Part 75

A. I am an accountant.

Q. Have you been acquainted for any length of time with Mr. M'Rae?

A. I believe five years and a half, or nearly six years.

Q. Have you been concerned in any business in the Stock Exchange?

A. No.

Q. You were not in the habit of buying and selling as a Broker?

A. No.

Q. It was an odd thing that Mr. M'Rae should resort to you in such a base transaction, you being in the business of an Accountant?

A. I have been in business and have been unfortunate, and since have been an Accountant.

Q. Not to lose your character I take for granted?

A. I hope not.

Q. There was no other person present to hear this conversation?

A. He was talking with a gentleman when I entered.

Q. This rests upon your own testimony?

A. We afterwards joined a party, but no person heard the conversation but ourselves, except that any person might hear me when I became vociferous.

Q. You quite met my approbation when you told me that you considered this as base as if he had asked you to go on the highway--how came you to propose a friend of yours after that?

A. It was merely for the purpose of having a witness to the offer to me, because if not, and this took place what I had said would have been of no effect had it been rendered completely abortive by this failing with me.

Q. Then am I to understand you thought it better to let this wickedness be practised in order that it might afterwards be proved?

A. I am sorry I am so misunderstood, I only wished it should not be promulgated to the world merely on my ipse dixit, but on the testimony of another.

Q. You did introduce him to your friend?

A. No, I did not, he would not be introduced. I had communicated to my friend the business in question before he came.

Q. How soon did you communicate this to the Stock Exchange?

A. I communicated it within ten minutes afterwards on that day.

Q. After the thing had been publicly known?

A. No, I went immediately on this application being made and promulgated it to Mr. Rothery, of the Atlas Printing-Office, in Houndsditch; I afterwards went to a house in Clement's lane, where I promulgated it to thirteen or fourteen different persons, and I made it public daily in all the companies I went into.

Q. Was that before this happened?

A. It was on the 15th I made public, not the name of M'Rae, but that such a thing had been offered to me, which I refused with indignity.

Q. Some of these gentlemen are here as witnesses to-day I suppose?