Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-02-20
FORGETFUL MACDONAL D.
He Fails to Remember Import
 ant Dates and Points.
ITwAs WHO EMPLOYED PIGOTT

Without Any Foundation He Was Con-
 vinced That Everything Against Parnel
 Was Genuine-Pis.ott the General Source
 of Information.
 LONDON, Feb 2o.-When the Parnell com- missoners opened the court it was filled with prominent I,elsons including John Morley and Henry Lahouchere.
 MT. Macdonald, manager of The Times, was the first witness called. He was cross exam ined by counsel ior the inrual!ites. He de clined to say whether he regarded the letters of the 9th of January and the 18th of May as the only important ones among the first five which Mir. Houston, secretary of the Irish Loyal and Patriotic union, handed to him.
 Mr. Macdonald, in reply to further ques- tions, said the letters had to be taken as Shole, and that as whole they were com- promising.
 He forgot whether, when he submitted the Egnn letters to the expert, he also submitted other specimens of Egau's writing. He could not be positive whether he then had actual specimens of Egan's writing He forgot what material he gave the expert to enable him to
  He was convinced that the E:,an and Parnell letters were genuine before the first article on 'Parnellism and Crime published by The Times He did not think that the body of the letter of Jan. was in the writing of Mr. Campbell, Mir. Parnell's secretary. He l had not noticed any similarity between that | and the Egan letters. Witness particularly | avoided asking from what source tine letters | were obtained, because Houston said he was | bound to secrecy, which he asked the witness 1 to respect.
 He first knew that Pigott, a former editor | of The Irishnlan, supplied them at about the | time the publication of the articles on Par nellism and Crime was begun. He did not known that the letters had been shown to the | Marquis of Harrington, who, he asserted, had | nothing to do, directly or indirectly, with | their publication. Houston showed the wit | ness, as tending to confirm the genuineness of the writing, letter written by MT Parnen 1 to 1irott, which was not submitted to the ex- 1 perts because it was private and contidentiaA.
 Mir. Macdonald said The Times statement that knives and firearms were kept in the League office in London was based upon in. l formation supplied to the writer of the article 1 in which the statement was made He did not know directly who wrote the article, and
 he was not bound to tell if he did know. The | editor of The Times was responsible for state
 ments made i'll the paper, and, therefore, the
 counsel was not entitled to dennid by force
 the names of contributors.
 At thls point in the proceedings Mir. Par
 nell, enveloped ill long cloak, though the
 weather mild, entere the court room
 and took seat at the solicitors table. Mr. Asauith, of counsel for Mr. Parnell
 urged that he entitled to demand tht
 name of the author of the article, because h,
 tn fpSt Of o
 statement
 ) Mr. Macdonald admitted that Flanagan wrote the "ParnellisIn and Crime" article
 which appeared ill The Times March ; and 10, 1887.
 Mir. Parnells letter to Pigott was produced and Justice Hannah asked if its genuinenes } was admitted. Sir Charles Russell replie. that it was not.
 Mir. Houston, secretary of the Irish Loya , and Patriotic union, testified that th l pamphlet entitled "Parneliism Unveiled was based upon information regarding Johl Devoy furnished by Pigott. P.gott also fur . nished notes of alleged conversations wit Eugene Davis at Lausanne, in winch refer ence was made to q letter, and was iiStructe to procure the letter. Pigott said that a 1 the letters were in the possession of Egan o
 Schoolnaster Kelly. He afterward supple
 copies of five of Mir. Parnelrs letters and si of Egans.
 t Witness further testified that Mir. Buckle @ in 1SS6 had refused to touch the matter, an g that he himself, at his own expense, sell t Pigott to America to obtain the letters frol d Egan Pigott returned with sealed lettel d which he said he had obtained from Bresli, e mstructing person in Paris to surrender th d letters in his possession. The sellers of tt n letters afterward offered to return the none r. they had received if the letters were returne 7, to them but the offer refused. e Mir. Walter, it is announced, will shortly g > to Nice for holiday His partners in tt e ownership and management of The Tim B have been notified that the payment of div dends at the present time is impossible, ar
 there is widespread suspicion that there
 among them more less doubt as to the wi
 dom of entering into the "Parnellism al 'e Crime'' crusade.