We owe an apology to the Pall Mall Gazette. It
appears from its issue of Saturday last that it had not, nor ever had, any clue at all to the author of the hoax on Miss Braddon. We can only say that no suspicion ever entered our minds till after our contemporary had been repeatedly and bitterly attacked on the subject by other papers, and had replied not merely, as it seemed, evasively, but even in language expressly extenuating the hoax. Our article, calling upon it to explain, was not published till the 28th September. On the 20th September, the Globe, com- paring the Pall Mall to the Tomahawk, had said, "It is our con- temporary's duty duty to discover and punish the forger." On reading this, we remember saying to ourselves, "No doubt much easier said than done ; but the Pall Mall will now, at least, state either that there is nothing in its power in this way, or that any clue that there is, is being strenuously followed up." On the following day (Sept. 21), the Globe returned to the attack in still stronger language, accusing our contemporary of "a deliberate violation alike of the duties and of the courtesies of journalists," for with- holding its disavowals and apology, and for coldly pointing out how honourable to Miss Braddon the hoax appeared. Still the Pall Mall spoke not. Only on the 23rd September, on announcing Miss Braddon's offered reward of 100/. for the detection of the offender, and parenthetically assuring the public that, in publishing it, it had of course supposed the letter to be genuine, it sarcastically observed that "should Miss Braddon succeed in detecting the author of the letter, we hope she will be encouraged to offer another reward for the discovery of a far more reprehensible person, Mr. Babbington White." This certainly amounted to a clear extenuation of the hoax, and this in a para- graph where we naturally expected an indignant condemnation. Here the explanations of the Pall Mall entirely ended, and even in its elaborate criticism, published on the 3rd October, of our article of the 28th September, in which we had invited it to clear up the authorship of the letter so far as it could do so, it vouchsafed not a word on the subject. Of course, we could scarcely help sus- pecting that it had not made so very simple and complete a reply as it has now made, because it could not honestly do so, and on the .5th October, therefore, we wrote with a somewhat less hesitating
to
assumption that it might have a clue the authorship of the hoax, and was reluctant to follow it up. Now that it has at last said what it would have seemed only natural, —and we must add positively incumbent on it, under the peculiar circumstances of the hoax,—to have said long ago, we can hardly regret, fur its sake, that we entertained and expressed what is proved to have been an unjust suspicion. For our own sakes, we must always regret that, though not lightly or groundlessly, we indulged any unjust sus- picion of a contemporary which has fairly earned an honourable came.
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