Another Very Big One.

There were no less than ten witnesses contradicting him on one point or another; he was to a very serious extent, in conflict with himself; and to the old improbabilities and number of minor discrepancies was added the astounding story that Meikle after being committed for trial had written Lambert a letter offering Him £1000 to keep his mouth shut. That so astute a man as Meikle should have put his neck into the noose by writing so idiotic a letter was as incredible as that so astute a man as Lambert should release him and jeoparding his own £50 by losing the letter. It was stated by Lambert that he got the letter from Troup, and by Mrs. Lambert she handed it back to Troup after reading it—(P. 45 and47) and as the subject will not be worth recurring to, it may be a well to add here that Troup informed the Commission that he was almost certain he never received it, and absolutely certain that he never saw it. (C. 181/768, 183/803-5). Though Troup's contradiction was not before the jury in 1895, was ample to satisfy them that Lambert's story about the let was another colossal addition to his mountain of lying. To crown everything came the complete reversal of the one extrinsic circumstance which corroborated Lambert and damned Meikle eight years before. If in 1887 the presence of the Company's sheepskins in Meikle's smithy had proved fatal to Meikle as the man who had put them there, the jury in 1895 must have been equally confident, after listening to the evidence of McGeorge, Westacote, and Grieve, that the skins were put there by Lambert himself. Lambert's "plant" had at last exposed in its true colours; and the result was a verdict of "Guilty" and the longest sentence which the law then allowed for perjury.