible thus depleted.
We had really loved the Bible. It was literally
Everything to us. So when it seemed to go
from us piece by piece, our hearts were grieved

4



and our prospect was a great, all-covering cloud.
When we were asked why we were so sad we
could not easily refrain from saying — each for
himself, "Why should not my countenance be
sad, when the city, the place of my fathers^
sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof
are burned with fire?''

We had so much, so very much, tc give up.
Some of us have not even yet given up our
faith. Blessed be God, some of us still believe
in the whole Bible. We know that translation
may have its faults, and that copyists may make
blunders, and yet we hold to the whole book —
we still call it the Holy Bible — it is to us in
substance and in effect the veritable Word of
God. And so-called higher criticism is not, how-
ever, of the same quality. There are higher
critics and higher critics. Some of them are as
lovingly Biblical as the best of us, and we thank
them for all their noble and most useful ser-
vice.

Yes, we have been asked to give up a good
deal, and what, as I have already said, aggra-
vates us most of all, is that we have been asked
to believe that the giving of it up has made
the Bible more precious than ever to us.

Genesis turns out to be mainly fable. Abram
is not a man, but an '^eponyman's hero";
Joseph "is not'' in a deeper and wider sense;

5



Shadraeh, Meshoch and Abednego arc mere
dreams and nightmares; the books of Kings
and Chronicles are removed bodily; Eceles-
iastes and Solomon ^s Song ought never to have
been in the Bible; yet, notwithstanding all this,
wo are to think of the Bible being ^ ^ given
back'' to us more precious than ever. We
cannot do so all at once. Our training blocks
the way. Early impressions are often indel-
ible. It is hard to regard supposed enemies as
all at once our disguised friends.

For example, many of us were brought up
to believe that Tom Paine was an awful char-
acter — nothing short of an infidel, blatant, pre-
sumptuous, defiant. Tom Paine was a kind of
moral typhus, or a malignant form of smallpox.
Every man who had a copy of his '^Age of
Reason '^ kept it in a secret drawer and lent it
at night time and under whispered vow of
secrecy. To possess the ^^Age of Reason'^ was
equal to having an infectious and loathsome
disease. Bishop Watson answered ^ ^ The Age of
Reason, ^ ' but the Bishop is now nowhere. Tom
Paine ^s *^soul goes marching on,^^ but the
Bishop is forgotten as if his book were a mere
escape of gas. Tom Paine showed wonderful
insight, and in a manner anticipated all the
higher critics.*^

"^ 47,000 copies of the " Age of Reason " were sold in the
United States last year.

6



For example, Tom Paine said, ' ^ Whoever
wrote the Pentateuch, Moses had little or noth-
ing to do with it/^ But some who say this
very thing have orthodox chairs in English uni-
versities, and sign even more articles than
thirty-mne, whilst Tom Paine is branded as an
infidel and had no professional income. Tom
Paine said there w^ere at least two Isaiahs, in
other words, that the Isaiah w^ho wrote the first
part of the book never wrote the second, and
perhaps neVer knew that a second part w^as writ-
ten. Some higher critics say the very same
thing to-day, whilst Tom Paine is still regarded
by orthodoxy as a most noxious beast. Poor
Bishop Watson is treated as an evangelical
milksop, w^hilst Tom Paine is regarded as a man
of progress and of advanced and modern
thought. Still we are told that Tom. and his
successors have given us ^^back'^ the Bible, ai-d
that it is now^ more precious than ever. It is
not for me to revile Tom Paine; but I take it
upon myself to say that no Tom Paine, not-
withstanding all his insight and foresight,
ought to be in any Free Church pulpit, and if
Tom Paine is there we ought to eject and de-
nounce him as a man who is making a living
under false pretences.

It is not to be wondered at that some of us
still cling to the Bible after the illiterate and



traditional manner of our fathers and mothers
and pastors. Blame our training. Take full
account of our antecedents. We drew in our
love of the Bible with our mother's milk. The
Bible helped some of us w^hen the father died,
and there was neither coal in the grate nor
bread in the cupboard. It sanctified our pov-
erty, our struggles, our desolation. It turned
the grave into a garden plot. It put heart into
us when all other things failed. The Bible has
made us men. We are not to be told that this
consolatory (not critical) Bible is still left to
us. How^ long will it be? Still higher critics
may possibly rise in years to come who will pur-
loin this jewel alsOc

Who can say how much of the Bible will be
left in half a century? We have a right to
be suspicious. Where much has gone, more may
go. On the w^hole, therefore, I am of opinion
that it is better to hold the Bible very much as
we have always held it, to keep an open mind
in relation to all competent and reverent criti-
cism, to cling to the Bible in all its proved con-
solations and particular results, and to leave
many diflSculties and perplexities to be settled
when in heaven w^e have more time and more
light.

[A.P. Wolf]

Chris, to be fair to me good self, I reproduce the letter from Richard Prince where he mentions Scotland Yard, and you'll note that he is advising someone else to go there, not himself:

"The letter was dated September 25th, 1895, from 51, William Street, Victoria Street, and was ns follows:" You hell hound, you Judas, you told me in a note you would give me a manager's or an actor's reference. A gentleman has written for a reference, and I know now why I have not obtained an engagement, you cur. This is my thanks for saving you pounds in "Alone in London," and saving it from being disgraced; I have suffered worse than death. I know now why I did not get engagements. When I left the "Union Jack" tours you never spoke the truth about me to any manager, black-mailing me to get yourself on. The next time I shall ask for a reference
See original (http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/images.jsp?doc=189801100059) http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/i/genericThumb.jpg (http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/images.jsp?doc=189801100059)
will be at Bow Street police-station, where my lawyers will make you tell the world in Court why you have dared to blackmail a Highlander. I am not a woman, you hound. I shall expose you and others; they have no mercy on me, and if I die at Newgate, after you have not given me a reference, the world shall judge between us. I would advise you to take this note to Scotland Yard this time, and find if they cannot find anything against me. I shall write to every paper in London; we shall see who will come off best in the end, I, poor Prince, or a cad with a bank at his back and Pope's Bulls. Victory or Death is my motto, and the fear of God.—R. A. Prince."—