Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Dynamiter

TO
MESSRS. COLE AND COX,
POLICE OFFICERS.
Gentlemen, — In the volume noiv in your hands, the authors
have touched upon that uyly devil of crime, ivith which it is your
glory to have contended. It loere a waste of ink to do so in a
serious spirit. Let us dedicate our horror to acts of a more
mingled strain, where crime preserves some features of nobility,
and ivhei'e reason and humanity can still relish the tempta-
tion. Horror, in this case, is due to Mr. Paj-nell : he sits
before posterity silent, Mr. Foi'ster^s appeal echoing doicn the
ages. Horror is due to ourselves, in that we have so long
coquetted with political crime ;' not seriously toeighing, not
acutely following it from cause to consequence; but with a
generous, tmfounded heat of sentiment, like the schoolboy with
the jjenny tale, applauding what was specious. When it touched
ourselves (truly in a vile shape), we proved false to these imagina-
tions ; discovered, in a clap, that crime loas no less cruel and no
less ugly under sounding names; and recoiled from our false
deities.
But seriousness comes most in 2}l(ice luhen tve are to speak of
our defenders. Whoever be in the right in this great and confused
war of politics ; whatever dements of greed, luhatever traits of
the bully, dishonour both parties in this inhuman contest ; — your
side, your part, is at least pure of doid>t. Yours is the side of