The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette. — 1877-09-18 (Dorchester, Dorset, England)

FLEET-STREET. LONDON. destroy me by every abominable device; and I verily believe that they would murder me if they could. Indeed, they have more than once endeavoured to kill me in the North, as you well know, and it was the bravery and devotedness of a few women that saved me in Liverpool, as it was the stedf set courage of some gallant men that hin lered me from being slain in Shields. I One naturally asks. What is the cause of this unprecedented and long-continued brutality I and why am I singled out before all other public men for a protracted system of the most disgraceful persecution ever known in the annals of England f What has your Representative done that he should thus be hunted wherever he goes? and that his enemies should perpetually show their ardent desire for his destruction Not one of my enemies can come forward and say why. In public and in private, on the platform and through the Press, I have asked them to make known the reason for the madness that impels them 1111.1 causes them to resemble the d.imoniacks of the Gospel, rather than scions of the sober Anglo-Saxon race. I have sought in vain to exercise the evil spirit out of both Liberals and Tories, but he has taken too firm a possesdon to be expelled, and he will not speak though asked to do so. Nor should Ibe surprised if he led those whom he possesses eventually to destroy themselves, like the swine mentioned in the Scriptures. When I entered the House of Commons, they would not allow their Whips to introduce me to the speaker. The Whigs put up Mr. Evelyn Ashley, and his corn-rogue, Mr. Wathly, to slander me, both in and out of Parliament. The Tories did the same through Colonel Lloyd-Lindsay, when I sought to postpone the Tichborne case until anise more petitions had been sent in, and through Dickson, of Dover, when I brought before the House the farce of Baker's trial and the mock sentence imposed upon him. The bowlines, the hisses, the hooting., that accompanied all these brutalities I cannot describe to you; and as Messrs. Parnell and Biggar, and O'Donnell have, almost to their faces, been called by honourable members ever, name of insult and opprobrium, so I also had during that first session to pass through an ordeal of the worst, the wickedest, and the most cowardly bullying and bluster that was ever experienced in any assembly that claimed for itself the title of "gentle." During the second seemien there Was a sort of respite, but in the last the old , demon again broke out, and the Liberals set Sullivan at me, a man who began his public life as a traitor to Englund and the apologist of the Manchester murderers, and and will end it, I have no doubt, by becoming, it he is not already so. a hired spy and detective for Dublin Castle, like the late Leonard Mac Neill, a sort of small barrister like Sullivan himself. Thus you see that both in the House and out of it the same detestable tactics are pursued. Wherever Igol am assailed by those villains—tor by no other name can I characterise them. They conspire to annihilate both myself and the paper with which they suppose me to be connected, and there is not one honest man to he found who has the courage in either House to stand up and protest against the cruel act by which, for no reason but that of displeasing the powers that be, I have been driven out of my profeasion t I get my living as I could- Did bloodthirstiness and cowardice. I boldly ask you, ever go to greater lengths than this, in a country that calls itself " free r I entreat you all, my friends, to contemplate and consider these things. Were it not through a sense of public duty, through considerations for you who have eo valiantly fought; and in the honest belief that I should remain at my pad, to do useful work for the people, I should leave political life to-morrow; and let the Powers of Darkness prevail and have their way. To effect this is no doubt the object of both the Factions. But I mean to disappoint thern ; and so long as I possess, as I feel that I do, the confidence of the great majority of the honest men and women of England, and of this important borough, no long you may reckon on my services. Until we meet again, I offer you my warmest and moat respectful thank,; and I remain in truth, your sincere well-wisher. E. V. Kettgat.v.