T "DARKEST ENGLAND" SCHEME. 253 



try, threatened him with pubHc exposure, and 

 forced from him the payment to his victim of 

 £60 down, an allowance of £1 a week, and an 

 insurance policy on his life for £450 in her favour " 

 (p. 222). 



Jedburgh justice this. " We " constitute our- 

 selves prosecutor, judge, jury, sheriff's officer, all 

 in one; " we " practise intimidation as deftly as 

 if we were a branch of another League; and, 

 under threat of exposure, " we " extort a tolerably 

 heavy hush-money in payment of our silence. 



Well, really, my poor moral sense is unable to 

 distinguish these remarkable proceedings of the 

 now popular tribunate from what, in French, is 

 called chantage and, in plain English, blackmail- 

 ing. And when we consider that anybody, for 

 any reason of jealousy, or personal spite, or party 

 hatred, might be thus " hunted," " followed," 

 " threatened," and financially squeezed or ruined, 

 without a particle of legal investigation, at the 

 will of a man whom the familiar charged with 

 the inquisitorial business dare not hesitate to 

 obey, surely it is not unreasonable to ask how far 

 does the Salvation Army, in its " tribune of the 

 people" aspect, differ from a SiciUan Mafia? I 

 am no apologist of men guilty of the acts charged 

 against the person who yet, I think, might be as 

 fairly called a " victim," in this case, as his partner 

 in wrong-doing. It is possible that, in so pecuHar 

 a case, Solomon himself might have been puzzled 



